It looks like the Halloween season is starting early this year

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

Well, sometimes being a little rebellious can be fun, and you and your sons made some great memories, and that is what's important.

By the way, I think that I remember you saying that both your sons have Aug. birthdays right? Unless I'm confusing you with somebody else, I've got over a thousand birthdays in my head, so it's hard to keep track sometimes.

Also, it looks like pumpkin spice season has officially begun, now my wife is going to come home smelling like pumpkin spice every day until November.

[Murfreesboro]

You must have one of those photographic memories, HH. Yes, my sons have back-to-back August birthdays. The younger one's is today, the Chicago one's is tomorrow.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

I hope that your younger son had a great day, and that your older son enjoys his day as well. I know that you said that your sons are close to each other, and I'm sure that having birthdays a day apart helped make that bond as strong as it is.

I think that for us older people birthdays don't mean as much as they used to, and as we get older it just becomes another day to us, but I know that birthdays are special to young people. As somebody that is always surrounded by young people, like my kids, their friends, my nieces and nephews, and my younger employees, I"m always enthusiastic about birthdays, and I try to give them a day that they will remember.

For my employees, I always give them a birthday bonus and we throw them a party, and you can tell that they appreciate it by their reactions, especially the kids that don't have that family dynamic at home, so we become like a family to them. It's something small for us to do, but I know it's makes their day special for them.

[Murfreesboro]

You sound like the boss everybody wishes he had. It's so thoughtful of you to treat your young employees like extended family.

My boys are four years apart, so it was.a challenge when they were kids, trying to think of activities that would work for, say, 4 yr olds and 8 yr olds, or 8 and 12, etc. We always did a double party. Lots of roller rinks, bowling alleys, swimming parties. The boys have always been close, tbough, since they shared a bedroom growing up. At one point I think Karl got jealous of Lydia, since Colin really enjoyed having a baby sister, and they sort of competed for his attention. But at 17 Colin went to college and never came back except as a visitor. He even filled his summer breaks with summer work at other colleges (like Canisius), or he'd stay in Nashvilke and room with friends, or he'd be in Europe. Because he was absent, Karl and Lydia got much closer. And she is almost four/eight years younger than her brothers, with a late April birthday.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

I think that I recall you mentioning Karl's name before, but I think this is the first time you have mentioned the names of your other kids, at least since I've been here.

I've always been fond of the name Karl, as my favorite cousin has the same spelling of his name, and I've got a nephew named Colin spelled with a K. I've mentioned before that my mother, her siblings, and her cousins made some sort of pact that they were going to give their kids K names and they did, every single member on her side of the family born in my generation has a K name, my siblings, my cousins, and myself have names that start with the letter K.

Most of them have carried on the tradition, as my siblings and cousins have given their kids K names as well, even now with Karoleen, it looks like they are going to carry on the tradition into the next generation.

I'm the only one in my family that didn't give my kids K names, it's not that I didn't want to, but if I'm being honest, it's because we were running out of K names, and any possible variation of them. For example, I have cousins and nieces with the names Kristina, Kristianna, Kristanna, Kirsten, Kristen, Kristin, Kristine, Kristeen, Kristy, and Kirsty, and those are just the names that sound similar, there are plenty of other female K names in my family.

As I mentioned before, we didn't want the doctor to reveal the gender of our kids before they were born, and I thought that we were going to have a son first, but we got a awesome little girl first, and we agreed to integrate my grandfather's name Sam into hers to honor him. Then when we were expecting our second kid I thought it was going to be a boy, and I would name him Samuel so that they could both be Sam and Sam as a cute little tribute, and then we had another awesome baby girl. We honestly didn't have a back up name ready for her, the whole pregnancy my wife and I didn't even discuss any other names because we were certain that we would have a boy this time, so we were scrambling to give her a good name. The way I look at it, my wife did all the hard work during the pregnancy, so it was only fair that she chose her name, and she named her Phoebe after her favorite character on the show Friends.

One question, did you choose the name Lydia for your daughter because you were a fan of the character from Beetlejuice, or was there another inspiration for her name?

[Murfreesboro]

That's funny. I didn't realize I hadn't mentioned them before.

My daughter was named for my grandmother. There are lots of Lydias in my father's mother's family, going back into the 19th century. I have two first cousins with that name. As a child I loved it and even found some short stories I'd written in grade school with characters named Lydia. Also, her middle name is Florence, after my mother's mother. That is a tradition with them going back into the 19th century, to name the first girl Florence. It is part of my own name as well as my mother's.

Colin, my older son, was named for my father. It's a name that goes back a number of generations in my father's father's family. Colin's middle name is my husband's first name. That is a tradition in my FIL's family, to use the father's first name as the son's middle name.

Karl's name, with its K spelling, came about because my husband really wanted to use a German name ( his dad's family is German). The trouble for me was that lots of German names sound great in German but not so much in English. So we settled on Karl, spelled the German way, because it sounds the same in both languages.

Phoebe was always my favorite character on Friends, too, although my favorite show from that era was Frasier.

If I'd been born a boy, my mother had intended to name me Kevin.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

My name was almost Kevin, but my aunt beat my mother to it by 5 months, and my cousin got the name before I was born.

I remember you telling us about your middle name before, and I think it's awesome that your family's names are so steeped in tradition that reflect a connection to their ancestors and heritage.

That's what I wanted to do with my grandfather's name, maybe one day I'll get a grandson and one of my kids will name him after their great grandfather, even if it's just as a middle name.

[Murfreesboro]

I think it's great that you found a way to honor him with your first dsughter's name. I first heard the name Samantha on Bewitched, and I always loved both the character and her name. On the show she was frequently called Sam, which I thought was cool.