You know there's been too much snow when...

• It's no longer "shovel, throw, shovel, throw" but "shovel, walk, throw, walk back".
• You wish you'd bought a snow blower when you moved in 8 years ago.
• Your property begins to remind you of Superman's Fortress of Solitude.
• You begin to question the sanity of people who live even further north who get even more snow every year (they must have bought a snow blower when they moved in).
• Your dad starts to call every time there's a snow storm to remind you that he does not even own a snow shovel or an ice scraper where he lives. Thanks Dad.
• You hope they'll start the Olympic sport of Snow Flinging because your sure you'd make the US Team.
• You wish were living in a dwelling where you were not the landlord responsible for keeping the drive way and walks clear.
  
• The only thing keeping you from hiring someone else to do it is pride - all the neighbors around you shovel their own driveways.
• You try thinking of shoveling as water resistance training - part of your New Year's resolution to get into better shape.
• You wished your house had a two car garage used for parking the vehicles in, and you owned a snow blower.
  
• You've been shoveling long enough to think up all of these reasons it's been snowing too much.
  

Funny video: Dad Life

I first saw this on God Tube and thought it was funny. I could not figure out how to embed it from there. So I'm embedding the YouTube version. Here's the link to the God Tube one: http://www.godtube.com/featured/video/dad-life

It's been that long?!

I had not realized that it's been about 9 months since I last posted. I knew it had been a while but did not realize it was that long.

I'm still breathing and kick'n. Time flies by fast when there's a lot to occupy it with. I don't really have much to say, other than I still exist, contrary to what my blog indicates :).

Free Star Maps

If you like looking at stars, you may be interesting in this link I just found. On the page, you can download two free star maps, one for the northern hemisphere and one for the southern hemisphere. They only have the major stars and constellations, but hey, they're free! They also include a map of the major features of the moon. Pretty cool.

Now, if I could only find where I put my binoculars...

I've Got This Song Under My Skin

This afternoon, during the kids' nap time, I watched the Do-Re-Me YouTube video I had posted about way back when (though that video has been taken down now, but here's the link to another one of it). After doing that, I started watching other songs from that era. As I did, I noticed that I was seeing several singers who had sung "I've Got You Under My Skin". I decided to do a post with collection of some of them and ask for opinions on who you think does the best job. Some of these are big names and some are unknowns. The two loose criterion I had were that the videos be of the performers singing the song and that they did not totally butcher the song.

1. First up is the singer whom many consider to have set the gold standard for this song, Frank Sinatra.



2. Bobby Darin



3. Michael Buble



4. Katharine McPhee



5. Steve Lawrence



6. Boris Titulaer



7. Sammy Davis Jr.: The video does not allow embedding, so follow this link. Also, this video has two songs, with "I've got you under my skin" being the second one.

8. Josh Dubovie



9. Briana Phares



10. Udo (unfortunately the video cuts off before the end of the song)



So, who's your top pick?

One of the Universe's Little Mysteries Solved

Have you ever stopped to wonder how having a foot of snow impacts the smaller creatures of this world? Have you spent countless hours puzzling over the mystery of how squirrels traverse snow ladened trees, their branches covered in three to four inches of white, icy snow?

No? Well, the later question (nor the former for that matter) had not troubled my mind until this morning. As I was partaking in some sustenance with which to break my fast, out through the kitchen window I observed a squirrel moving along a large branch covered in three to four inches of snow. As I did so, I realized that this question, how a squirrel traverses snow ladened trees, was such an obvious question, it's a wonder that it had not been bothering me for years now. Would they plow through it, like a water buffalo in a rice paddi? Would they climb backward, swinging their tails to brush off the snow? Would they race along the top of the snow, like an elf?

While I did not have the question before hand, I now had the answer to this little mystery of the Universe. Now I can rest easy, burden lifted. That I may help ease the burdens from your minds regarding this mystery, I will share the answer with you.

(Drum roll please)

Instead of trying to deal with the snow, the squirrel simply traveled along the underside of the branch, speeding upside down, unhindered by the snow, to wherever it was going. Little mystery of the Universe solved.

Is your burden eased?

Blog Glob, 12/22/08

• It looks like we will have a white Christmas this year. Over the weekend, we probably got around a foot of snow. On Christmas Eve we are supposed to get some rain/snow mix, but I doubt there will be enough rain to melt all of that snow by Christmas Day. Christmas is supposed to be fairly warm, around 50, with no snow fall predicted. However, I think having the ground covered with it counts as having a white Christmas.
• I'm now sore and tired as a result of the first bullet point. There was a lot of shoveling to be done. I also started construction on our own sledding slope in the backyard, backed up to the climber, but that is still a work in progress as it is taking a lot more snow than I thought it would.
  
• I'm going for my annual eye exam tomorrow. Yippee (said in a monotone, with no enthusiasm).
• I'm on vacation all this week and am only work the first three days of next week. Yeah (said with a lot of enthusiasm and pitch fluctuation)!!
• I bought myself a new computer game to play with the boys, specifically Will. It's called Crazy Machines 2 and does not involve any violence to living creatures, just to some inanimate objects. I decided to do this because Will really likes computer games, but seems to get obsessed with the ones that have fighting in them, like Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle Earth II and Age of Empires III. He seems to like this one (so do I) and has not been talking about shooting guns or arrows as a result. Ben likes it too, which I knew he would, since it's about solving a problem (or puzzle) with various parts to make something do a specific task(s).
• My parents are coming next week for a visit. It will be nice to see them.
• I am in the process of reading "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens to the family (which means Will and Stephanie, with Ben and Ellie occasionally listening in). After that, we are planning on watching a cinematic version of it, the one by the Muppets :-).
• I watched Superman, The Movie, a couple of nights ago. It's still a great movie in my opinion. The next night, I let the kids watch a "making of Superman" with me. That resulted in Ben "flying" off the couches and beds.
• Can you believe that Christmas is only 3 days away? I've still got presents to wrap!
  

Blog Glob, 11/30/2008

• A couple of weeks ago, it was raining when I left work, walking out to get in my truck. Naturally, I had the umbrella up to keep me as dry as possible. Well, I as I climbed into the driver's seat, holding the umbrella in my left hand, I must have been distracted because I reached over with my right hand a closed the door. As it was closing, the thought crossed my mind that this was not a smart thing to do, as I was still holding the umbrella. Before I could react to the thought, the door closed on the shaft of the umbrella. Imagine my surprise and slight shock, when, instead of the door just stopping, I saw the top of the umbrella fall to the parking lot outside the door. The door had sheared the shaft clean in two, it was not even mashed.

• On the 21st was my wife's birthday. Happy Birthday honey! We had two families over to help celebrate with us. Mike and Dawn we've known for almost 11 years. They are native Rhode Islanders who went to the church we decided to attend. They initiated the relationship, for which we are very grateful, as we did not know a soul up here. About a year after we arrived in Rhode Island, Andy and Amy arrived and came to our church. We decided to pass on the same favor that Mike and Dawn had done for us, and immediately invited them for lunch. So we've been friends with them for over 10 years. Now each of those couples has one or more children. It was good to get together with friends.
  
• I went with my friend Andy on the 22nd to see Quantum of Solace. It was a good movie but not great. A lot of action, as to be expected.
• There has been quite a bit of leaf raking around here. Except for the carting off of the leaves, I finally finished the backyard yesterday. Most of it had been done a few weeks ago, with a big pile made in the middle of the yard by the climber so that the kids could jump in it. Finishing up meant moving the big pile over to the corner of the yard where it will be loaded into the back of the pick up and raking up the leaves that had fallen since the first round of raking.
• Ellie was sick for a few days. Thankfully it was short lived and the only major symptoms were being warm (low grade fever) and being cranky. As she even told me today, several days after fully recovering, "I feel beher".
• On Saturday we set up the Christmas tree. The kids, but Ben especially, were excited about this. He's so fun when he's excited - it makes me want to give him whatever he wants.
• Recently, since I was nearly out of wood glue, I purchased some Gorilla Glue (the all purpose, not the wood glue), as I've heard a number of good things about it. So far, so good. I've repaired a children's chair which had suffered from over enthusiastic users - the back had fallen off and a leg dangling. It's held up for a few days now.
• I'm back at work full time now. I had gotten use to the half days from home. I'm missing the additional time with my family.
• I'm reading through two books right now. I'll post reviews when I'm done.
  

Blog Glob, 10/21/2008

First off, let me apologize for neglecting my blog. It has not been intentional but more a lack of being intentional. Work has been high-pressured and stressful the past couple of months and the last thing I have felt like doing in the evenings, after the kids are in bed, is to exert brain power to compose a blog post. I kept saying, "Not tonight". That has turned into a month of no posts.

Instead, I spent a lot of time on Hulu.com vegging out, too much time. That's why we got rid of the TV. So I'm going to have cut back on that.

My wife, as opposed to me, has been a posting maniac. So in this blog glob (it's a new bloggity phrase I'm trying to coin - meaning to throw together a post composed of many different topics or points), I'm going to link to many of her posts so I don't have to do as much work, the lazy man that I am.

Currently (about 3:00 p.m.), I'm sitting in my wife's hospital room, with her laptop. She and Sam are geting in some snuggle time. The last time we were here over two years ago for Ellie, Internet access was not available. Now they have free WiFi - yeah!

• Last Monday, Columbus Day, we went with our church to go apple picking. This is an annual tradition and is a lot of fun - the whole family looks forward to it. We went to a new orchard this year and were able to go on a free hayride - a first for all our kids. We picked 20 pounds of apples and have already enjoyed one apple pie, with at least one more to come - yum. Click here to read the post Stephanie did on this, with pictures. Even though this post is not about apple picking, it does include a great picture from then with Will making a goofy face.
  
• On Tuesday, October 7th, I arrived home to find everyone in the half bathroom. Stephanie was giving Will a lecture while she had Ben across her knees and was pressing a wet washcloth to the back of his head. Long story made short, Ben was standing on top of a ride in truck we have in the back yard, Will shook it, Ben fell off and the back of his head met the propped open screen door, resulting in about a half inch gash in the back of his head. Stephanie has posted about it here, but since I'm the one who actually took Ben to be taken care of, I'll try to give my own, brief, summary.
  • I called the pediatrician who sent us to an urgent care center.
  • Ben and I went and Stephanie stayed home with the rest of the kids.
  • We checked in at 6:45 p.m. and did not go back into an exam room until around 8:15. Good thing the wound had pretty much stopped bleeding (thanks to Stephanie and the washcloth).
  • To entertain ourselves during that time, Ben and I read one of the two children's books in the waiting room and drawing on the chalk board along one wall.
  • Once we got in, it took another twenty minutes before the doctor came to see us.
  • He put six staples in to close the gash.
  • He had me hold Ben on my lap, facing me with his legs around me and his face in my chest. Ben did great; he was a trooper.
  • Because of how Ben was sitting, the wound was about five inches below my face. As a result, the doctor kept asking, as he cleaned and stapled the wound, "Are you doing all right dad?"
  • Yes, I was fine.
  • We were done right around 9:00 p.m.
  • As a reward for doing so great, I took Ben out to eat and get ice cream. Neither of us had had supper prior to coming.
    
  • Since I like Burger King better than McDonald's we went there first. After looking over the menu and not seeing anything to do with ice cream other than a shake, I walked up to the counter and asked the worker if they had ice cream. He looked at me and said, in a condescending tone, "No, we don't carry ice cream, that would be McDonalds." I told him thank you and we left.
  • At McDonalds, Ben decided he only wanted the ice cream and not a hamburger, so that's what he got.
  • Over the next few days we had to constantly remind Ben, and his siblings, to be careful with his head.
  • On Sunday afternoon, I took Ben back to the urgent care center and had the staples removed. Despite my wife's reservations (see her post), I could have done that myself and gotten an hour and a half of my life back.
    
• A few weeks ago I went by a gas station to fill up my truck as it was on empty. The gas cap was one of those kinds that has a key so that you can lock it to prevent theft of gas. If the locking mechanism (or rather the unlocking mechanism) breaks, it can prevent the owner from filling the tank with gas. That's what happened to me. Not only would it not unlock (which means that the cap just spins instead of coming undone), but, in my attempt to fix this issue, the whole gas cap came apart, leaving the piece in the fill pipe in place. And I could not budge it with my hands. So I had to drive home - it's a good thing it's less than a mile away. I had to use a pair of large channel pliers to remove the remaining piece. See the picture below of the pieces.
  
• Last month we decided to take one last family vacation before Sam was born. So we stayed in a Crown Plaza hotel in Connecticut and went to the Big E on our last day. We had a great time watching TV, ordering room service, swimming in the heated indoor pool and of course, attending the Big E. See Stephanie's posts here, here and here. I loved the swimming and watching the Discovery Channel (How's it made, Myth Busters, etc.) at the hotel. At the Big E I enjoyed the sheep shearing demonstration, the circus and hanging out with Indy (see picture below).
  
• It's taken me about seven hours to do this post, having worked around changing a diaper, getting peed on, go home to eat supper and pick up the family for a visit to the newest member and holding Sam.
  

Update 08/15/08

I'm just going to go for it, bullet style.

• Have you seen the latest on the Bigfoot front?
• Two weekends ago, we went to the Mystic Aquarium. Here's a link to the post my wife did about it. We had a very enjoyable time.
• This week has been a crazy, fast paced week. Lots of things going on and added to that, my manager is on vacation this week, so I'm covering for her. I'm glad it's Friday.
• During the summer, our local library has family nights on Tuesday. That's when they have some sort of activity or presentation for the kids, and their parents, to come to. We recently participated in two of them. The first was a presentation by a bee keeper. He had part of hive with one of the frames that had some of the bees wax on it showing the honeycomb structure. He also had a small jar of honey he had collected that day for us to sample. The boys thought it was better than the store bought honey. The second activity was a reptile show. A guy who raises and entertains with reptiles for a living came and talked to the kids about several different kinds of reptiles. He was very good. He taught them facts and allowed the kids to touch and interact with the reptiles.
  
• Sunday I gave Stephanie a break and took the kids on a bike ride. The boys each rode their little bikes (with training wheels) and wore their helmets and I hitched up the bike trailer to cart Ellie around. I also wore my helmet (teach by example). The boys did great at obeying me, which kept the stress level low. In our ride we hit two parks, with play time at each, and stopped to look at a large dump truck and front loader. We all had a good time, including Stephanie.
• I purchased new tires for my truck. It'll be nice to have some better traction this winter.
• My manager, since she was going away on vacation, decided that my work pager was an inadequate way for my senior manager to get a hold of me. So now I'm a not-so-thrilled possessor of a cell phone for my work. I doubt I'm the first one to use this phrase, but I call it my "electronic leash". Though, the plan it's on includes unlimited nights and weekends and unlimited calls to other Verizon users, so some of my friends to whom I have not talked to in a long while may be getting calls from me. Then again, maybe not. I'm not a big conversationalist, despite the fact that my sometimes lengthy posts may indicate the opposite.
• Last night I helped the kids put together a train track for our Thomas the Tank Engine wooden railway. Stephanie says they spent a good while this morning playing with it.
• I'm reading Mary Poppins to Will. Neither of the other kids seem interested. Will has really gotten into chapter books lately, which is great.
• On Wednesday, we went as a family to our local zoo for a members' night. Though it was only a couple of hours, we had a good time and had free freezer pops. These were not the best freezer pops but the kids loved them and had stained skin and clothes to prove it.
• Tonight, the boys wanted to wrestle, which means they climb all over me, then I wrap them up and tickle them. I offered to read to them but no, it had to be wrestling. It ended up being dress up wrestling. Will put on a hard hat and one of those fake big-nose-mustache-bushy-eyebrow-glasses disguises. Ben put on a fireman's hat, gloves, eye patch and a fireman's backpack (looks like the oxygen tanks but you really fill it with water and squirt it out though the attached hose and handle). Ellie wore an eye patch. Will gave me a hard hat to wear. So attired, we wrestled.
  

That's it. I'm coming up dry.

Heated Atmosphere And Containment Units

One of the advantages/disadvantages of having a wife who also blogs is that she may post about the same event in addition to my posts or before my posts on said event. The disadvantages are that she may have scooped the story on me or she may have already used the best pictures from the event. The advantages are that we can both tell the same story from different perspectives and it could save me time by not having to write the post but just point my readers to her post, which is the advantage I'm taking advantage of tonight.

Now you're probably wondering what the title of the post has to do with with my ramblings above. The answer is, very little, except to link you over to her post on our family's visit to a hot air balloon festival.

Comment Responses

I doubt I need to state the obvious, but it's been a while since I posted. In an attempt to get a post out so that people know I'm still alive, I'm taking the lazy way out. I'm going to respond to comments made in the past few months. Some of them I may already have responded to with another comment, but not as an official post. So here goes.

• Big Doofus, a couple of weeks ago I created my Linkedin account, per your suggestion. Thanks.
• Dawn, you are correct, we are crazy for having a fourth, but it's a good kind of crazy, I think.
• Scott, I had Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie for the free cone day.
• Marc, maybe in a couple of years we can come and visit y'all in Wales, and you and I can take a day to strap the jet powered wings onto our backs.
  
• Mr. E, unfortunately I was never able to make it to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Bummer.
• Re: Mary Poppins. It was a mixed bag as far as the kids response to it. Will took to it most but had the most questions, of course. Ben was quickly bored with it. Ellie in the middle. Though they do occasionally sing a bit of "A spoonful of sugar" or "Supercali.....", you know that big long word you can say but not spell (at least I cannot).
• Mr. E, if you guys are ever coming up this way, let us know.
• Mom, you are correct, back in high school I would never have thought I would do a lot of the things I've done as a parent, including wiping a bottom with my bare hand.
• Mr. E, thanks for the book recommendations. I'll have to add those to my list. Now I just need to get through the dozens of books I've purchased but never read yet.
• Stephanie, you're welcome for the day off. But don't count your chicks before they hatch. Next year's not a done deal yet. Four kids, with one under one, may be a show stopper.
• Big Doofus, the zoo we went to is the Roger Williams Park Zoo.
• Mom, I think we have the "What's so amazing about Grace?" book. I think it's one of my unread ones.
  

Tech Daddy Predicts

I'm sure many of you have already read the incredible story of the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and several other hostages from the FARC guerrillas. If not, I've included a couple of links to news sites at the bottom of this post and I encourage you to read them.

This is such a great true story and I'm predicting that one or more books will be written about it and a movie will be made about it.

What say you?

Article 1
Article 2

My Summer Vacation

This summer my family and I went to New Hampshire for vacation...

Sorry, I lapsed back into my elementary years, writing the ubiquitous "What I did this summer" essay. Now that I'm an adult, and since this is my blog, I don't have to worry about following all the rules of grammar and I can use bullet points (yeah!).

I'm going to do a single post on our vacation. My wife on the other hand, is dedicating a whole post for each day. So go over to her blog for fuller details. I'll list the links to each post as they become available (enter the above mentioned bullet points).

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
  

One problem with my wife getting a jump start on the vacation post is that she's been free to pick any of the pictures that she wants. Now I have to sort through the left overs so as not to duplicate the pictures for those of you who read both blogs (but they are good left overs). Well, on to the essay...

Monday was spent preparing and packing. Anticipating all the luggage that our family of five would need to cart to New Hampshire, I installed our roof-top luggage carrier on the van. By bed time, everything was ready to be packed into the van. I also printed off directions, prices and times for the various activities we were interested in, and I used a three-hole punch and put them all in a nice neat binder. For those who know me well, I'm sure this is quite a surprise. Stephanie was pleased to have an organized binder rather than to be handed a bunch of loose sheets of paper. Who said old dawgs can't occasionally do new things?

We awoke Tuesday morning to the fact that it had been raining during the night but was now trickling off. After a quick breakfast, I proceeded to pack that van. Due to my superb van packing skills and my wife's superb suitcase packing skills, I was able to fit all of our stuff in the van, without having to use the roof-top carrier. So while the family sat in the van waiting to leave, I took it off. I could have seen out of the back a little easier, and we would have been a little less crowded in the van, if I had put some items in the carrier. However, since physics was my favorite subject in high school, I knew the following equation to be true:

((roof-top carrier + van) x wind resistance x ($3.93/gallon)) > (van x wind resistance x ($3.93/gallon))

In other words, it was going to cost me more mullah to use the roof-top carrier if I didn't need to.

After a stop at the post office, the bank and Wal-Mart, we were off. The trip up to New Hampshire was fairly uneventful, except for the multiple bathroom breaks including the panic stop at the side of the road for a boy who declared that he needed to go potty, which, in his parlance, means "I've reached critical mass and it's going to come out soon, no matter where I am, so you better get me to where you would want it to come out ASAP." After arriving in Twin Mountain, checking in and unloading, we proceeded to settle in and have a light supper. We enjoyed smores thanks to the fireplace in the living room.

On Wednesday, we went to the Lost River Gorge. We ate lunch before enjoying a beautiful hike up and down, in and out of rocks and over the river. There were waterfalls to look at and caves to be explored. I had brought along a flashlight, which was not needed in most of the caves. However, in the Cave Of Shadows, I pulled it out and shone it around. I was glad I did. Water ran through the cave and made a lot of noise, however, due to the darkness, you could not see, without the aid of the flashlight, that waterfall at the back of the cave that was the source of the water.

At the bottom of the Lost River Gorge


This is actually looking down from the top of a approx. 40-foot waterfall

Will and Ben on the boardwalk

After we finished with the Lost River, we went on another hike through the woods on a trail that left the parking lot where we were. We then proceeded back to the cottage for a brief rest before venturing out to hunt down dinner. Dinner was obtained at Fabyan's Station Restaurant and Lounge, which is located in an old railroad station that sits by some still existent tracks.

On Thursday, we ate an early lunch and then drove to North Conway and rode on the Conway Scenic Railroad for an hour. That was fun and the scenery was beautiful, however, according to Will, the train did not go fast enough. After that was done, we headed back to Twin Mountain via the Kangamangus highway, enjoying beautiful scenery and stop beside the river to throw rocks, sticks, leaves and anything else loose that was not too heavy for the kids to pick up. We stopped at a pizza place in Lincoln at the end of the Kanc.

A couple of the engines

Will and Ben on the platform

On Friday, we packed lunch and headed out to find some waterfalls and do some hiking. The first falls were only about a quarter mile walk from the parking area. Because of that, we decided to leave the diaper bag in the van, a decision that I would later come to regret. The falls were more of a steep series of rapids but they were still fun to throw things in.

The falls


Ben, at the end of a throw


Stephanie, keeping Ellie safe

Will, looking for ammunition to launch into the river

The fun was interrupted by the announcement by Will that he needed to go poopy. I briefly panicked - we're out in the woods away from civilized facilities and we had climbed down the bank of the river to get closer to the water, so the actual trees were probably too far to make it (see comments on the emergency pee pee stop above). Then the answer came to mind - we were standing beside running water, take him a few steps down stream and let him give back to nature. So that's what I did. I grab him up, stepped across the top of some rocks that were down stream of where we were playing, stood him up, pulled down his pants, and had him squat. He did really well for not having a seat to support him. The only problem was that the poopy was very runny, not the nice firm kind I was hoping for that would allow us to dress him and take him back to the van to be cleaned up. Nope. Not to be. You cannot pull his underwear up over that without necessitating a change of clothes.

Oh for the diaper bag. Stephanie offered to go back and get it, but that would be at least a five to ten minute ordeal. So I took the hit, as only a dad of three kids could. Yes, I used the water and my hand to wipe my son's bottom. Ewww. But you gotta do what you gotta do. For some reason, even though I thoroughly rinsed my hand in the river, Stephanie did not want to hold my hand after that until I had cleaned with wipes and Germ-X once we were back at the van.

On the road leading away from those falls, Stephanie, with her sharp eyes, spied a beaver lodge in a little pond beside the road. That was cool.

Beaver lodge

Gnawed through tree

The next falls were located beside the road. It was a short walk up to the pool at the bottom of them. The pictures don't do them justice. The water volume was not much but they started off way up the ridge. Once again, the boys enjoyed pitching things into the water. We had lunch in the parking lot opposite the falls.

The Silver Cascades


The kids and I in front of the pool


Stephanie in front of the pool

Splash!

The last falls were a little over a half a mile hike away but the hike was definitely that. We had borrowed an backpack child carrier from a co-worker of mine, so we put Ellie in that for this one. She enjoys riding in it - I do the work and she enjoys the view. It was a great help, we could not have done this hike without it. There was a lot of up on the way in, several muddy stretches of path to negotiate and one small stream to cross. The falls were quite pretty and worth the exertion. On the way out, Ellie fell asleep in the carrier - what a sweetie.

Ellie and I at the beginning of the hike


The Ripley Falls


The family resting at the falls


We're on our way out


Fording the stream


Ellie and I near the end of the hike. She's exhausted from the hike...

That night we ate at a local establishment in Twin Mountain. More smores were had back at the cottage. And of course there was packing to do.

Saturday morning it was once again rainy but that's OK since we were just traveling home. The weather had been beautiful the three full days we were there, which was a blessing from God and an answer to prayer. The trip home was even less uneventful than the trip up. We all had a great time. The scenery was beautiful and the company was the best. The only thing that we had hoped for but did not happen was to have a good moose sighting. (Stephanie and I had a brief glimpse on Tuesday but the kids were not tall enough).

Update 06/09/08

The post about our vacation will be coming, I promise, sometime fairly soon. Meanwhile, I thought I'd give a brief update on this past weekend.

On Saturday we attended the wedding of some friends. It was a small gathering, which made it nice in that we knew a good percentage of the people. The ceremony was held outside in a pretty little garden spot that was, thankfully, in the shade (Saturday and Sunday were in the 90's). The wedding was at 10:30 a.m, followed by pictures and then the reception - sit down lunch and dancing afterwards. The boys were a lot of fun to watch on the dance floor, they "danced" even when no one else was out there. The whole family had a great time. Congratulations Brandon and Kat! Thanks for inviting us.

After the boys finished tearing up the dance floor, we drove home, arriving just before 3:00 p.m., changed clothes and went across the street to the birthday party of Samantha, who is Will's age (5). They had a great big inflatable bouncy castle which all the kids loved and got hot and sweaty on. There was stuff to dress up in, Snow White was doing make up on the girls and tattoos on the boys and things to dress up in. The kids had a great time.

Then it was home for a bath before bed - no need for supper with all the food eaten and the boys having enjoyed cake on two occasions during the day. The bath cleaned off all the sweat and grime, leaving the bath water with a good brown tinge.

On Sunday we went to church as normal, went to On the Border for lunch and home for naps. I broke out the fans to try and cool us off - we were resisting turning on the A/C as we like our rather low electric bill. Then we sat around a laptop and watched Mary Poppins, the first time for all the kids. Supper followed, then some play and then bed time.

Thus ends our tale. It was a good weekend for all, except for the heat. The A/C did get turned on today in the afternoon as the thermometer outside reached close to 97 degrees. Some things are just worth paying for.

Home Again

We are home again from our vacation to New Hampshire. We had a great time. The weather was beautiful, as was the scenery - thank you God. I'll post more details later; I'm a bit tired now.

Icarus Would Be Jealous

This looks like a lot of fun to me. Anyone else like to try it besides me?

Brain Dump - 05/18/08

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted, so this is just going to be a brain dump of things, in no logical order.

• To answer Scott's question in a comment on my last post, I had the Chocolate Fudge Brownie at Ben & Jerry's. I normally get the Phish Food, but they were out. What's up with that? Free Cone Day did not start until noon and we went through the practically non-existent line at 12:20, and they were out?! I think my wife was right in her opinion - they didn't have any at the start of the day.
• Last Saturday, I got the pile of leaves carted off to the compost facility. Yeah! Now what to do with that big patch of dirt where the grass died of sun light deprivation while waiting for me to remove the leaves?
• This morning, the boys were up before we were. Usually they are pretty good. Not this morning. Stephanie was doing the Sunday School at church this morning. For snack time she had a bag (opened) of miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. When I got up, I discovered Ben putting the bag of Peanut Butter Cups back in the Sunday School bag. He had a ring of chocolate around his mouth. At the same time Will was in the bathroom washing off his face. Caught red handed or chocolate mouthed in Ben's case. The trash can in the kitchen had a large number of wrappers in it. Stephanie looked at the bag and estimates that they ate about half of it. Will was very pleased with how sneaky he and Ben had been. They both got a lecture and as a consequence of their indulgence, they did not get to have any Peanut Butter Cups during snack time at church. Added to the chocolate decadence, I found sugar on the counter around the sugar bowl and on the floor below it. There was sugar stuck to the sugar spoon. Will confirmed my suspicion, they had been eating sugar with the spoon. What puts these ideas in these boys heads?
• We went to a party of one of the boys' friends. It was at a bowling alley. We had not taken the kids bowling before. Only the kids played, except for those of us adults who were assisting our kids - we got to bowl, sort of. Will did ok. We've got to work on get a little more force behind the roll. Ben got upset after his first time up and so did not play for about half the game. Ellie bowled in his place. She had a great time. I did most of the work for her. She was able to lift the six pound balls off of the rack, though her toes had a few close calls. Ben finally decided he wanted to bowl some more and did almost as good as Will. In fact, he knocked all ten pins down once, for a spare.
• I've gotten the front yard and half the back yard mowed between rain showers. Even weeds look better mowed.
• The pollen is driving my sinuses crazy. Over the counter allergy medicine makes life tolerable but not great. When I walk out of work in the evenings, I can feel my nasal passages filling with mucus, my throat starting to swell and my eyes start watering and itching. My nose feels like a stuck a dandelion under it and inhaled the spoors deeply. Not fun. Isn't it amazing the mucus producing capabilities which God built into our bodies? You can blow your nose clear and less than a minute later, they are stopped up again. Ok, enough of that, running on to the next item.
• One day I was taking my lunch time walk at work. My normal route takes me on a road behind the library that is adjacent to my office building. On this day, there were two middle aged lady librarians taking their lunch break playing catch. I thought that was great - it did not fit with the stereotype image I had of lady librarians, a la movies like "The Music Man".
  
• We decided to introduce the kids to musicals. So the past two weekends, the family has gathered around the laptop to watch "Singin' in the Rain" the first weekend and "The Sound of Music" this weekend. These were mainly for Will since he's the artsy one but Ellie enjoyed them too. Ben, not as much. Neither could hold his attention for the whole time, though he did not get up and leave, just got fidgety. "Singin' in the Rain" was preferred over "The Sound of Music" by Will, mainly because the story moved along a faster clip, it was shorter and the signing and dancing were more energetic. He and been have sporadically been singing the title song and the "Good Morn'n" song.
• For my birthday, I choose to get money and purchased myself an MP3 player along with accessories (case, car FM transmitter and charger, etc.). Yes, I finally decided to take that step into this century. After research, I choose the SanDisk Sansa e280. It's an 8 GB flash based MP3 player. I ordered it on line, so it had to be shipped. While it was on it's way, I began to rip my CD collect to our laptop. For ripping CDs, I decided to use a free ware application called MediaMonkey instead of Windows Media Player. The main reason for this is MediaMonkey allows me to rips CDs to MP3 files using a variable bit rate. Basically this makes the best use of space while still allowing the music to sound decent. I also found a music site, SpiralFrog, which allows you to down load WMA music files for free. It's advertisement supported. You have to renew your subscription, and licenses, every 30 days, but that seems to be a reasonable price to pay for free music. There's practically no Christian music, which is a bummer. However, I have found plenty to download, such as Chuck Berry, George Stait, and Glenn Miller. Does anyone have other good music download sites that are 1) legal and 2) cheap or free (preferably the latter). At present, I have over 1200 songs on the Sansa, with about half the space used.
• The last bullet point was getting long, so I decided to go to a new bullet for this next point even though it is related to the Sansa. Once I received the Sansa, the first thing I did was to update the firmware. What a pain, initially! I downloaded the officially firmware updater utility and ran it, multiple times. Every time it would download the firmware (the progress bar attesting that it was doing such) only to display an error at the end stating the files could not be downloaded. I ended up reading some of the user forums and found out you could do the firmware update manually. I downloaded the zip file from the link provided, extracted the firmware files, moved them over to the the root directory of the Sansa, disconnected the Sansa and viola, the player updated the firmware. Easy as pie, once you got there. I still think it's terrible that the company's updater does not work enough times that the support forums have the update procedure as a sticky post.
• This past Saturday morning, I took Ben with me to have the oil changed and the tires rotated on the mini-van, at a 7:30 a.m. appointment. I had planned to take Ben, assuming he was up by then. He was. He's usually an early bird. Surprisingly, Will got up too before we left. An even a bigger surprise is that Will did not mind in the least that I was only taking Ben with me. In the past this would have cause temper tantrum. I was very pleasantly surprise and told Will that I appreciated that and was proud of him. Ben enjoying watching the mechanics put the mini-van on the lift and the rotating of the tires.
• I only have one more week of work before vacation. The last week of May we are going up to New Hampshire for four days, where we rented a cabin. I'm very excited. We have not been on a vacation that did not involve visiting with family (as much as I love them) since before our eldest was born. This will be just us. We are planning on doing mostly nature things such as hiking and exploring caves, though we are also planning on riding on a train pulled by a steam locomotive. Giving work my full attention this next week will be hard.
• On this coming Tuesday, we are going as a family for "THE" ultrasound. You know, the one where you find out if the baby's wardrobe should be blue or pink.
• Now that the weather is warmer, we've been able to start grilling. Yum. Not much beats a fresh hamburger off of the grill.
• We've also been able to go for some walks after supper. Well, Stephanie, Ellie and I have walked. The boys ride their bikes. We had saved some of Ben's birthday money so that we could upgrade his tricycle to a bicycle (with helmet). Both boys are doing good and look soo big riding on their bikes (albeit with training wheels) with their helmets.
• Last Sunday I was able to participate in the ordination ceremony of our pastor and friend Andy. It was a privilege. The ceremony was low key - it was a ratification of what we all knew and operated according to - that Andy is gifted and called by God to be in ministry. He and his wife have been in collegiate ministry for about 10 years in Rhode Island, with the addition of pastoring in the past couple of years or so.
• The boys and I got hair cuts yesterday.
• One day in the past couple of weeks, Stephanie called me up at work, sounding as if she were about to cry. Ben had cut Ellie's hair. It was a good thing for him that she could not find the exact spot but could only see the loose hair evidence. Then his luck turned bad when she discovered, while on the phone with me, that he had also cut Ellie's new shirt. He is still alive, in case your wondering.

Ok, that's it for me, for now. My brain is now empty.

Update - 05/03/08

Yes, I'm still alive. Just been busy.

Last Friday one of my best friends, Mike, flew into town for his grandmother's 90th birthday. He stayed Friday and Saturday night with us. It was good to visit with him. For Friday lunch, we met our friend Andy at Pizza Hut for the lunch buffet and that evening the three of us went to a second run theater and watched National Treasure: Book of Secrets. It was an entertaining movie and prompted me to do some research into some of the "facts" stated in the movie to find out how much of it was truly fact and how much was fiction.

It has rained several days this week, including most of this morning. I was hoping to get the pile of leaves in the back yard taken to the recycle center today, but because of the rain, that did not happen. It was also rainy on Tuesday, which was free cone day at Ben & Jerry's. I met my family and some friends at the local Ben & Jerry's store at lunch to take advantage of this event. Due to the rain, there was practically no line and it did not extend out of the door, which was great.

That's pretty much all that stands out in my mind for the past two weeks.

Update - 04/18/08

Just a quick update for tonight.

• The weather this week has been beautiful. Thank you God.
• Work has been slow. I have a project starting up on the 28th but for now I spend a lot of time staring at the monitor, trying to figure out what to do. Today I finally brought in a couple of "teach yourself" books from home that I have not picked up in a while. This will count toward the required 40 hours of training per year.
• With the weather being so nice, I've been able to get some yard work done a couple of evenings this week - raking leaves. I've also filled in some holes in the back yard that the boys have dug. It looks like we have a dog! No matter how many times I've told them to only dig in the old flower bed behind the garage, they just keep digging other places. The biggest hole that they have dug is under the gate to the back yard. I'm not sure if they were planning their great escape or not. Since they did not just pile the dirt nicely beside the hole (that would be too easy) but spread it across the yard, I had to take dirt from the old flower bed in order to fill the cavity under the gate. Now the old flower bed really won't be growing much this year.