Manly Names: The Final Four

It’s now less then a week till Arianes due date. The doctor told her she shows no signs of going into labor any time soon. So that means it’s time for another one of these polls about the baby’s name.
We have the final four for the Manly Names. I’ve discussed in depth what’s great about these names, but now lets discus some of the draw backs to each of the remaining names. It’s down to the following:

JERMAIN: The name of Weber States star point guard but also the name of Michael Jackson's less famous brother who sung with him in the group the Jackson Five. Not sure I want a name that is associated with Michael Jackson some how.

GASTON: He may be manly but the country he is from is not. In the last 100 years they’ve been beaten in two world wars and the only good things they’ve given us are the oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and that horny skunk Pepe Le Pew.

MAVERICK: Sure it’s the same name used by the cowboy Mel Gibson played and the navy fighter pilot that Tom Cruise played, but lets face it those two guys don’t enjoy the best reputation anymore. From arrests to acting crazy on talk shows, these guys don’t have the same great reputation they used to.

JACK: A lot of good things about this name but lets not forget it’s also associated with a brand of whiskey, slang for a donkey and a certain movie trilogy (which I love but other find it offensive).

So given those draw backs let us know which manly name from our final four you think the boy should have. Hopefully he’ll come soon so we can stop doing these stupid posts and get back to what’s really important, my half baked ideas.

Manly Names: Sports Edition

Another week has passed and the boy still isn’t here. That leaves two more weeks until the due date is upon us. After Ariane visited her doctor this week it doesn’t look good for the boy’s early arrival. So we’ll have another poll to help decide on a manly name.

Jack really dominated the poll last week. This week’s poll will be manly sports names or names from some of my favorite players. Perhaps the names themselves aren’t the manliest of names but the accomplishments of these men are what makes the name itself manly.

REGGIE: The shooting guard for the Indiana Pacers, Reggie Miller was a very exciting player who was known for his three point shooting, his trash talking and taunting Spike Lee. He was a five time All-Star, played in an NBA Finals and won two Olympic Gold Medals with team USA. Pacer would make an interesting name though I am a Jazz fan first and I don’t want to give people the wrong impression.

JERMAINE: The name of the point guard who played for Weber State while I was a student there. He led the Wildcats to an undefeated regular season in the Big Sky Conference, helped the team to a conference championship, a trip to the NCAA tournament and was named to the Weber State Basketball All-Decade Team. I think Wildcat would also be a cool name for the boy.

OZZIE: The Hall of Fame short stop for the St. Louis Cardinals and my favorite baseball player when I was a kid. Ozzie Smith was a 15 time All-Star, won the Gold Glove Award 13 times, a Silver Slugger Award, NLCS MVP and a World Series Champion. Cardinal just doesn’t seem like a manly enough name for the boy, I mean it is a pretty little bird after all.

JOHN: John Elway was my favorite football player when I was a kid and also as a young adult. He was the quarterback of the Denver Broncos for 15 years. During that time he was nine time pro bowl selection, played in 5 Super Bowls winning two, a Super Bowl MVP and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Bronco would be a very manly too, but I don’t want people thinking that I named the boy for the coach of the team down south, if you know what I mean.

ALEX: Smith was the quarter back for the University of Utah when they won the Fiesta Bowl in 2005. He was 21-1 as a starter, Mountain West Conference Player of the Year in 2004 and the first overall pick in the 2005 NFL draft. Ute would be a really cool first name and it’s short so it would go well with a long last name like Bredthauer.

Who knows how many of these ridiculous polls we have left? Ariane hopes this is the last one but I guess we will see.

Manly Names: Lucy Edition

It looks like Gaston took the vote for “Manly Villain Name” Though it was very close with Megatron. With three weeks left till the due date I’ll keep pressing on in my search for a manly name for the boy. Our next category is “Manly Names: The Lucy Edition” or in other words names that Lucy has wanted to name the boy and they are creative.




LIGHTNING: Lucy has loved the movie “Cars” for as long as she can remember. So of course this has at one time been a name she wanted her new brother to have. However given the boys gene pool he won’t be called Lightning for his speed but possibly for sticking his hand in a light socket. Perhaps McQueen could be the first name or we could call him Lightning McBredthauer, it would make people wonder if we were Scottish or German.

R2-D2: Her favorite character from “Star Wars”. We always have to have a “Star Wars” character in these polls. It would be easy to learn to spell and with a last name like Bredthauer and easy first name can really come in handy.

PHINEAS: From Lucy’s current favorite show “Phineas and Ferb” produced by Disney. Phineas is pictured below with his pet platypus Perry. I know it’s not the manliest name, but it is what Lucy wants. The show revolves around these two kids Phineas and Ferb who are step brothers and they build all kinds of crazy stuff and have all kinds of adventures. Araine finds the show witty and funny, Lucy finds it entertaining.

JACK: Lucy likes this name because it is the name of one of her favorite movie characters, Jack Skellington from “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. It may be a semi scary movie but she loves it. I how ever think we should name him Jack after the famous pirate Captain Jack Sparrow and Arianes grandpa was named Jack as well. We could name him Jack S Bredthauer and the S could stand for Skellington, Sparrow or Stevens depending on which one of us you talk to.

Not as many names this time but enough that we can get an idea of what you like based on what Lucy likes. Let us know which one or ones you like and be sure to vote. If the boy hasn’t come by next week we will have another poll up.

Manly Names: Villain Edition

Ariane is now entering that last four weeks of her pregnancy, or at least she hopes she is. We’ll just wait and see if the boy decides to stay in an extra week or so.

Having still not settled on a name it’s time for another poll. We’ll consider the last poll the Manly Names: Heroes Edition, where Maverick really cleaned house in the polls. That makes this one the Villains Edition. So here are some of our favorite manly villains. Disney characters seem to dominate this one, but that’s because Disney creates such memorable villains. Here is the next set of names in no particular order.

GASTON: There’s no one in town half as manly as you can see he’s got biceps to spare. He is defiantly one of the manliest of Disney villains. No one's slick as Gaston, no one's quick as Gaston and no one's neck's as incredibly thick as Gaston's. All qualities every man would want. The drawback is he’s defiantly lacking in the brains department. But on the plus side every last inch of him is covered in hair.

VOLDEMORT: I’m sure with the popularity of the Harry Potter movies and books this name is going to really take off. We could even refer to the boy as He Who Must Not Be Named, though that may get a little long when paired with Bredthauer.

JAFFAR: This gives us some ethnicity. It would really throw people off when they ask where his family is descended from and the boy tells them Germany. We would need to get an obnoxious parrot to go with the name and I'm not sure how long I can put with that.

DARTH: I can’t have a name list without someone from Star Wars being on it or in this case two someone’s. His middle name would be based on who ever we chose to name him after, either Vader or Maul.

MEGATRON: He is the leader of the Decepticons in the Transformers movies and cartoon show. He’s a pretty bad dude but he’s never r been able to finish of the Autobots and really put them away. He’s kind of a failure but you’ve got to admire his tenacity, every time he flees you here him yell, “Next time Prime” (referring to Optimus Prime, his arch nemesis) The guy just doesn’t know how to quit.

COBRA COMMANDER: We would just call him Cobra; maybe make Commander his middle name.  Leader of a group of military terrorists from the G.I. Joe cartoon show and movie.   Same story as Megatron, leader of an evil group and he can’t seem to beat the good guys but always promises to be back again. For the record this movie was terrible so that is another drawback. This name does have the snake that we could use instead and drop the Commander from the middle name. It is one of the most poisonous snakes in the world.

SCAR: I’ve always wondered why his parents named him this. Was he born with a scar, did they not name until after he had the scar, did he get the scar during delivery or is it just a coincidence? Either way it would force me to give the boy some kind of scar on his face which may be borderline child abuse, but maybe it doesn’t count if you name your kid Scar and you are just helping him live up to his name sake.

There you have it, our manly names for villains. Let us know which one you like and we’ll let you know of the boy arrives early; otherwise we’ll see how many of those polls we can do in the next four weeks.

Lucys First Stiches

The other afternoon I was working at the fire station when I got a call from Ariane, who told me that Lucy had fallen in the bathtub hitting her chin on the metal part of the shower door. She said it was bleeding pretty bad and looked pretty deep. I told her to come by the station and I would check it out. After looking at it we decided Lucy would need some stitches.

We went out to the Insta Care in Layton and the nurse agreed it would need stitches. They numbed her up pretty good but Lucy still cried a lot, I think she was more scared then in pain.

The doctor and nurse were really good and both very patient with our scared little girl. They were really quick, we still had time to make it up to my cousin Carries wedding reception. Here she is four stitches later.

Lucy is really falling (no not following) in her mother’s footsteps. Lariann also had stitches right underneath her chin when she was a little girl, must be a genetic thing.

Redecorating: Family Room Edition

I was inspired by the recent blog post of my friends Dave and Kristen about their recent redecorating. I decided to chronicle the redecorating efforts of Ariane and myself.

Our home décor has always been a difficult subject for Ariane and I. She would prefer each room to have a simple theme with only a few things on the wall. I prefer to have various family pictures and much of my sports memorabilia displayed. Over the course of the last year we have negotiated much of how the house is decorated.

The family room became a sore subject for us. I wanted to have some of my sports stuff up but Ariane wanted a theme in the room, so her compromise was to make the theme for our family room a sports theme. At first I was sure it was a trick of some sorts but as it turns out the only catch is, this would be the only room in the house that has sports stuff displayed. I was totally on board with the plan. I’ve actually had family pictures taken with us wearing our sports gear, so that way is still within the theme of the family room.

My St. Louis Cardinals stuff remained where it was and Ariane gave it a few improvements.

We used one wall for the Utah Jazz. We even purchased a few new pennants so we could display the evolution of the Jazz logo.

The Denver Broncos wall hanging that had been in our bedroom made its way down on to the Broncos wall.

I have a pretty good sized collection of baseball pennants that I have been collecting since I was a kid. There were too many to display so I hung up the ones from baseball stadiums that I have been to.

And of course the Los Angeles Clippers sign hanging over the door that leads down to the basement, perhaps a little poetic since the Clippers find themselves in the NBAs basement quite often.

Why the Clippers? Well what can I say? I feel bad for them.

The only thing left is to find a spot for the University of Utah and Weber State. I’ll keep working on it.

Manly Names

As many of you know Arianes due date is coming up at the end of August so we only have about six or seven weeks to come with a truly MANLY name for the boy.

THOR- This one is for my brother Greg who is really pushing for this name, I’m sure my brother in-law John and his wife Liz would be on board for this name too.

RAMBO- Technically his first name is John but we could go with Rambo for a first name. Sylvester Stallone could work if we only used his last name for the boys first name, just like with Rambo.

ROOSTER- A manly cowboy with an eye patch, we could also use John Wayne as well but I think I would pass on Jeff Bridges for a name.

MAVERICK-We could name the boy after the pilot in “Top Gun” played by Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is too crazy to name the boy after. He could also be named for the cowboy character Mel Gibson played; I don’t know that Mel’s name is good enough these days after all the trouble he’s been in. Or we could name him after the team that won the NBA championship the year he was born, then we could decorate his room in a Dallas Mavericks theme, however I’m not a big Dallas fan so that seems pretty unlikely.

WOLVERINE- The character played by Hugh Jackman, though Hugh does not make it to our manly list, or the animal itself. Either way you look at it it’s manly.

HERCULES- One of the oldest manly names around could be for the Disney cartoon character, the mythological Greek character or the character played by Kevin Sorbo. Sorry Kevin your names not quite manly enough to be considered.

INDIANA- This might be my favorite movie character of all time. Played by Harrison Ford who’s name could be considered manly enough for this list, not quite on the same level as John Wayne since Harrison in real life is kind of a hippie.

HAN- Han Solo is the most manly character from “Star Wars”, he’s a reluctant hero, a rogue, a scoundrel and he’s been described as a space cowboy, how cool is that? Chewbacca was also considered to represent the “Star Wars” franchise but let’s face it that would just be ridiculous when paired with Bredthauer.

Please vote and let us know what name you think is MANLY enough for the boy. Just because a name wins doesn’t necessarily mean that we will use it, but I will try my hardest to convince Ariane.