BOB Revolution SE (2010 Model)

January 23, 2012 //
1

Steph and I try not to waste money on baby stuff that we only use a few times and/or don’t really believe is worth it.  That said, the BOB is worth every penny we’ve spent on it.  That says a lot, because it doesn’t come cheap.

We bought our BOB Revolution SE to fit our lifestyle.  We like to take long walks, run, and hike.  In San Diego, we see sidewalk, grass, sand, dirt, and sometimes a little water.  The BOB Revolution SE handles the varied terrains well.

NOTE:  This is the 2010 model that  I am reviewing.

The SUV of strollers. BOB Revolution SE

The SE (Sport Experience) differs from the CE (City Experience) because of the larger wheels.  The SE has 16″ rear wheels, while the CE has the smaller 12″ wheels in the back.  The larger wheels provide a longer wheelbase and more stable platform at the cost of maneuverability.  Don’t get me wrong, this stroller still turns easily, just not as easy as some others.  (There is also a fixed front wheel model for hardcore runners.)

We love our BOB Revolution SE.  It’s pricey, but we use it almost every day and the build quality is great.  We can fit up to a 70 lb baby in there, so it’s useful for at least a few more years.  The tires have plenty of grip.  It’s easy to roll over bumps in the road and on the dirt trails.  It doesn’t take much effort to get up and down curbs.  (We don’t jump off the curbs yet, but the solidly design of the BOB looks to be accepting of a lot of abuse.)  We’ve gone trail hiking with the BOB Revolution and it’s been great.  The large wheels roll nicely and the suspension does its job.  There are two settings for the suspension, so there is some adjustability in the design.

The front wheel has a tracking adjustment to fine tune the steering of the stroller.  When it’s dialed in, I can literally use one hand to control the stroller, while I sip my mocha-chino half-caf double espresso, skinny latte with nonfat whipped cream with the other.  This feature is a big plus for me because I usually walk two dogs with one hand and hold the stroller with the other.  (I try to get everyone exercise at once.  Multitasking!)

Two large pouches (one behind seat and one underneath) can carry some gear for you.  We shove blankets in the compartment behind the seat and put the diaper bag and/or purse in the underneath pouch.  We had to purchase the cup holder accessory separately, which should be included with the BOB at this premium price.  It provides a small zip pouch and two cup holders for water bottles, etc.

Steph and I are fairly tall people (above average) and the stroller still feels nice for us to push around.  We don’t have to walk like hunchbacks of Notre Dame in order to control the Revolution.  So, it’s very comfortable for us during our long walks, and that is a huge reason I give it a 9 worm rating overall.  But if we were any taller, the handlebar would need to be raised…and BOB doesn’t offer that feature.

The stroller is one of the most manly looking strollers on the market as well.  I don’t feel like a sissy pushing it around.  In fact, it’s less a stroller and more an engineered SUV (Strolling Utility Vehicle) for babies.

If you need the car seat adapter, it is sold separately and there is no universal one.   It’s something to think about as the baby grows since your car seats may change.  The car seat adapter also requires tools to install and remove.  (I think this is changed on the 2011 model.)

———-

Overall Rating:  9 Worms   

Ease of Use:  8 Worms 

Performance:  9 Worms 

Features:  7 Worms 

Durability:  9 Worms 

Manliness:  10 Worms 

Retail Price:  $469.00

———-

Pros:

High quality build.  Stable over many types of terrain.  Easy to maneuver.  Durable.  5-year warranty.  Quick release wheels (for easy cleaning).  Large canopy. 5-point harness for securing baby.

Cons:

Occasional squeaking.  It can be a pain to get to the valve for pumping up tires.  Design could be more aesthetically pleasing for the price.  The BOB could also use a cup holder within arms reach of Gavin  (I think this is remedied in the 2011 model).  When folded up for travel, it would be nice to be able to secure it closed.  (I believe this feature has been added to 2011.)

Things I would modify:

There’s a Low Boy cargo pouch underneath the stroller.  It would be nice to have some open/close fasteners that allow me to cram large items into this Low Boy compartment (like a full diaper bag and/or Steph’s purse).  A different location for the stroller  clips.  A telescopic handlebar…not much, but something like an inch or two.  A cleaner way of securing the top view window curtain, since it tends to flap in the wind.  I would add drop down side curtains to block some cross wind into baby sitting area.

The BOB Revolution SE can be found here:

www.bobgear.com

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Guest Blogger (Chef Steph): Purple Explosion – Blueberries, Purple Potatoes, and Cauliflower

January 23, 2012 //
3

So here is my next recipe for the wee one; it is full of antioxidants, vitamins, and is sure to create diaper surprises in all sorts of interesting colors (and sounds)!

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, defrosted
  • 3-4 small purple potatoes (our grocery happens to carry these, and they are the most gorgeous color you’ve ever seen on a vegetable – if you can’t find them, you can substitute with any small potato such as baby yukon or red bliss)
  • 1/2 cup cauliflower (I’ve actually seen a purple variety of cauliflower at the store before that would have been too cool for this recipe, but alas, they didn’t have any when I was shopping, so I used the regular kind)

Purple Explosion - Blueberries, Purple Potatoes, and Cauliflower

Preparation:

Peel and cut the potatoes into cubes.  Cut the cauliflower into small pieces. Place the potatoes and cauliflower in the colander over a pot of boiling water and cover, steaming for 10-15 minutes or until both can be smashed easily with a spoon. Add the blueberries and steam for an additional 3-5 minutes. Place everything as well as some of the steaming liquid into a food processor and puree to desired consistency. Potatoes don’t freeze so well, so this is best made in small batches as it will keep in the fridge for 5-7 days.

IMPORTANT NOTE: These recipes are for more advanced eaters. Your babe should be at least 9 Mo old, have been eating solids for a while, and ideally have had most, if not all of the components in the recipes previously to ensure there was no reaction. Once they hit 9 Mo and have had a wide variety of foods, it’s okay to introduce more than one new thing at a time, but be on the lookout for any signs of an issue such as rash, tummy ache, excessive gas or change in eating habits. Unless, of course, they all the sudden start wolfing down the food, and then you can just chock it up to my mad food-making skillz.

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No, My Mommy’s Not Home

January 23, 2012 //
4

There’s a knock at the front door.  Duncan starts to bark his head off.  I’m in the middle of getting dressed.  So, naturally I ask Gavin to answer the front door.  But the Worm gives me that faraway look as if we don’t speak the same language.  Even if he knew what I was saying, he’s still too short to reach the knob.  Useless…but adorably so!

Thinking it could be Ed McMahon with Publisher’s Clearing House, I race to the front door half-naked (or half-dressed, depending on how you look at it) and expect to see a large check and balloons in my face.  But all I got was an old man.  No Ed.  No check.  No million dollars.

Does this lollipop make me look younger?

As if he plucked my cherries right off their tree, he muttered “Hi there.  Is your mom or dad home?”

Immediately, I wonder if this guy is serious.  I look him dead in the eyes for a hint of sarcasm.  Nada.  To make matters worse, the most mature thing I could retort was “What?”

“Are your parents home?”

Holy s#!t.  He’s for real.  (It’s California, people.  So, I give him the benefit of the doubt and  assume he’s just smoked a blunt for his cataracts or high blood pressure.)

“No, my mommy’s not home.  Sorry.”  I close the door and don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

So I turn towards the hallway mirror, reassuringly pat myself on the back and say to the incredibly dashing and handsome creature before me “I’m grown!  I may have the body of a prepubescent teenager, but I have underarm hair, nose hair, and even some curly ear hair!  I ooze manliness and maturity!”

Then I dust off the guns, cock them both back and hit another incredible double biceps flex in the mirror.  “Yeah, I’m a MAN dammit.  No mistake about it.  That old guy must have been blind.”

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I Have a Mixed Up Baby

January 21, 2012 //
1
Othello and Desdemona in Venice, 1850, oil on ...

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I recently learned that I am in an interracial marriage.  And on top of that, I’ve got a little interracial half-Indian, half-German baby.  (See what happens when winter comes and you need to stay warm at night?)

When I was single, I never really thought about what my other half (other half = Steph) would look like.  I just hoped that my future partner would have the usual things that one looks for in a possible match:  likes long walks on the beach, enjoys rubbing my feet, great at cooking for me, excellent at fixing old trucks, easy to manipulate going, love of laundry the great outdoors…that sort of thing.  It’s hard enough finding someone to spend the rest of your life with, let alone finding someone that is of the same color and ancestry.  So, Steph and I met and fell in love…you know, kind of like Othello and Desdemona, kind of.  Okay, not really, but imagine a colored guy meeting an uncolored girl and falling in love.  That was us.

I came across an article the other day that got me thinking.  Had I lived in the U.S. about 50 years ago, some states wouldn’t allow me to marry Steph.  (In case you didn’t read the ‘About Us’ page, Steph’s a cracker and I’m a dot head.)  It wasn’t until 1967 that interracial marriage was allowed by the Supreme Court.  Therefore, if we were in 1967, I would be blogging about something else, like segregated white and colored water fountains and what the water tasted like from each.

Ok, so we’re here and now and we have a biracial baby.  (I don’t ever really think about it until Steph and I get the stares…you know, the look that says “Wow, I didn’t know it was genetically possible for colored people and white people to make babies.  Aren’t they different species?”)  I have hope that the Worm doesn’t face the ridicule and ignorance still festering in some portions of society.  I hope that the Worm doesn’t have to hear the racial slurs that I heard growing up in an ignorant, backwards part of the country.   I hope that he doesn’t have to be ashamed that he’s ‘different’ looking than other kids.  And as a shout-out to Martin Luther King Jr., I hope that the Worm “will one day live in a nation where he will not be judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.”  (I also have hope that Gavin’s basketball skills will pay our bills speak for themselves one day.)

Thank you MLK Jr. for giving your life to show us something greater than our fears, our humanity.  (I know it was a few days ago people, but I took the day off.  If you’re uptight about it, pretend I wrote this post for next MLK day.)

One day, we will all be beige.

Below is the article that I was reading at the time…

http://shine.yahoo.com/love-sex/tender-photos-unearthed-turbulent-time-235100316.html

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New to the Daddy Blog World

January 20, 2012 //
3

So, I’ve been daddy blogging for the past week and a half and I realized something.  I am not the first to daddy blog about being a first time dad.  So I’ve got no choice but to follow the excellent path set by those daddyblogs before me.  Sort of.  Some of the daddy blogs are pretty funny, like Busy Dad Blog and Cry It Out.  Other daddy blogs are useful, like Stay At Stove Dad and Frugal Dad.  With my daddy blog, I hope to bring the most interesting stay-at-home dad perspective ever.  I want the best daddy blog in the universe.  I want to be the funniest dad blog, the most useful daddy blog, the most groundbreaking dad blog, the best written daddy blog.  Yeah, all of that.  I want to be the Jay-Z of daddy bloggers!  With my incredibly limited vocabulary and extensive use of parentheses (even when it’s unnecessary), I will excite you, tease you and make you cry like a sublime S&M relationship.  And hopefully keep you coming back for more!

Even if you don’t learn anything whatsoever on my hip, new daddy blog, I hope that you will enjoy the ride as we raise a kid in the good ol’ U S of A!

If there are any products that you would like me to review pertaining baby stuff or daddy stuff or baby daddy stuff, please let me know.  I’d be happy to test out new products in my own home and give my honest opinion using the accurate Worm rating algorithm we’ve developed solely for this purpose.

If there is anything you wish for me to write about, including pregnancy pain from a man’s point of view, labor and how I narrowly escaped it, spanking someone else’s parents kids, etc., just let me know.  I’d be happy to give my inappropriate opinion since that’s what we do in California.

www.facebook.com/mevsgavin

www.mevsgavin.com

Did I do enough to entice the search engines you?  I love money comments.

One day, I hope to be in the Top 50 Daddy Blogs!

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If My Baby Asks Me for a Tattoo, Should I say No?

January 20, 2012 //
1
Baby body with a tattoo.

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So, this mom allows her 10-year old child to get a tattoo of his brother who died after being struck by a car.  He wants to commemorate his dead brother with a tattoo.  What’s wrong with that?

Well, there are two things are wrong with that.

One: The law requiring that one must be 18 years of age before he/she can get a tattoo.

Two:  The Georgia authorities for putting this mother in jail.

So, the 10-year old kid already has a dead brother.  Now, he’s got a mother in jail.  Well, I don’t know what scars more, a tattoo or a child losing his mother (to the ridiculously inept and strict system)?  Yes, I absolutely know which is more scarring and it’s not ink!

I personally know people who were old enough to get tattoos and later had them removed.  Why?  Because they are different people now.  Some even stated that they had no idea that what they were doing was stupid.  (I’m not saying that getting a tattoo is stupid.  I’m saying that some people who get tattoos are not in their right mind.  Like the fact that I’ve got a tattoo of Spider-man shooting a web onto the crack of my a$$.  I thought it was a cool gift to myself at 30 years old, but I’d take it back if I could…)

What makes the age of 18 the age of sensibility for a person to decide to permanently mark his body?  (It’s not even permanent anymore, so what’s the big deal?)  I’m twice that age and I know I’m still not sensible!

Laws are hard and fast.  But, isn’t this case different?  Shouldn’t the laws be there for guidance of the public, not to define life as black or white?

I’d love to hear what you’ve got to say…

 

Read the article here:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/georgia-mom-arrested-for-allowing-10-year-old-to-get-tattoo/

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Comparing Apples to Apples

January 20, 2012 //
0
English: A honeycrisp apple from an organic fo...

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We have all heard about the organic debate, right?  There’s a hefty premium on organic produce and the jury is still out on whether or not the non-organic produce grown is dangerous.  For me, I like to err on the side of caution and common sense.  The industrialization of food in America has brought more food to our tables at a lower cost.  Yes, that’s great.  But, I believe that the quality of the fruits and vegetables has spiraled downward.

I discovered what real organic farm grown fruits tasted like a few years back while Steph and I were on a road trip.  We happened to stop off at a fruit stand in the middle of nowhere California.  We parked next to the sign “Fresh Strawberries” and got out to take a look.  The strawberries were nowhere near the size that you typically see at the supermarket.  They weren’t perfect looking either.  Let’s just say that you can’t judge a book by its cover.  As I bit into the strawberry, I was blown away by the taste.  Wow, I had never in my life tasted a strawberry that flavorful before!

Industrialized farming and genetic modification of foods has to have a downside, right?  If you don’t believe this, then you’re kidding yourself.  Our American culture appeals to the idea that bigger is better and more is definitely better.  In order to yield more edible substance per acre of land, we’ve got to fertilize the soil.  Do you think that the perfect amount of fertilizer is used to grow plants?  Did you read the part I just wrote 3 sentences back?  The excess fertilizer ends up in our water source.  So, we’re drinking it.  (But, that’s for a different blog post.)  How else do you increase the yield of fruits and vegetables?  Kill the bugs that are eating our produce.  Enter pesticides.  Now here’s where the apples come in.

Non-organic apples (I won’t use the word conventional because that exemplifies that it is the normal standard.  What industrialized food does to everything around us is abnormally standard) are loaded with pesticides.  Why? Because growers are trying to kill 40 different types of insects, diseases, fungi, etc. that attack the bark, leaves, roots, and fruit of the apple tree.  There are other reasons for the high amount of pesticides in apples and that relates to the process of growing, harvesting, and storing.  But, it’s too much to go into here…and if you’re still reading this, you’ve got a great attention span!

So, what I’m saying is that many of us parents are giving our children apples to eat in different forms.  (Don’t forget about apple juice and apple sauce, and apple pie, and candy apples, and…)  Apple is a typical food that is introduced during the solid food stage.   Many of us introduce it early and use it often.  In our house, we are lucky enough to afford to purchase a few organic fruits and veggies (Thanks Steph for working hard!) and make sure that our baby is getting the best nutrition we can manage during his growing years.  (When he’s a college kid, I’m sure he’ll eat a boatload of chemically laden manufactured foods…but he will make that decision for himself.)

 

Don’t believe for a second that everyone else is looking out for your interest.  Being an informed consumer is always in you and your family’s best interest! (Is that even a sentence?  You know what I mean!)

 

Just one of the many articles talking about pesticides and produce.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/06/14/apples-pesticides-fruits-vegetables.html

You can see how many pesticides are sprinkled into apples and some of the other foods we eat!  Yeah!

http://whatsonmyfood.org/food.jsp?food=AP

You can read about the USDA finding the greatest amount of pesticides in apples, celery, and strawberries.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2011/06/bad-apples-usda-finds-pesticide-residues.html

These are the people that do some of the testing on our environment to make sure it’s safe for us to eat, sleep, and breathe.

http://www.ewg.org/

 

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