I consider myself an expert handyman. If there is something broken, stuck, loose or making a sound it’s not supposed to be making, I possess an innate ability to quickly identify the problem – and within minutes make that problem significantly worse than it was before I began fiddling with it. There are three things every homeowner should instinctively know:

• #1: The location of your main circuit breaker box: In most homes, this is conveniently located in the garage behind a clearly displayed grey metal panel. In our house, it’s conveniently located behind three boxes of stuffed animals, four crates of ancient photo albums, and nine cans of 14-year old dried house paint. Our circuit breaker was last seen in spring, 2003.

• #2: The location of your main water shut-off valve: This could save you thousands of dollars if ever your pipes burst. This valve is typically found somewhere inside the house on the first floor, either in your laundry room or front hall closet. In our case, it’s conveniently located nine feet up our fireplace. Apparently I must have pissed off some plumber as our house was being built.

• #3: Righty-Tighty, Lefty-Loosy. That little lesson sure could have come in handy had I known about it before my gas grill’s propane tank gas leak and subsequent explosion during the surprise party we threw in the kitchen of our former friend, Agnes Turlington in 1995.

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The staff and management of View from the Bleachers want to take this opportunity to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons  – with the notable exception of those heartless people who decided to unsubscribe from my humor blog, in which case, may Santa’s reindeer do irreparable damage to your roof and ruin your lawn. (I’m talking to you, Roger Ledbetter of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, you miserable SOB.)

Traditionally, this time each year, I write a long Year-In-Review letter to all my friends – which list notably no longer includes Roger Ledbetter of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. But this year, in the interest of being eco-friendly – and not at all because I was too cheap to buy cards and stamps – I’ve decided to send out my annual letter via this blog, thus killing two calling birds with one stone.

To bring everybody up to speed, my wife’s name is Michele. She is an amazingly talented portrait artist whose only apparent failing is her shockingly poor judgment in choosing a spouse. Then there are our two daughters, Rachel and Emily, who, because my wife hates it when I reveal their true identities in this blog, shall henceforth be referred to as Rachaela and Emma, to safeguard their anonymity. After all, we would not want anyone to know that my two daughters are actually related to ME. Think of what it would do to their reputations.

Oh sure, I could boast about all our achievements, like Tim’s recent promotion at work, Rachel’s – I mean Rachaela’s acceptance into Stanford, Emma’s earning a spot on the U.S. National Junior Olympic gymnastics team, and the recent unveiling of Michele’s official portrait of Pope Benedict XVI, but then let’s face it. Who would believe for a second that Tim got a promotion?

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Now that school’s back in session, high school seniors are scrambling to pull together college applications. It’s an anxious time for parents like me. Some parents may be sweating more than others. Take my over-achieving Microsoft senior executive next door neighbors, David and Judy Wong (recent immigrants from Shanghai). They’re frantically hoping their little first violinist, chess champion daughter Vivian gets into Harvard or Yale.

Even with her staggering 6.8 GPA (I have no idea how either), in this competitive environment, Vivian might have to settle for her safety school, Oxford.  In our family’s case, we’re just hoping we don’t have to fall back on our daughter’s safety school, the Louisiana Truck Driving Academy for Asian Drivers.

Here at VFTB, our expert staff of college planning advisors and part-time Wal-Mart greeters has assembled a strategy guaranteed to get your child into the Ivy* League college campus of their choice (* we’re talking of course about Ivy Tech Community College with 30 campuses throughout Indiana).

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As I look back upon my life thus far, I realize just how blessed I am. Two wonderful daughters, a talented portrait artist wife, living in a gorgeous city (Seattle). But you know, it wasn’t always this way. My life story has been fraught with challenging and perilous obstacles at almost every turn.

Much like Jesus, I had a very humble origin. Like baby Jesus, I too was born in a little town called Bethlehem (just outside of Albany, NY). My childhood home, while not quite a manger, was rustic in its own way. While we did not have sheep like baby Jesus, we did have a sheepdog, at our 3,700 sq. ft. suburban split level five-bedroom house. I missed out on the simple joys of attending a public school. Instead I had to be bussed 20 minutes away to an all boys’ prep school for grades 1 through 12. I rarely got a window seat on the bus. But it made me stronger.

I was forbidden to wear colorful shorts, fun t-shirts or high top sneakers to school. Every day I had to wear the same dull grey uniform with a black tie. It was a military college prep school. Every year, I had to march in the Veteran’s Day Parade while the public school kids all had the day off so they could come to the parade to mock me. But I never complained about the injustice of it all. I reminded myself about all the kids in Africa, Bangladesh and New Jersey who had even less than I had.

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About 17 years ago, my wife and I committed a horrible lapse of financial judgment. We are still paying for this reckless mistake these many years later: We became parents. At first it seemed like a great idea – staring into the innocent, helpless eyes of our two adorably sweet, tiny angel babies we adopted from China.

If only someone could have intervened – stopped me from boarding that plane for Hong Kong – and pointed out that over the next 17 years, these little angels would morph into retirement-savings-draining, eye-rolling, “take me to the mall now” moody, fashion-obsessed teenage drama queens who would eventually become legally permitted to drive my car and whose primary function on this planet appears to be texting their friends about how lame their parents were for not letting them go to a party simply because we don’t know the boy or his family… if only somebody had intervened back then and told me what we would be in for, I would have undoubtedly made … the same reckless decision. But that’s beside the point.

My point is this: Raising kids is expensive. The return on your college investment is highly speculative at best, particularly when you learn your son has decided to major in Medieval French Gender Studies. For many parents a far less risky investment would be to put down their entire life savings on the trifecta in the second race at Belmont Park.

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[Author’s note: the following is a painfully true, 100% accurate story and it’s the reason I knew at an early age that I would NEVER become a scientist.]

When I was in tenth grade, I had a science experiment to do and I was running very short on time. It was due in a couple days and I had only barely started on my experiment. I decided to do an experiment involving “rust” and the rusting process, and how some elements can accelerate the rusting process while others tend to inhibit or decelerate it.

Anyway, I had one final experiment to do — to test the rust-inhibiting or accelerating effect on metal of boiled linseed oil. I had never heard of linseed oil (I was just reading from a book of high school science projects and one of them was about rust). So I made sure to precisely follow the experiment’s procedures as set forth in the book. One of the elements it suggested using to test the rusting process was “boiled linseed oil.”  So I went to whatever store sells linseed oil and came home and began the experiment at about 4:30pm. I should note at this point that my father, for reasons still unknown to me, chose this day of all days to come home at 5pm rather than his usual 6:30pm. The relevance of this point will become clear in a couple paragraphs, so be patient.

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[To LISTEN to an audio podcast of this week's column, press the PLAY button arrow below.]

Last week, I talked about the breakthrough best-selling parenting book by Amy Chua called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. If you missed it, you can get caught up here. That’s her on the left coaching her daughter Lulu with her violin practice.  They are going on day four without sleep, practicing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Suite for Lulu’s recital at Carnegie Hall.

Amy Chua is a Chinese American and a Yale Law School professor who decided to raise her two daughters the traditional Chinese way. To describe her strict parenting approach as “spare the rod, spoil the child” is like saying jumping off a 1,000 foot cliff headfirst could result in an owie. She re-defines the meaning of the phrase “tough love.”

Since reading her book, I have wholeheartedly embraced Chua’s breakthrough parenting philosophy and am here to share with you my Six Simple Steps to becoming a Tiger Mom (or Dad). Follow these six steps to the letter, and before you know it, you will be amazed at the change in your child’s performance at school.  Get started today, and you can pretty much mail your child’s acceptance letter to Harvard in a couple months – unless, of course, she had her heart set on Oxford.

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[To LISTEN to an audio podcast of this week's column, press the PLAY button arrow below.]

It starts out innocently enough. Your little four-year old princess Tara insists she’s scared and can’t get to sleep. Can she sleep with mommy and daddy? Pleeeeease? Against your better judgment, you relent and let her snuggle in bed with you – just this once.

Fast forward. Tara, now eight years old whines about having to eat her peas. Against your better judgment, you let her off the hook but still let her have dessert – after all, it’s cookies ‘n cream ice cream, her favorite. Before you know it, you wake up one day and your little angel is now a teenager and you suddenly discover that she’s running the show, making all sorts of drop everything demands that we parents cave into because it’s just less work not to engage in another battle. How did this all happen? Personally, I blame it on Obamacare.

I am the father of two high-spirited teenage girls.  As many of you know, I am a highly sought-out expert on parenting. My third parenting book, Timeouts, Tasers and Other Tools of Modern Parenting, addresses the challenge many parents face when it seems their teenagers suddenly are in the driver’s seat (in some cases literally). Bribery and blackmail are both tactics that I strongly recommend for most confrontations with your teenage offspring. And for you moms (as well as you dads who are in touch with your feminine side), don’t underestimate the power of a good display of sobbing. Totally disarms most whiny teenagers. But it takes practice. Start by sniffling and work your way up to the tears.

Take this quiz to determine whether you’re still the king or queen of your castle or whether the peasants have stormed the castle and taken you hostage:

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That’s my sister, Betsy Jones – on a good day. She’s 52 years old, but on most days acts 24: carefree, fun-loving.  But on a bad day, stay away from her because she is cursed with absolutely the worst luck of anybody I know. Take a good close look at this photo. You may think she’s on the verge of snapping – about to lose it and leap over the wall, with a one-way ticket to Crazy Town. And you would be correct.

You see, Betsy has had, well, a rather challenging life, to put it mildly. Imagine Winnie the Pooh going on an “explore”.  He comes upon a sign that says “This way to ‘Honey, Goodness, and Nice People’, that way to ‘Hell’s Burning Dungeons of Despair.’” Of course Pooh follows the sign toward ‘Honey’. Problem is, by the time Betsy gets there, the wind blew the signs around. Uh oh. That’s the story of Betsy’s life – “Blown by the wind.”

You know how some people lead a charmed life? Well, I think Betsy was put on this planet to balance out the scales – singlehandedly. It’s like Betsy has a sign on her back that reads “Go ahead, kick me again – but could you kindly do it before I get back up? – it will save me another trip down.”

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Finally a youth sports league has realized that when it comes to our kids, winning isn’t everything. (More on that below.) For too long, we parents have been pushing our kids way too hard, telling them they need to get passing grades in school if they want to get into a top flight college, or nagging them to do their chores now rather than waiting till, say, never, or harping on them relentlessly to practice their piano longer than fourteen minutes a week if they want to do well in their recital next week.

We are constantly pushing our kids way too hard to achieve, try harder, and be nicer to their younger sister, to the point that we are forgetting one fundamental point – that no matter how much of a snot-nosed brat they are when we ask them to help put away the dishes for the third time, no matter how much they whine that “Angela’s parents let her have Internet on her cell phone – why can’t I?”, our kids are all winners in this game called life.

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