The more things change...

They say, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." One of the upsides to getting older is you get to see more of the style cycles repeat themselves. (Personally, I can't wait for acid washed Jeans to make a come-back.) But today, I got to see my daughter sport a sweet pair of Pink Chuck Taylor Converse Tennies. Aren't they tubular?

In other news, I have been itching to do some woodworking/building... just to keep my hands busy. I love working with woods, and it's been a while since I made anything. I decided to see what was out there on the web in terms of CAD software, (that stands for Computer Aided Drafting for you newbs)... yeah, do remember that I used to be a mechanical engineer. Well I was not too surprised when I saw that Google had a free app called SketchUp. Amazing, easy, intuitive. It's incredible the tools that are avilable for free these days. Im like additicted to it now, making shapes, listening to Gn'R, and stimulating my upper right cerebral cortex. I forgot how much I like to design stuff.

Anyhow, if you guys are ever looking for good free software, check Google first, they have almost everything and it's usually really easy.

Tomorrow Jen and Katie each have seperate parties to go to, so Andy and I are going to be banished to 'who knows where' -- I'm totally pumped about the randomness and unplanned nature of the upcoming afternoon. I'm sure I'll have a good story.

Nighttime Narnia

I've been reading the kid's the Narnia books. A chapter a night. We are alomst done with the second and most famous "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." I bought them the collection for Christmas. They are really great, I forgot how much I liked the stories as I haven't read them for about 30 years. The english dialogue is a little tough to work sometimes, but I usually just replace some of the antiquated words with stuff the kids can understand. I'm getting a lot out of it myself too, symbolisim, themes that I couldn't comprehend in the younger years. If anyone wants to borrow the book(s) when we are done, let me know.

Checkers anyone?

The kids have been playing Checkers. I almost forgot how to play it, it's been so long. It's so funny to watch their faces as they try to pick their moves. One thing is for sure, they NEVER see it coming when they get jumped. The first couple times they would freak-out when they would lose a piece. But now they have bent the rules in the name of harmony -- yesterday I walked in and saw Katie and Andy randomly "kinging" each other whenever someone got jumped. Hey, whatever works.

Hula Bowl

Today Katie and I went bowling with our Adventure Guides program. It was a hula theme so we tried to dress accordingly. It was pretty funny to see how a group of girls approached bowling. There was a lot of focus on what color ball you had, and then they would all sit in little circles on the area where you are supposed to 'approach' the lane and socialize -- while confused fathers would try to keep the pace of the game going.

It definitely got a little competitive for Katie as she focused on her score vs. the other girl in our lane. It was a good thing she was focusing on the other girl, cause she whooped me by 22 points. In fact, pretty much all the 6-year old girls beat me today... yes, it's true, I bowled a 75.

It's pretty impressive actually, considering I was trying AND the bumpers were up. It was like a bad voodoo curse or something. I was worried about being mocked until I realized that all the dads in our group sucked at bowling too, just not quite as bad as me. I started to feel really guilty when I realized there were trophies to be won and it was based on combined father/daughter score. Katie came up with a 97 (in case you are bad at math) and I was very proud of her -- but I completely wrecked her chances at winning anything. Mommy is the bowling champ of the family, maybe she can pinch-bowl for me next time.

Fall 2008 Slideshow

We took ooooodles of photos this last couple months. Here's the montage, music compliments of Green Day.

Enjoy.

FALL 2008 SLIDESHOW

Supermom

Jennifer has been going about a zillion miles an hour recently. Teaching, mothering, being a good wife, managing the house... she's like a soccer-mom on steroids. Yesterday I come into the kitchen and finder her tying ribbons to pine-cones. (I see this and I'm thinking to myself, "Don't ask, or it's going to be you tying those ribbons.") Instead I decided to take a picture of my crafty little wife as she was preparing a couple dozen of these bird feeder projects for Katie's daisy troop.

I didn't realize that she was saving the real fun work for me, and soon I found myself drilling about 200 holes into old tennis ball cans for another planting project.

Katie was sick today, but she's doing OK. She's got a wicked cold and we kept her home from school. I think she found the experience pretty dull as she got to see what mom and dad do when she's not around, which is basically work. She asked if she was going to school tomorrow and I told her, "we'll see how you feel." To which she responded, "I hope I get better cause it's boring here."

Grassy Heads and a new Pres

So Nana got us a couple of these chia-type things. (I guess this is the Millennium version with recycled coconut husks or something.) but the premise is basically the same: water the little brown balls-heads and they grow grassy hair. Kinda weird, but definitely fun. The kids have been enjoying checking on them daily. I think Katie is a little self-conscious or something cause she keeps asking if she can cut the 'hair' on hers (hers is the right one.)

On another note: big day for the ol USA today with Obama getting sworn in on the heels of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I spent a lot of time during the day thinking about it, and most of that was considering if I would try and explain the event to Katie this evening. I was wrestling with the idea of tainting her innocence with the ugly concept of inequality and civil rights. I mean, shes going to learn about it soon enough, and part of me wants to let her live without that ugliness in her sweet little brain for as long as possible. The other part of me wanted to use the occasion to address the subject and hopefully reinforce the importance of the issue and the event.

I finally decided on the latter. I probed at first and it turns out that she watched the inauguration in school, and had a pretty firm grasp of who King was and what he did, from their discussion. Once again, kids always know more than you think. We talked it through and I was left feeling pretty happy about the idea that our kids might actually live in world that is better than the one we started in.

You know, you hear these words like equality and liberty everyday, and often don't recognize that we still have a lot of work to do in order to live up to the amazing ideals set forth by our forefathers. We are such a young country with such a radical charter. No one has ever tried to do this kind of stuff before. I end the day feeling an increased sense of personal responsibility, hope, and faith in the promise of our children. Good job today America.

Bike Ride

Today we decided to take a bike ride. Normally we just pedal around out in front of the house, up and down the street. Today was different, in that we put the bikes in the car and drove to a place that had a nice sloping downward paved trail, about 1/2 mile long, near the house. Jen dropped me and the kids off at the head, and the plan was that we would call for a pick-up once we reached to bottom.

It was a beautiful day, clear, sunny, warm. However, none of these factors seemed to matter to Andy who decided that it was perfect weather for a complete meltdown. As soon as we had made it about 100' into the ride, Andy started crying.

"My legs hurt!"
"My hands hurt!"
"This helmet itches my head!"
"I'm hungry!"
"I'm too tired to coast!"
"The road is too bumpy!"
"This is too fast!"
"You're pushing me too fast!"
"I want to go home!"

All of these lines were screamed and repeated with accompanying tears, while I pushed Andy on his bike at about 1 mile-per-hour. To make matters worse, he kept the brakes on full the entire time. So basically, it was like this: Katie would ride back and forth like a saint, while I would ride my bike 100 feet, get off, come back and push Andy (who refused to pedal at all) until we got to my bike: rinse and repeat.

You should have seen the people's faces as they passed us going the other way. The non-parents that passed wondered if he was OK, and the parents just looked at me with genuine pity. I stayed pretty 'Zen' about the whole thing and didn't get angry at him, it was my idea after all. I tried to remind myself of some of the tantrums that I had pulled when I was a kid and how my parents handled it. Honestly, he was so totally over-the-top on the dramatics that I had to keep from giggling to myself occasionally, when considering the amount of effort he was putting into being miserable.

We finally made it to the end of the trail. When Andy saw the park at the final destination, he all of a sudden transformed into a normal kid and began to pedal and enjoy himself. The last 2 minutes of the ride were what I had hoped we would have experienced from the beginning: the three of use riding along side each other, smiling in the sun.

We called mommy for the pick-up. We waited for rescue and the kids enjoyed some PB&Js with a few Snickers bars, while Daddy enjoyed the silence and the shade.

Old School Gaming

Before today's post, I must take care of the cliff-hanger loose-end I left in the last post. What was so miserable about Sunday? Well the Chargers got knocked-out of course. Twas a sad day in San Diego after the improbable streak that led the bolts to the second round of the play-offs. But such is the way of the Charger fan.

On to today.

Long, ago, in a land before microchips, Mario, and HD, we used to entertain ourselves by sitting around the kitchen table and playing classic board games. This year we decided to beef-up our board-game collection and get back to the basics of good wholesome family fun at the hands of legends such as "Sorry, Monopoly, and Operation". There is something that makes me feel really good inside when I open our closet and see all these old games. Maybe it's the nostalgia of it all, or maybe it's the anticipation of knowing that each of these simple boxes hold the promise of a lot of great family interaction and important life lessons.

While video games are awesome for quick thinking and problem solving skills, they definitely can't match the old board games when it comes to basic strategy and interpersonal dynamics. The kids are learning quite a bit in terms of thinking about the ramifications of your moves (a little thing I like to call strategy), and also about sportsmanship. We typically play one every other night. Usually its a lot of fun until one person starts to become the favorite to win, and then the tears usually start on the other side of the table.

I have been compensating for the "I'm gonna lose blues" by using a technique my father used to use on me when I was a kid. We used to play chess, and I was miserable -- so most times we would get to a stage where I was heading for tears at the sight of my decimated situation. My dad, being the clever, patient and kind man that he was, would simply turn the board 180 degrees and viola, I was winning!

Instinctively, Kids care a whole lot more about winning than they do about playing the game.

So I try to employ this with Katie and Andy when things get grim on their side of the board. Amazingly, it still works!

Gone Fishin'

Apparently I'm beginning my black-and-white artistic period. It's January, and I think the spirit of Ansel Adams is haunting my photo editor.

Andy got this neat-o Spiderman fishing rod for Christmas from Nana. Unfortunately, it didn't work when opened. So this weekend I spent some time tinkering with it to try and return it to operating splendor. My first discovery was that I now need some kind of visual enhancement tool to do work on tiny things. I was like, "Man, these guys use really really skinny fishing line!" It didn't take long for me to realize that old-age had insidiously played yet another trick on me... yes yes, I needed my glasses. I had gotten a pair for reading a few years ago, but I have always been able to just squint-it-out when I had too. Not this time. Grrrrr, damn you eyeballs! I was ready to poke them out in the name of insubordination.

Actually it's only one eye that has gone bad, my right one. So after I felt that I had sufficiently reprimanded my eye (and gave it ample time to beg for forgiveness) I resumed my fishing pole repair. I am happy to report that the operation was a success. Apparently the boys over at Spiderman Fihsin Pole headquarters are gettin' a little slack on the QC process. I'll spare you any more of this tedious detail, but it wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed with some sweat, a pair of pliers, and one good eye.

So we tied a little rubber fish to the line and spent the afternoon casting at shadow targets in the back-yard. I was an amazing day here in San Diego. To call it 'clear' would be an insult to Mother Nature. It almost felt like the first day of spring coming in January, and the colors were vivid, the air was warm. The contrast against the gray-ness of the last month motivated us to go up to the top of Mnt. Soledad and take a gander at the 360 degree panorama. Once we had soaked-in all the beauty we could hold, we headed back to the house for some more fishing and other general goofing around.

All-in-all a pretty perfect Saturday.

Sunday, well that was another story...

Christmas Photos and Picassa

If you haven't yet tried Picassa Web Albums, you should check it out. Yet another awesome free app from Google. I just found out they were automatically cataloging my Blogger photos for easy sharing. You can see I have added an integrated slide-show into the blog based on this functionality.

Anyhow, I am uploading a bunch of Christmas photos to Picassa for you guys to check out if you are interested. Let me know if you can see em...

Christmas 08 Web Album on Picassa

BOO!

Tonight I was sitting in my den, working on my computer. It was about 5:30, and the kids were clerarly getting antsy waiting for me to finish in the office so I could come join them for the nightly routine.

Have you ever noticed that you often don't notice when little things change for better?

For example, when you have a cold, and the symptoms slowly go away until you are well again -- but you don't really recall the exact moment when you felt better? Or when you are really tired and you drink some coffee, and later you are wide awake but you arent exactly sure when it happened?

...or when some irritating background noise (like kids being a little too loud) transitions to gentle silence?

Back to the forshadowed intro: so I was sitting in my Den, and that noise had gone from loud to quiet, but I didn't really notice. When all of a sudden...

"BOO!!!"

My heart leaps out of my chest, I jerk like I had just stuck my finger in an electrical socket, and I turn around half terrified, half furious -- only to find my daughter with her hands raised like a clawing tiger, giggling maniacly.

I was SO stunned that it took a few seconds for me to appreciate the experience. Something inside me wanted to yell, "DON'T EVER DO THAT!" But after I realized that I hadn't actually died from fright (combined with the look on my daughter's face), I found myself beginning to laugh too.

After I regained my composure, I assured Katie that I would extract sweet revenge when she least expected it. Her eyeballs got real big and the smile quickly went away as she contemplated my capabilities.

Now I wonder, is being startled worse than worrying about being startled? More on this later...

Happy Birthday Jennifer

Mommy had a birthday yesterday!

Dosen't she look great for 29?

We went to Corvette Diner to celebrate on Sunday. Was a lot of fun, the kid's loved the 50s atmosphere, especially how the sassy waitresses threw piles of straws and bubblegum at the patrons while we were eating. The kids got some cool baloon animals. Mommy got sang to and sufficiently embarrassed. Daddy got a PEANUT BUTTER and bacon hamburger -- they were offering a money back guarantee on it so I decided to take the risk, I have to say it was amazing and I will definitely try a home-cooked version of it in the kitchen-lab soon.

Afterward we walked over to this cool little leatherbound bookstore and we were very pleased to find that they had just expanded thier selection so mommy did a little shopping and picked out a couple new volumes for the collection, including "The Wizard of Oz".

When we got home, we feasted on the Ex-Bake-Oven-made cake that the kids and I had prepared earlier in the day. You can see in the picture that the 'slices' were about 1"x1"! Not the biggest cake, but it was made with a lot of love baby.

Jennifer, you are a beautiful and classy lady. You get more awesome with every year. We are lucky to have you and we thank you for everything you do for us!

Christmas Report

Well, we are back after a long break for the holidays. It is really hard to get excited about going back to work. Looking at my email today was not a good feeling at all. But we must take-on the new year with gusto, so they tell me.

We had a great time visiting family in Colorado. It was cold, but not snowy, and just enough white stuff on the ground to make it feel like Christmas. There were a ridiculous amount of presents to be opened and the kids got so much stuff we had to leave a bunch of it in Colorado, to be delivered on the next grandma/grandpa visit to San Diego.

It was also a tough year for some of us as we had a number of losses this year in the family. There were some heavy moments for me when I looked around and could not avoid noticing those who were not there with us, for the first time. But with loss comes appreciation for what we do have, and we sure have a lot to be thankful for.



Like my sister and her family... Got to see TL and Woody's new house. It was awesome, and they took us to see buffaloes (sp?), and all kinds of other fun activities. We celebrated Megan's birthday, went swimming, went to the park, visited cousin Mike's family. It was great to be close with you guys. Hope we can make that happen again very soon.



We were also fortunate to spend much time with Chris, Joanna, and Nica. They made this amazing 12-course Polish dinner for us on Christmas eve. We opened presents together on Christmas morning. Nica is so beautiful and smart and growing up fast. All of this was of course surrounded by the opulent meals and decorations of Miss Kari and Grandpa Dick.



As for details on the presents, I think American Girl was the theme of choice for Katie this year. Reminds me of Cabbage Patch Kids. For Andy, it was Batman. If you notice the first picture in this post, you'll see that Santa came to visit us this year, in person! It was quite a surprise I can assure you, as he happened to be next door and offered to come inside to see Katie and Andy on Christmas eve. He promised to come back with the presents after they were asleep. The kids were spellbound and more excited than I think I have ever seen them. Katie couldn't believe that Santa would pay her a personal visit and felt sure that she had indeed been good this year if he would take time out of his schedule to come see her on such a busy day.



In terms of gift creativity, I think Jen wins the award for coolest vintage gift. It's no secret that Grandpa Dick is not a easy kid to shop for, and his daughter decided to go on Ebay and find a 1973 donut making machine. (Apparently grandpa used to make all kinds of donuts back in the days of young-Jennifer.) As you can tell by the picture, she hit a clear home-run. Grandpa had it fired-up and working the very next day.

Ill post some more details in the days to come. Happy new year everyone, good fortune, good health, and good love to you all.