It works!
One of the dance pads is built, and it works! It's even going to be somewhat pretty! Cool.What doesn't work is me tidying up stuff. I tried to put the front porch into order, but i failed. Big time. Maybe my failure is because i have Weird Stomach Problems and Feeling Dizzy And Tired thing. I'll be better tomorrow.
Thursday and Friday
Yesterday i finished up the lights on the scooter, which also meant i drove around a lot. A lot more than necessary, since it was such a nice day. Then i cruised with the Grand Rapids Scooter Club. That was fun. There was much rejoicing at how the LEDs look on my scooter. I'm very proud. The thing is, my little scooter is really, really nice, but we're too poor for me to do any expensive mechanical upgrades. My pipe is stock, the variator (the bit of the transmission which does the shifting) is all worn out, and all the fancy tricks people do to make their scooters faster hasn't been done to mine. But lights, lights are CHEAP! And the only thing i had to spend putting them in was time! Lots. Which i could afford, since i'm SO LONELY and need stuff to take my mind of things.
Today i started to build the dance pads. I will post pictures, someday. I think. Yeah, i'll have to. They're really cool looking so far. Karen will be happy! And i ate today. And i'm super tired, because my allergies are KILLING ME and i took some Benadryl. I was mowing Beth's lawn today and was sneezing so hard that i was laughing at myself. Ker CHOOO, i would go, and jerk all over so much that the lawnmower lifted into the air. And then, moments later, i'd have the DEEP BREATH thing one's body does to prepare, my chest quivering because they're trying to exceed maximum capacity, and then, BOOOOOOM, out comes another sneeze. My ribs hurt from sneezing. Ow.
So i think i'll go to bed before midnight. :)
Wednesday
We make the kids at work write a journal every day, and it has to be a page long, preferably detailing some feelings they experienced in the day and how they dealt with them. Well, yesterday a kid wrote an entire nearly-two-page journal about Magic The Gathering, which is a geeky card game. He wrote about decks and strategies, so i asked him if he thought about Magic when he's waiting to fall asleep at night, or when he should be listening in class. Sure enough, he does. And you know what? I daydream about things like how to make Connect Four playing pieces fall out the bottom, and have the red pieces shoot toward the red side and black to the black side. And the obvious ones like how do differentials work, and how straight cut gears differ in practical applications to helical cut gears.
Oh, and now that i think of it, i did accomplish some other stuff. I worked this morning, and took out the garbage and recycling, which took a little bit longer because a skunk was chilling out by our front porch.
And finally, I MISS MY FAMILY! So does Graham.
Not so productive.
Today, with work happening both in the morning and second shift, i didn't get much accomplished. All i did was go shopping for wood and stuff for the updated dance pads i want to build.Because, see, Karen and i started getting into StepMania, which is a Dance Dance Revolution clone. By the way, isn't StepMania about infinite times better of a name than "Dance Dance Revolution"? So i bought some Xbox dance pads and wired them up to hook to a laptop which was otherwise serving dual duty as a paperweight for junkmail and a platform to store junkmail. But the dance pads could kindly be called "junk", and were certainly "broken" after only a week or so. But a) the game is fun, b) Karen and i both like it, and activities that we both enjoy are not very common, and c) it's excellent exercise. So, to conclude a long story, i'm going to use the dance pads to make my own, conventionally switched dance pads.
But not today. Today i just worked and shopped. And tried not to let the Bargain Plywood sheet blow off the roof of my KIA Rio. Yikes.
Mister Productive
But even though it's lonely around here, i got so much stuff done. I'm very proud of how productive i was today. Lots of caffeine, not much food, and, well, nobody else to pay attention to (besides Corbyn) all contributed to the massively productive day.
So lemme list what i did. Using a numbered list:
- Got up early to help Karen pack the car and get the kids off on time.
- Wake up after a nap to do a "Super Clean" with a team of five people, mostly from AmeriCorp. We have lead in our house, which isn't surprising since the house was built in 1899. The nineteenth century. When you have kids living in a leaded house, there is programs to help you get your house more lead free. So these people came over, toting two HEPA vacuums, a brand new mop, a "split bucket" for mopping, and lots of other stuff. And they let me keep the mop and bucket! I am so happy about the mop -- it's a good one. I love mopping. And sweeping. I think they thought i was a little weird for getting so excited about a new mop. Okay, so anyway, i was expecting to "super clean" the boy's room, and a window. But instead, they worked with me and cleaned THE WHOLE HOUSE!!! Even Katrina's room, which was a minor disaster! They even put her doll house furniture INTO HER DOLL HOUSE!!! I couldn't believe that. Usually when Karen goes somewhere, i procrastinate and procrastinate, and clean up the mess all at once half an hour before she's due home. This is much much better.
- I moved the VW bus back into the back yard. This means the kids can use it for a play house again! This time i put it on blocks so the tires don't look all flat, and then i built a little step to the sliding door to make it look more permanent. We'll see if Pete Hickey gets on our case again. Sheesh.
- The moving of the bus was such a huge job (all by myself) that it deserves another line.
- I worked on the scooter. The taillights are going to be shiny, and the blinkers are going to be cooler.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow! Except i work, do i'm not looking forward to that.
Happy Fun Millenium Park Day
We went. I took my camera. I didn't take any pictures. I sneezed my head off and felt groggy and miserable.But it was fun! I love my family, especially my wife and kids and parents and siblings. Houston can now swim underwater for distances best measured in feet, not inches. Katrina is fun and silly. Zane fell in, dunking his whole head, and didn't even scream when he was snatched immediately by Karen. I was standing there too, and i believe, in the memory replay that everybody has of Possibly Horribly Tragic Moments Which Turn Out Okay, i believe that i just pointed and said "um..." and let Karen (who was closer, but Zane was beside her not precisely in her line of sight, if i'm remembering correctly) grab him. I should have dived heroically into the water and grabbed him myself.
But Zane sputtered some, went "UUUUhhhhhh!!!" persistently and assertively and and pointed at the beach. But he didn't scream! Good for him!
Aww! A picture!
And today i went for my first local ride with the Grand Rapids Scooter Club. Here's what we do. We all drive to somewhere, where we park and talk about... scooters... and where we're going to ride to. We hem and haw until somebody who knows interesting roads takes the initiative to set a route and lead us away. Then we ride off, trying not to block traffic or run into each other. The guys (and one girl) are as varied as one might expect, besides the predominant trait of not being embarrassed to be seen on a silly, underpowered scooter. We rode out to a golf course, where we parked in the parking lot and talked about... scooters... and golf. And i asked three people if i could take their scoot for a spin. I don't know why more people don't do that, but nobody has told me that it's bad etiquette yet. Maybe i'm just precocious. Then we drove back into Grand Rapids and parked downtown, and talked slightly less about... scooters... and more about actual life.
So what's up with people who like to get together with people who like stuff they like, and then just talk about that one thing? I suppose when people have marriages where conversations rarely delve deeper than what color to paint the bedroom, getting together with people and having shallow conversations like "That's a nice bike. I heard that they're good. A guy told me" seems very natural. But it's still cool to make new friends.
And it turns out that my scooter is actually really good. It's been as reliable as any scooter there, it's fast, it's very clean and well maintained, and everybody liked it. Especially my new taillights. Picture follows...
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The Very Hungry Caterpillars
Houston and Katrina have mirrored their parents, and are fascinated by insects. Well, i am fascinated by insects, and Karen pretends, and all children show massive curiosity about creepy crawlies, so they're not really mirroring anything.But anyway, there's two (or more) caterpillars that the kids have caught, and put in Houston's bug house and filled with fresh leaves every day or so, and the caterpillars are living! They're currently eating the leaves so loudly that, well, i can hear them. I can hear them over my extremely loud clicky keyboard, which is to say that they're crunching away with hearty vigor. It's weird that caterpillars are insects exactly as much as butterflies are. I don't think the same rules apply to maggots and grubs. Maggots and grubs are disgusting, and insects are cool.
Oh! A couple nights ago, a big (for Michigan) spider wandered onto our windowsill from outside while i was working on my latest project, late at night. I had a big lamp pointing at my work, the light spilling over onto the windowsill, so i saw the spider immediately. "Ooh, cool" i thought, but then "Hmm it's big, and Karen would get quite frightened if she saw it." So i kind of went to shoo it back outside. But it stood there, seemed to look at the very bright light, and turned around and left quickly. It was cute.
Which reminds me, Houston made two really cool friends last year in kindergarten. We like both of them, and their parents. Vegetarians, the log. Which isn't to say we like vegetarians particularly, but if you're making that kind of lifestyle choice, then you're probably not very boring. Although Tobey MacGuire is supposedly a vegetarian, and he seems kind of boring.
Anyway, Houston also had one girl with whom he always got into trouble. There's dynamics there; she kind of bullies him, he kind of sets himself up to be bullied and drawn in. So we got to see Houston's class list today, and the worst combination of kids is the one we got. There's four kids involved, with three classes. We don't want Houston in the class with Mean Girl, and we do want him in class with one or more of his BFFs. The odds against him being in a class with neither of his BFFs and the Mean Girl are high, but that's what we got. My random quick guess of the odds was one in six, but Karen convinced me that the odds are greater. Any statistician out there wanna help us out? So anyway, we've got a request in to get him switched. We'll see.
One of the great tragedies of parenthood
This is the last week before school starts that i'll get to be near my kids! They're going to Iowa next week, without me, which will be different. Drastically so.So here's what is so tragic about parenthood.
As the responsible caregivers, parents are required to expend massive amounts of energy and time seeing to the basic needs of their progeny, starting out with the most universal of needs: getting food in and getting poop out. Dealing with another person's poop is not high on the list of preferred activities. Cleaning up spills isn't favorite. Wiping Twinkie creme from hair isn't a cherished pastime. Listening to kids scream because (to use something which happened today) your brother is taking the toy that you just put away back out of the toy box and putting it in again slightly differently. These and thousands of other things are what occupy a giant portion of every parent's waking moments. It's a chore on the best of days, and sometimes borders on hellish.
Obviously there's positive aspects of having a family. I mean, the audition process for become parents kind of rocks. But for my purposes, we'll categorically toss all the pros of child rearing out the (mashed potato smeared) window.
We go to bed late. Our babies wake up six hours after we fall asleep. We slosh caffeine down our sleep slackened throats, and try to be kind. Or at least fair. And then our kids go off to play and they're quiet for thirty consecutive seconds, and we can establish that they're not silent because they're trapped under the cast iron bathtub. When that happens, the roaring sound in our ears subsides. Our serotonin calls "Past Due!" and "Final Notice!" And we crash in front of our favored mindless hub of mindlessness until the screaming crosses the threshold of tolerance, which has impressive calluses which would be more in place on the fingertips of a speed metal guitarist.
We run from our children at the very times when we should run to them, open armed, to enjoy the best moments of their quickly vanishing youngsterhood. Oh!
So that explains why i played the ducky game with Katrina, why i looked at a dinosaur book with Houston, and played on the bouncing horse with Zane. Which amounts to a drop in the bucket. But it was a nice drop.
Retail Experiences
Retail experiences is the title of this post, because yesterday we went to WalMart* and Trader Joe's. Both of them are undoubtedly Retail Experiences.But it's almost two o'clock, we just got back to GR, and i have to be awake and function tomorrow. So i can't write about that stuff. I'll summarize our most excellent trip to Pittsburgh in seven words... um... not counting "um".
1. Hilly!
2. Beautiful
3. Enjoyable (because of the renewed and new friendships between us and Karen D.)
4. Entertaining (Olympics to watch)
5. Delicious (Chinese food, naan and chicken tikka)
6. Interesting (conversations with Karen D.)
7. Over. Sniff.
Still chillin' in the city of... um... look it up.
Okay, here it is:
I'm reading Iain M. Banks' latest Culture novel, Matter, and it's really good. The thing is, though, it's actually a paper book. Like, with cover art. All the books i've read since an embarrassingly self congratulatory short novel by Richard Bachman (he wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a book very popular in the seventies, which i'd heard of but always scorned based solely on the pretentious name) have been ebooks. Read on my Palm Pilot. Karen says it's so weird watching me read a real book.
The charm still exists, but it's not worth the vastly greater convenience and ease of use of an electronic book.
Besides that, our vacation is going really well. Karen's documented it again with an excellent slide show. And there ain't no slow-loading panoramas from me today. Sorry/You're welcome (delete to taste).
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I finished that book today, and yes, it was very good. If you can tolerate hard sci-fi, demand self-consistency, and are somewhat technology literate, i recommend the book (the whole Culture series) heartily.
Yesterday we were sitting around the house, and the kids were near the table drinking water or something, and Zane looked at some cherry tomatoes nearby. His expression became intent; serious. He thought for a second, and then said "Peeeeeeez?" He looked at Karen and i expectantly, and repeated himself, "Peeeez?" We melted and gave him some cherry tomatoes, which is what they were there for anyway. I love watching him learn. He seems more intent on the process of learning than Houston or Katrina did, but that's probably just because it was long ago that the other two were doing that kind of work.
Pittsburgh!!!
So, with my newly attuned enthusiasm for driving, honed by zooming around on the scooter, i pronounce Pittsburgh: AWESOME. I keep thinking how much i would enjoy ripping around these streets on the SR50. Pittsburgh is a little bit too obsessed by sports though. Every team's colors here are black and gold.
Karen's doing a fantastic job documenting the trip so far, with two (2) fancy Google powered picture albums. I highly recommend looking at them, because the pictures are very cute, and you can see what we're doing! Yaaay! My camera suffers from a well developed case of lens envy, and only comes out when Karen's Amazing Camera of Wonder isn't directly observing. However, i know how to do panoramas, so please see if this one works... after the jump.
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What should i do???
Mmmm, pie.
Pie is good. I made the promised blueberry pie today. Fresh blueberries, butter pie crust (2 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, 2/3ds cup cold butter, cut together and trickle cold milk into the mixer bowl until the dough clings together, keep cold and work the dough as little as possible) and sauce stuff made from corn starch, sugar and whatever spices you want, particularly ginger. Mmmm, ginger.Not good is having our alarm clock randomly set an hour ahead, and not realizing it until the time clock at work says "5:58am". The traffic sure was light. Not good is having the bird flu or whatever. :(
I also can't find my camera. It's probably wherever i put it when i took it out of my pocket because it's bulky and makes it uncomfortable to lay on the floor playing games with my kids.
Mmmmmm, blueberries
Today, while Karen nearly died, we all went blueberry picking. Okay, she didn't really nearly die, she just did her best to not exist as much as possible today. She's got a smattering of the bird flu or something.But we did, for real, go blueberry picking. I've gone on and on about blueberries in the past, so i'll keep this brief. Today i spent a great deal of effort analyzing exactly where i might be expected to find the most succulent berries. My conclusions are that large berries on bushes with large green berries tend to be sweet, but mild in flavor. Small berries on mostly ripe bushes tend to be somewhat pulpy, but have excellent flavor. Some have a lemon like flavor. Some have an unmistakable kick of ginger. Maybe my imagination is getting away from me, but some even have a black pepper aura. Overall, of course, they're incredible. The best food ever ever ever. I seriously think i could eat nothing but blueberries. Fresh off the bush, though; i find them relatively uninteresting when they're from the store, or in anything else like muffins.
However, tomorrow we're going to make blueberry pie.
I think Katrina is extremely funny. Here's an example: i told the kids, "When we go to pay, i will ask the lady why each bush has a slightly different flavor."1 Houston said "I will ask her if she has any cicada skeletons."2 Katrina said "I will ask her if she has any apples ready to harvest."3 We walked on for a moment. They she said "Zane will ask her if she has any 'Mmmmmmm!!!'" Oh man, that cracks me up. Because that's what Zane does all the time, "Mmmmmm!!!" "Mmmm!"
1) She said that it's probably the soil. Perhaps.
2) We found three cicada shells on a wall near our house -- cicadas spend up to seventeen years underground in some pre-adult stages, burrowing around munching on who knows what. Then they crawl up, find a tree or something, and shed their last nymphal exoskeleton, which is why you might find hollow wingless cicada looking things with the back split open. Note the interesting spade-like front arms, well adapted to burrowing.
3) Yes, Katrina really said "...ready to harvest."
Another drawing
Oooh, side note: i went outside this morning to fetch some tools to keep working on a project for the kids, and the first thing i did was walk right into the spiderweb Miss Orb Weaver Garden Spider spun last night. She didn't land on me, and if she did, it's "hard" to get a garden spider to bite, and even if they do, it's "slightly unpleasant". I know this, because she's back there right now weaving another web. Awesome. Eat those mosquitoes, Miss Owgs!
Right, back to the scooter picture. Houston drew a giant scooter with a little guy standing on the floorboards, REEEAACHING in vain to reach the hand grips. Then, there was a scrawny little scooter with a gargantuan colossus driving it. Funny. Mine was going to be funny because it would be ridiculously accessorized, just like the gun from Friday. So i drew it, honestly trying to get it to be silly, but it turns out that it looks pretty much like the kind of "EXTRA AWESOME" scooter most racerboys would like to have. Sigh.
Cool "bug" alert!!!
We had people over today to celebrate (again) Zane's birthday. Todd, one of my brothers in law, has said in the past that he can feel as close to God out in the woods as he does in church. Well, for me, watching bugs and spiders and myriapodia overwhelms me in wonder of God. In fact, i can't believe that there are any truly atheistic scientists. I know they all reject the simplistic notion of God i grew up with (huge bearded guy on a throne, creation in six 24hr days), so for many of them, they believe they're atheists, but they've got to believe in a good, loving prime mover. You know, God.
Mmmm, Indian food.
Yeah. So today i made Indian food for a dinner party with Beth and the Andrew and Linda family. It's fun to hang out with grown up friends. And their kids are adorable. One time i asked "WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING????" and made a ridiculous face. They giggled and giggled and giggled. And they joined in with Houston and Katrina and Zane playing Hey Burt. Karen's described Hey Burt before, but it's a game that the kids invented where they run around in a circle, saying "Hey burt hey burt hey burt hey burt!!!" I have no idea what the significance of the game is, but it's popular around our house, and very entertaining.
Zane is ten!
Ten! 10! Double digits!
In binary.
Like, that means he's two. Yesterday we had Zane's two year checkup, and he is progressing perfectly. He's tall and slim, with a giant head. Katrina and Houston share those traits; tall and trim, with giant heads. Except Katrina's head seems normal sized. Let's hope that lasts until they're as old as i am. Zane continues to learn at breakneck pace, spongecake like in his ability to absorb knowledge... or strawberry juice... He loves to help me cook, defying expectations by actually being helpful at times! His vocabulary list is small unless you count sign language, and then i think it's average. Very cute is how he signs "motorcycle" or "car", and makes rudimentary sentences; "More butterfly!" "Motorcycle gone." "Airplane gone!" And then there's the words he actually says: "Burp!" "Duck!" "Me!!!" Everything he says so far has exclamation marks behind it.
Today we were chatting around the dinner table, asking each other what we'd do with a million dollars. Houston said he'd buy a million cars! Hot Wheels or the like, one dollar per, but then he decided to buy just one very fancy car, for us to drive. Katrina couldn't think of anything she wanted, besides the suggested "pretty castle". Zane said "BALL!!!!!" We laughed a lot.
But really, one of the things about our little Zane which warms my heart to the most comfortable level of toastiness is when i come home from work. Every day, he'll drop whatever he's doing and RUN to me and HUG me! Houston and Katrina do that as well, but Zane always beats them to it, and their enthusiasm for the run-and-hug was always genuine, but less demonstrative. That's what it is. Houston and Katrina were always more introspective than our little expressive Zaney. Karen has some excellent pictures on her post from today.
