The horses of Diablo Downs never fail to amuse and entertain my kids when I don’t have enough time to take them to the Oakland Zoo.

Here’s the mother of all understatements: My kids are animal crazy.

I’ve lost count of how many animal toys they have scattered throughout the house and I’ve lost track of how many animal-related cartoons, movies, and documentaries we’ve seen over and over and over and … well, you get the point … on Netflix Instant.

A big part of Daddy Days is finding a way to keep my 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter amused during the day but sometimes there just isn’t enough time to make the trek out to the Oakland Zoo to give our season pass a workout.

Fortunately, there’s a surprising wealth of wildlife within a short drive of our house in the Clayton Valley Highlands that never fails to bring a smile to my children’s faces and burn a decent chunk of time off the clock.

Here’s a quick roundup of our little suburban safari:

THE LOOP

This is the easiest way for me to kill about an hour when the kids get restless and I’m not up for taking them out for a big day trip. A casual afternoon cruise through these local spots with a side trip to a drive-through restaurant for some grub can easily transform my kids from restless rugrats into content little buggers snoozing away on nap time after lunch.

We start our journey by venturing down Mitchell Canyon Road to Diablo Downs Drive where there are a ton of homes with horse stables.

The horses are clearly the stars of this part of The Loop but my kids love animals so much that they even get excited every time we drive by a set of deer lawn ornaments on Tally Ho Court. It’s a little crazy but totally adorable when we drive away and they say, “Bye-bye deer, we love you!” Every time we go out for this little trip on a Daddy Day I know I desperately need a regular paycheck ASAP but moments like that are priceless.

After we crawl our way past every single horse stable on Diablo Downs Drive we make our way to Eagle Peak Avenue near the Oakhurst Golf Course where we wind our way to the end of Ohlone Heights and back to revel in the wild kingdom rounded up by Albert Seeno Jr.

There’s emus in them thar hills! Seeno Hill, to be exact.

Good ol’ Seeno Hill is populated by llamas, goats, donkeys, wild turkeys and (drum roll please) emus. My kids go nuts for the emus which can usually be found right at the corner of Oakhurst Drive and Eagle Peak Avenue. Seeing the other animals can be a hit or miss proposition but the emus are usually where you expect them to be. Surf over to Google Maps and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.

I have no idea what an emu is doing out here in suburbia and I can’t begin to fathom why anyone in their right mind would buy a few of them, but I guess when you have the kind of money Seeno has you can buy your own hill and fill it with as many out-of-place animals as you damn well please.

The next part of The Loop comes after we bid a fond farewell to the emus and make our way out to CSU East Bay’s Concord campus after hitting the local Burger King or Carl’s Jr. to get some lunch to bring home.

Most people head to CSU East Bay for an education, but not us. Nope, we make our way up to the university to slowly drive around and see if we can spot any wild turkeys, cows, or coyotes.

More often than not, we see a ton of cows which always elicits cheers from the back seat. Sometimes we see a bunch of wild turkeys which also gets my kids all fired up. We’ve only seen a coyote once but I hear about it every time we make this drive.

After we part ways with the cows of CSU East Bay we head for home to scarf down  lunch before hitting the sack. It ain’t exactly counting sheep, but wildlife on The Loop always does the trick when I need to settle the kids down for nap time.

I have no idea how I’d make it through an extended trip out of the house with my kids without this little potty in the back seat of the car to bail them out of their frequent, urgent need to pee.

Since tomorrow marks the 2-month anniversary of my layoff I figured there’s no better time to dive into my post-employment adventures taking care of the kids most of the week.

Yes, you read that right.  I got laid off at the end of February when my job took a fatal plunge off the edge of the Fiscal Cliff.  Damn you Fiscal Cliff, damn you all to hell.  After sending out more resumes and cover letters in 2 months than I have in my entire career I can vouch for the cold, hard fact that it’s a brutal job market out there.  All kidding aside, I’m a little jealous of the 40-hour-a-week job opportunities available to Lloyd and Harry in “Dumb & Dumber.”

But an amazing thing has emerged from the ashes of a steady paycheck that went up in smoke: Daddy Days.  The ability to pay for full-time day care for our rugrats vanished as soon as I got my pink slip which meant I suddenly had to take care of our 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter all day, all by myself for the first time ever.

Since my wife and I have sold our kids on the idea that weekdays at day care are School Days and weekends when we’re all together are Adventure Days I decide to call my post-employment time with them Daddy Days.  The name stuck and at this point my son yells, “Daddy Day’s the best!” when I tell him around bedtime that the next day is going to be a Daddy Day.  At times like that, unemployment doesn’t seem half bad.  Of course, when the mortgage is due unemployment truly sucks.   

It’s been a daunting, exhausting, exhilarating experience learning to fly solo with two energetic kids and here’s a quick rundown on some random observations:

• YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY SNACKS: I learned this the hard way the first day I had the kids all to myself and they were starving by the end of our little trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science.  It’s not that I didn’t bring some snacks for them, I just didn’t bring anywhere near enough for their voracious, unpredictable appetites.  After that I started filling one section of my backpack with a wide variety of munchies and in the wake of a couple of afternoon meltdowns at the park I finally started packing full lunches in addition to the load of snacks I was carrying around.  Problem solved. 

• TINY BLADDERS RULE MY WORLD: Our spare Fisher-Price stepstool potty has been an absolute lifesaver for me when I’ve been on the road with my son and daughter.  I keep that sucker in the back of our Toyota Highlander and it’s bailed me out of some potential wet messes when we’ve been a long way from a restroom.  There’s nothing worse than being backed up in traffic approaching the Bay Bridge when your kids start yelling that they have to go pee-pee.  A quick exit onto Treasure Island and a couple of minutes later we’re parked, the potty is set up in the passenger seat, and everyone’s happy.  I owe you one Fisher-Price. 

• THANK GOODNESS FOR POTTY TRAINING:  Fortunately, our daughter took to potty training over one weekend around her second birthday in December because I have no idea how I would have managed taking care of both my kids if I had to deal with frequent diaper changes while we’re at a busy park/zoo/etc.  She may have a bladder the size of a peanut but she knows when she has to go and she’s never had an accident on my watch.  Bless her cute little heart. 

• THE LIBRARY ROCKS: My friend’s wife told me about the library’s free Discover & Go passes a couple of months before I got laid off and they’ve been an awesome way to entertain the kids for a big chunk of time.  The passes have already gotten us into the Lawrence Hall of Science, Lindsay Wildlife Museum, Ardenwood Historic Farm, and Aquarium of the Bay.  Aside from that, my kids are absolutely in love with picking out books and videos at the library.  My son actually insisted on going to the library instead of the park this week.  Very cool. 

• BIG BIRD IS NO MATCH FOR CONAN:  I’m sure some 4-year-olds and 2-year-olds are watching Sesame Street these days, but not my kids.  They’re watching “Conan The Destroyer” on Netflix Instant and loving it.  My son and daughter also have an amusing fascination with Jean-Claude Van Damme’s “Lionheart.”  They love all the “owies” Van Damme doles out during the fight scenes.  If there was ever any doubt that these are my children they’re long gone now.

• 

  I feel your pain Mr. Mom and I totally dig the beard.

  “MR. MOM” DESERVES A REBOOT: Since Hollywood often seems to be bereft of new ideas they might as well inject some fresh blood into this Michael Keaton classic.  I’m sure I’m just one of a rapidly growing number of suddenly unemployed, utterly unprepared dads out there who have been thrown into the deep end to fend for themselves tending to their kids during the week while picking through the wreckage of a devastated job market.  I’ve already followed in the footsteps of Keaton’s character and sported an unemployment beard for a little while (my wife hated it), gained a few pounds (I hate’em), made a mess out of the house, and been totally out of place in a strange, new world full of stay-at-home moms.  When you get right down to it, I’m almost ready to star in a reboot of “Mr. Mom.”    

• EVERYONE LOVES ANIMALS:  If there’s one thing that always brings a smile to my children’s faces its animals.  So far I’ve put our Oakland Zoo and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom passes to good use and kept us out of the house all day several times.  Even little Borges Ranch down the hill from our house does the trick when the kids get restless and want to get their animal fix.  Fuzzy little creatures never fail to entertain. 

• RAIN SUCKS … SAME GOES FOR HEAT WAVES:  So far the toughest thing I’ve had to deal with is keeping the little tykes entertained when it’s rainy or roasting outside and we can’t burn off time and energy at the park in the afternoon.  I’ve taken them to Studio Grow and Super Franks with varying levels of success.  The one thing I know for sure is that I’ll never take them to The Jungle.  If you read the Yelp reviews you can almost smell the place from where you’re sitting.  No thank you. 

• I HAVE NEWFOUND RESPECT FOR STAY-AT-HOME MOMS:  I always knew taking care of kids all day was hard work and I always had a world of respect for friends and family who took on that gigantic challenge.  Now that I’ve been dealing with it for 3 days a week for the past couple of months I have a whole new respect for parents who do it full time.  Sure, it’s a blast spending a ton of time with your kids during the week but it’s also exhausting.  It often makes a standard full-time job look like a vacation.

At some point Daddy Days will be a fond memory when one of the countless resumes I continue to send out eventually pays off, but until then I’ll make the most of the rare opportunity to spend as much time as possible with my two favorite people in the world.

Daddy Day means getting the heck out of the house and so far we’ve stayed busy.

Hey, a movie starring Michael Pare and Clint Howard can’t be all bad, right?

There are plenty of times I can’t make heads or tails of the suggestions Netflix offers and I’ve been trying to invest a few minutes here and there to rank stuff just to weed out some of the more absurd movies and TV shows that pop up for my consideration. Tonight’s head scratcher that appeared while I was scrolling through our streaming account was “Blubberella,” listed as one of the Witty Revenge Movies I might like based on the fact that I recently watched “Miller’s Crossing” and “Hopscotch.”

I have no idea how the heck you get from the Coen Brothers and Walter Matthau to “Blubberella” but Netflix, in all its wisdom, made the connection.

I bet Albert Finney never thought he’d be mentioned in the same post as “Blubberella.” Loved ya in “Miller’s Crossing” pal.

Hate to break it to you Netflix but I don’t want to watch “Blubberella,” the “gleefully low-rent action-comedy” in which “hefty half-vampire Blubberella sets her always-ravenous sights on a Nazi leader who’s concocting a diabolical plan: to create an army of undead soldiers to help his Führer conquer the globe.”

My wife can vouch for the fact that I love some truly absurd movies and TV shows — which probably explains a lot of the horrible suggestions Netflix churns out — but even my juvenile sense of humor can’t embrace “Blubberella.”

Maybe I just need a few dozen drinks to see the appeal of “Blubberella.” Would beer goggles make “Blubberella” attractive to me? Who knows? I have a pretty high tolerance for booze so it’s a little frightening to try and guess how much I would have to drink to get a twinkle in my eye for “Blubberella.”

Do you get the sense that I’m trying to write “Blubberella” as many times as possible in this post? I dare you to say “Blubberella” five times as fast as you can … I’m willing to bet it’s a lot more entertaining than actually watching “Blubberella” (sweet, I just wrote “Blubberella” two more times!).

Of course, the worst thing I did tonight was accidentally play the movie for a split second when I was just trying to click on “More Info” to get some fodder for this post. Now the next time I log in to Netflix I’ll be hit with a load of suggestions “Because you watched ‘Blubberella.’ ” Can you hear me slapping my forehead?

I guess it serves me right for complaining so much about Netflix’s suggestions.

Then again, maybe I’ll get lucky and Netflix will suggest a lot of really good Coen Brothers and Walter Matthau movies because somehow, some way, they’re all related in the wonderful world of Netflix streaming.

Fat chance.

The funny thing is that I actually had my sights set on blogging a lot more here at Junkball when I vanished into thin air. I stepped away from Swingin’ A’s to gain some flexibility for more frequent, spontaneous blogging without worrying about stepping on the toes of other staff writers.

But right when I did all that I landed a new gig and the free time to ramble about the A’s faded away. The only reason I’m even posting today is because I’m home alone sick with time to kill in between some long naps.  If my kids were home there’s no way I could veg out on the couch and write something.

Too bad I pulled a 7 month vanishing act because I missed an amazing opportunity to blog about the A’s while they went on a magical run to the AL West title. But being at the game when the A’s clinched their first playoff berth since 2006 was a helluva lot more fun than blogging about it so I can’t complain too much about my schedule pulling me away from this site.

Hopefully this post marks a return to at least some semi-regular blogging but only time will tell. I have a bad knack for getting busy and letting this blog fall by the wayside. I know my priorities are in the right place by putting family, friends, and work first but goofing off here makes everything else a lot more fun.

On to some random thoughts in the early days of spring training …

* At the moment there’s depth everywhere on this roster, a welcome sight for a small-buget franchise that usually has a pretty thin roster backing up the starting nine. The starting rotation, bullpen, infield, outfield … there’s a crowd of talented players fighting for a roster spot and playing time. It’s a nice problem to have and I’m glad it’s Bob Melvin‘s challenge to make all the pieces fit together instead of me. I wouldn’t want to be the guy telling a few really good players that they’re heading to Sacramento instead of Oakland at the end of camp and then deal with juggling the lineup all season.

* If there’s one guy who can make it all work it’s Melvin. That shiny new AL Manager of the Year Award sitting on his mantle (OK, I assume it’s sitting on his mantle rather than being used as a paperweight or hat rack) is proof that the man can juggle lineups and massage personalities with the best of’em. Of course, 2012 is in the rear view mirror and there’s no guarantee that 2013 will be smooth sailing. Last season you didn’t hear any complaints from players while Melvin regularly shuffled everyone in and out of the lineup but that’s when the club was winning games in bunches. A slow start to 2013 that drags on too long could lead to an unhappy clubhouse full of competitive ballplayers who don’t feel like they’re getting enough at bats to get into a groove and help the A’s win.  Hopefully that’s the kind of turmoil was left behind in the dark ages of A’s baseball known as the Bob Geren Era.

* I totally dig Oakland adding John Jaso to the roster.  Same goes for adding Jed Lowrie and Hiroyuki Nakajima to the mix at shortstop.  If the A’s could win the division with almost no offensive contributions out of those positions in 2012, having some solid hitters in those spots can only help’em make a run at another title.  I’ll miss all the prospects general manager Billy Beane shipped out of town to get Jaso and Lowrie but I’ll take a win-now approach after years of irrelevance in the American League.

* Right now the glut of good players vying for a spot on the roster looks like it’ll be a late-spring headache for the A’s coaching staff and front office as they try to figure out what to do with guys out of options. But it’s a long way to opening day and what may seem like too many players for too few spots could actually shake out to be barely enough bodies to go around if, as usual, the injury bug rears its ugly head and some guys play themselves out of the picture. By the end of 2013 what seems like a luxury of depth for the A’s will probably turn out to be a necessity just to make it to the finish line.

* I already really miss Brandon McCarthy.  On a positive note, I’m excited that Scott Sizemore is healthy and in the mix for a starting job.  It may take him a couple of months to really get going after missing last season with a knee injury but I’m optimistic that he can make good on the promise he showed with the A’s in 2010.

* According to several reports out of Arizona, stalled outfield prospect Michael Taylor is working out at first base. That’s a damn fine idea if I do say so myself. Personally, I think it’s a long overdue move to salvage some value and see if the A’s can find an opportunity to get Taylor some playing time in the big leagues. Then again, as Chris Carter can attest to, being a young right-handed part of a first base platoon in Oakland isn’t exactly a major source of at bats.

* Speaking of Chris Carter, the big guy is finally free. Take those 500 at bats as a DH in Houston and run with’em kid. Have fun filling the Crawford Boxes with souvenirs for the next few years … just make sure you do most of your damage against everyone but the A’s.

* The one good thing about not blogging about the A’s in so long is that I didn’t miss any developments on the new ballpark front.  The Golden State Warriors will be probably be playing in San Francisco and the Raiders will be playing in Los Angeles before any progress is made on the A’s getting a new home.  The whole thing is just as frustrating as ever but at least the team on the field is fun to watch again which is a welcome distraction from MLB commissioner Bud Selig’s attempt to dodge the issue until he retires.

Signing off for now, hopefully I’ll be back in less than 7 months.

Jonny Gomes has made a career out of abusing pitches from southpaws but for one afternoon he’s going to judge tri-tip at a BBQ contest at the Coliseum. Don’t miss it. (April 18, 2012 – Source: Harry How/Getty Images North America)

DIPPING INTO THE MAILBAG

I’ve been beating the drum for a while trying to round up some mailbag items and spur a little reader interaction for the fun of it. I started sounding the call while I was at Swingin’ A’s and I’ve kept it up since transitioning back to my own blog. I meant to do a little writeup on every little tidbit I got from readers even though there wasn’t all that much to work with but my schedule has continued to get in my way every time I set my sights on sitting down and writing.

But enough with dragging my heels and on to the biggest, best thing that landed in my inbox: The 2nd Annual Bay Area BBQ Championship.

Melinda recently gave me a heads up about the event sponsored by the A’s on July 7 at the Oakland Coliseum (no, I will not call it O.co Coliseum) when the team plays the Mariners. All proceeds from the event benefit Northern California foster children, youth, and families served by Alternative Family Services.

It sounds like fun and the first reader to e-mail me at junkball99@gmail.com wins the following package:

Go for the BBQ, stay for some baseball when you head to the ballpark on July 7.

* Two BBQ VIP access passes

* 10 tasting tickets

* One Coliseum parking pass

* Two tickets to the A’s vs Mariners game

* Two raffle tickets

* Two VIP party tickets for Friday, July 6, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Some of the highlights include a BBQ and beer pairing tent, live entertainment, live food demos, admission to the game, and a family boardwalk that includes all-day baseball clinics and carnival attractions.

Jonny Gomes, mohawked A’s slugger and the Pride of Petaluma, will be a tri-tip judge and former Athletic Claudelle Washington will also be in attendance.

I’d love to check out the BBQ but I’ll be at a family event that afternoon. But if you e-mail me fast enough you have a golden opportunity to go to the BBQ for free. I’m sure the grub will be hotter than a Ryan Cook fastball and a lot more likely to cross a plate.

Enjoy the BBQ, give Melinda a hearty thanks for the giveaway and make sure to tell’em Junkball sent you.

ETC.

In case you’re curious here’s what just missed getting a more extensive writeup in this mailbag:

Some dude gave me a heads-up about some A’s-themed T-shirts he makes, another dude tipped me off to his podcast about sports anthems with ESPN’s Tony Ross, another dude sent me a link to a post about the physics of the knuckleball, one guy pointed me toward a book about former Major League players fighting for their pensions, and another guy would love to see more grass roots efforts to keep the A’s from ditching Oakland for San Jose (I know he’s not alone).

Sorry dudes and guys.  My sincere apologies for letting a busy schedule collide with a bout of laziness and procrastination.  If I had a little more free time and a little more motivation over the past few weeks I would have done a lot more with each item sent my way.

So there it is, the first mailbag here at Junkball. Keep the e-mails and comments coming my way and as time permits we’ll continue the conversation in posts like this. If this is the one and only mailbag post I do, which is a distinct possibility, thanks for touching base.