Hilarious Houston

Today Houston suggested that for dinner tonight we eat "puss" -- like, the cat... not pus the body fluid. I didn't know how to respond so i made some inquisitive noise, and Houston explained: "We'd take an octopus and cut off all the octos!" I laughed so hard. It's from a book, but still, it surprised me, and Houston was very pleased to have made me laugh a lot with one of his jokes. Also, that video of him is completely awesome.

I led ZUMBA! tonight, and i think it was an awesome class. There's only ever, like, ten people there, but it's a small room, and there's mirrors on the front and back walls, so with the infinite reflections, it looks like quite a crowd. But holy cow it kicked my butt. I felt like i felt the first class i attended. Because... i have three new routines that i made up the choreography for. Plus three other songs i've made up. And it turns out that the dances i made up are HARD! Tons of leg strength moves, jumping around, and my new one has twirls. Hee hee.

On the plus side, it's still so much fun. And it's good to get exercise, with the whole gradually getting more fit thing. And more confident in leading the class, which is a big factor in how enjoyable a class is. And i want my class to be enjoyable!

Ugh.

Today at work i had to physically manage two kids who were being unsafe, and one of them dislocated his shoulder! I let that kid go right away because my other staff were holding back a kid who wanted to pull me off this first kid... well it was really chaotic and confused.

But our new building has security cameras, and i just found out today that we can watch the feeds from the past whenever we want! So i examined the footage very closely to see what had happened from another perspective. The grossest thing was watching the first kid stand up like a zombie with his arm sticking out at a horrible angle, and fling it over his head, and pop it back in place! It was really creepy, one of my coworkers said it looked like something out of The Exorcist. And then he rushed staff again.... Out Of Control.

It was really interesting watching myself handle a crisis. I was quick, decisive, and did the physical stuff almost exactly as we're trained. Once the kids calmed down, you could even see my "warmth, empathy and respect" for the kids. In conclusion: i'm good at my job.

Empty house. Lots of work.

Karen went to Ohio to visit family. Zane went with her, but i don't think they'll let him drive. Houston and Katrina went for a weekend visit to Linda and Andrew's house. According to the website called "Twitter", the two kids are doing... okay. With Katrina being typically needy after bed time. Sigh.

But me? I'm going to work. I pretty much NEVER pick up overtime, but an overnight shift when my family's out of the house is a completely perfect scenario. There's no reason for me to be home, and i can make extra money! Whee. I discovered a new author -- Tony Ballantyne. Maybe i can read a whole book! Or half of it -- these hard sci-fi books tend to be thick. Metaphorically, of course, since they're really just a few hundred kilobytes of data in my Palm Pilot.

Okay, off to work!

HORROR!!!

I am outraged. Well, outraged as much as possible considering that it's outrage over... candy. Which is somewhere between not being able to find my keys in the first place i look and having Graham lick my face when it's really hot. Here it is. Prepare to share my outrage.

Brach's Malted Milk Balls are no longer covered in chocolate.

You may come back to continue reading when you've recovered. Recovered? Okay... Whoppers candy has always been covered with carob, which is kind of chocolate like, and uses some other fat, usually palm oil. Whoppers have a giant segment of the malted milk ball market all wrapped up, with their inexpensive price and whimsical milk-box packaging. Brach's candies have always been covered in proper chocolate -- cocoa powder and cocoa butter with sugar and other ingredients -- and have been delicious, and likewise more costly. But the bag of malted milk balls i recently purchased was not chocolate. Cocoa powder was on the list, but the fat was palm oil. Palm oil is trans fat free, and is finding its way into more and more products now that partially hydrogenated vegetable oil has fortunately become outre.

I plan on thinking about writing a strongly worded letter, and telling at least one other person about this outrage, and then i'll just forget about it until i'm in the store and i'll check the ingredient list to see if my complete lack of action has magically changed the recipe back to what it was.

Also, Michael Jackson died yesterday. Wow. I can't help but compare him to Elvis, with their stratospheric fame and descend into a kind of sad weirdness. And then to die of being weird.

Mmm, my own computer.

It's really nice to have a proper keyboard and mouse to use! Relief! Plus, my computer doesn't burn my thighs or wrists. Not that our laptop is particularly hot, but add the heat of the processor and spinning hard drive to the heat we're experiencing anyway, and it gets uncomfortable.

Hot: according to The Internet, the temperatures around here were either 90° or 96°. 96° ties for the record set back in 1901. Our house was just two years old when it was this hot on this date. It's so hot that we've been turning off our computers (gasp!!!), so i can't post a picture because they're on Karen's computer which is off the network. Tomorrow. But today it was a perfect day to lounge around in the pool and drive the scooter to work. So that's what we did. Except "we" didn't scoot to work, just me.

Also: i posted a picture.

Fixing stuff...

Yesterday morning, after i donned my only suit and my "got jesus?" t-shirt, i hopped in our KIA to zoom to my job interview for the Young Life Camp leader position. This job i've done seven times in the past... and there were only two applicants for the two positions... but Wedgwood says you gotta make openings available to all and interview applicants. Usually that's a good rule but not this time.

The instant before i turned the key to start the car i wondered, "It's been nearly two weeks since this car was started. How will it do?" It started hard, and there was fan belt squeak. Actually, no new cars have actual fan belts, since the fan is always powered by an electric motor and the belt which used to run the fan now spins the water pump, alternator, power steering pump and A/C compressor. No fans. But anyway, the (ahem) accessory belt squeaked mightily, and revving the engine didn't fix it. Thick smoke began pouring from the engine compartment. As the smoke coiled snake-like from every exit, i decided to drive the car around front so i'd have somewhere with room to fix it after my interview. It wouldn't go. Okay, it would go, but only with the left rear wheel locked up. Sigh. By the time i got out of the garage, the belt had burned through and broken, so at least it wasn't squealing anymore, but then driving around the block produced a whole new source of squealing. Now there's a black ribbon of skid mark leading from the garage in the alley, around the side of our block, and right to where we park the KIA. I feel like it's a giant finger of accusation saying "THIS CAR! THIS CAR!"

So anyway, after i interviewed for (and, hick-doi, got) the job, we went and fetched our valuables from Karen's parent's house, and i bought a new alternator. See, the garage was very moist while we were on vacation, and parts of the car corroded. I'm surprised that the alternator was so completely seized up, but it was. The rear brake was no big deal -- i took off the tire and whacked the brake drum with a big hammer. That knocked the shoes back into place, no is problem! And i did eventually replace the alternator. I'm much rather work on little 4 cylinder engines than V6es, except that they put the alternator and starter behind the engine where you can only get to it once you've covered your hands in engine grease and your own blood.

Yeah.

So then i put my computer into the gaudy yellow case i got in Kentucky, and foolishly didn't bother to note which hard drive was plugged into which port, so now my computer has no idea where Windows is. See, i reinstall frequently enough, that the last time i did it, my root Windows drive was F:\ (usually it's C:\), because the first hard drive the computer tried to boot to said "Hey! Windows is over on that other hard drive!" and the other hard drive said ", not me! Try that third one!" and the third one was like *romantic music* "United at last!!!" and booted. Well, there's eight combinations of plugs-into-those-three-ports i could try, but i'm not entirely sure it was those three. There's four ports. So that increases the combinations to... 32. But there's also eight combinations of the order in which the computer hardware sees the hard drives, which makes 256 combinations. Easier to reinstall Windows. Easier to pick up a few dozen overtime shifts at work to pay for a whole new computer!

Other news: it's hot. I led ZUMBA! with Karine (who pronounces it "Kareena", and is French) who had me improvise choreography for a new song i'd never even heard. Jeez. Challenging, but fun. And our poor class -- i thanked them for being patient, and they seemed to like it.

Two words:

More, actually. Two devices made our vacation a lot more enjoyable. The first was a GPS navigation system. When we were driving through the Appalachian mountains and around the twisty interstates and back roads of New York, i could look around at the magnificent vistas, the cloud filled vales! The majestic river gorges! The posh German cars! People outside of Michigan drive really nice cars. I saw a Lamborghini, three Maseratis, a Ferrari, and other cars which are very far removed from what Michiganders think is a nice ride (gag).

Speaking of which, i never realized i am a typography geek. But i never liked Where the Wild Things Are because of the font. And lack of punctuation. I was... six? when introduced to that book. And i spent my whole training a week from last Wednesday trying to remember the name of the font with the horrible lower case a. It's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gill_Sans">Gill Sans.

Okay, the other word is about the leashes we took to New York City. I had heard of kid-leashes, of course, and pretty much mocked parents who felt they needed them. "Get some parental authority", i muttered derisively to myself. I now apologize for my derisive mutterings. With the leashes, we could wander the city with our eyes pinned to the tops of all the buildings, in true, unashamed tourist fashion. And as long as we held on to the kids' leashes, we were fine! They could stare at the ground trying to pick up candy wrappers and stomp in puddles as kids always do, tourist or local. Our enjoyment of the city was much greater with the convenience of knowing our kids were safe by our sides. When we let them run around at the store, we can hardly find ramen noodles.

So i recommend both GPS navigation systems and child leashes if you visit New York City.

Okay, deep breath!

Whew! Day eight of our vacation was spent in the rain, or indoors. The two most memorable things we saw outside: Peace and a glass cube. The glass cube was The Apple Store, which is in front of FAO Schwartz, and is... a cube of glass, crystal clear and sparkling clean. There's a spiral staircase leading into the immaculately gleaming interior, and a clear, apparently unsupported circular elevator platform with circular glass (possibly acrylic) walls. Unreal. A fitting monument to Apple's commitment to extravagant, attractivly tasteful overdesign (but needless). We didn't go inside.

The other memorable thing was a sculpture named Peace. It featured a winged archangel Michael, soaring amid cavorting giraffes, with his robes flapping along the top shell of a perfectly circular crab. Also on the crab's back was a large disc, with a sun-like face smiling beatifically into the sky. Michael's left hand held a long cruel sword pointing toward his victim, whom he was holding with his right arm. His victim was Satan, whose feet were bound somehow up near Michael's shoulder, and whose legs and torso were stretched agonizingly with cords of muscle and sinew shown in drastic relief. His shoulders and neck were right down near the feet of one of the cavorting giraffes, and the crab (upon whose back Michael was standing) had Satan's head hanging from one of its claws, swinging by some gristle. Okay....... PEACE???? And this was in a children's garden! I mean, i know this is all symbolic and stuff, but it's undeniably the most violent bit of sculpture i've ever seen.

Since we were rained out on Thursday, we spent Friday in Central Park. I recommend at least one day spent in Central Park for anyone visiting New York -- it's incredible. I know the "nature" seen there is very managed, and a lot of it is pretty threadbare. But it is nature, with trees and grass and water and flowers. And bedrock poking through in many places. In Michigan, there isn't much bedrock to speak of -- it's all glacially deposited gravel, boulders or sand. My favorite things in Central Park were seeing the street performers. We saw Thoth, who didn't do anything interesting while we were looking besides kick his dance platform millimeter by millimeter into perfect alignment. Oh -- he also looked pretty weird. I guess there was a documentary about him in 2002. Also we saw AFRObats, whose act was a mix of acrobatics (i thought "BLACKrobats" would have been a better name) and fairly racial humor. Hollered in unison: "White people. You have nothing to be afraid of. There's only three of us. We can't hurt all of you!" It was all in the irreverent spirit of New York, as was the rude language. One lady was indignant: "It was NOT a family friendly show", and... yes, there were three or four swear words, but you are in New York, and people swear. It's okay.

Um... then we drove to Karen's friend Karen's house in Pittsburgh. It's quiet. It's peaceful. It's lovely. But i'll always remember fondly the bustle and rumble of tightly packed humanity of New York. And when we get a different license plate, we'll be able to visit again.

Day Seven!

No time for pictures -- i'm using Tony's little "netbook". Which is... a tiny little laptop with a tiny little screen and a QWERTY keyboard which is about ninety percent the size of a proper keyboard. And it won't run Portable Gimp. I didn't take any good pictures anyway.

A little story i forgot to tell! Zane fell asleep while eating granola the other day. We were walking around, and suddenly he zonked, oats covering his front, and some bits of granola barely escaping his mouth. He must have fallen asleep mid mouthful. He was asleep for about half an hour, and woke up in Rockefeller Plaza. He awoke, and instantly shoved the napkin he had in his hand into his mouth and tried to eat it. He usually looks really cute and clueless when he's freshly awake, but this time there was a generous extra heaping helping of cute as he looked in utter, wide-eyed confusion at th pulpy white stuff falling apart in his mouth.

And did you know that Nicholas Cage is filming a new movie in the NYC? "Sorcerer's Apprentice"? According to a vaguely Anglophonic street vendor... who i trust because... well, why would he lie? Anyway, there's scaffolding on th U.S. Customs House's second story, and Paramount labeled equipment littering curbs and sidewalks in the area. Seriously, millions of dollars worth of cable, boxes, lights, tripods, all tossed around lower Manhattan like some monster breathed deeply inside a soundstage, had an allergic reaction, and sneezed.

Also, we saw a building so hideous it passed the point of "so hideous it's cool" like th AMC Gremlin, and went back to just plain hideous. Horrifying. Karen will have a picture on her weblog. Please check it!

Day six.

Today we visited... (it's late, so i'm trying to remember without reading Karen's blog) New York's once-tallest skyscraper, which is shaped like a highly acute triangle. The Flatiron Building. It was a nice building, with really cool curved glass in the most acute angle. Cool. Then we found a sculpture, wandered to Houston Ave, wandered SoHo a bit, and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. That bridge is REALLY COOL. Such nifty engineering. The bridge i visited most recently -- High Bridge in Kentucky -- was designed by the same dude who designed the Brooklyn Bridge after the original guy died. Of the vapors or something. It was a really long time ago. So it was an old bridge, and yet still really cool.

Houston was thrilled to see his name on a street sign. We nearly jumped on a wiener dog. See, we were jumping off a bench for a picture at the Washington Memorial Arch... oh yeah, we visited that too. Anyway, we were doing a jumping picture with Zane, Houston and me. We were holding hands. So we counted down, ONE TWO (and i saw peripherally a dog-walker approaching) THREE and Zane and Houston jumped. I jerked their hands up while the little wiener dog sniffed his way right under where Zane would have landed. Seriously, Zane's feet might have even touched the dog's tail. Fortunately for the fully non-squished (at that point -- i cannot vouch for the unsquished state of that dog at this juncture, as he may have gotten himself runned over since) dog, i'm strong enough to hold him one handed. But Houston's too heavy, so he keeled over backwards and bonked his butt. Poor kid. The dog owner failed to see any humor in the situation at all, and scowled forcefully at us, and grumbled his way into wherever his dog did or did not get squished.

Day... um... four and five and part of six?

Day four: went downtown to Times Square to look at stuff, not least of which was looking at PEOPLE!!! So so so so so interesting! I took panorama pictures, but haven't spent any time to speak of in front of a computer. That's good, i guess. While there, an old Asian man grunted and gesticulated, communicating to us that our kids are cute, and took their picture. I thought that was a fun compliment until i saw him eating corned beef from the can using the lid for a spoon.

We did other stuff, saw some giant sculptures of Sanrio characters, including Hello Kitty!!! And St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Plaza featuring the famous GE Building which is more famous as "30 Rockefeller Plaza" or "30 Rock" from whence the show derives its name. Zane remained most fascinated by airplanes, and "rocket ships" which are really airplanes high enough to leave contrails. He doesn't seem to care that they aren't really rocket ships.

We photographed everything, and make sure to check Karen's weblog this week for one gallery per day! Side note: our camera is really good. So much better than any digital camera we ever had, besides Karen's Olympus E20. But that one only had a better lens, everything else was worse.

Yesterday we went to the Statue of Liberty, which took up more than half the day. It was huge. Katrina wore her dollar store Liberty crown, and yelled from the boat "Hey! Do I look like you, Statue of Liberty?" She's cuter. Not as big, but cuter.

The rain cancelled our walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, and Karen had planned ahead, bringing plastic-bag poncho things. The usual hot dog and pretzel vendors transform instantly into umbrella salesmen when the rain hits. The guy i asked said when he sells all his umbrellas, he goes on to sell the one he's using. "Of course". He altruistically offered to sell us an umbrella even though we were wearing ponchos. He must have overestimated his skills as a salesman.

Chinatown was pleasingly gaudy, and we ate there. Yum! As we were leaving, Zane stayed kneeling on his chair pretty much meowing, which is his latest favorite thing to do when he's not doing anything else. We tried to get him to move... and finally figured out that he was carefully saying "My knee out!" because his knee was wedged between the bars of the chair.

Katrina fell asleep on the train back, and i carried her all the way back to the apartment and we got her in bed without her waking up. And so i don't leave Houston out, he's writing in his passport style book about everything. He's developing his writing skills.

Also, we've gotten $175 worth of parking tickets in these two days. Who knew there was fine print on streets? We're probably just going to ignore them.

Day Three!

We started the day in White Plains, i cooked a lot, and now we're in The Bronx! I always thought the name The Bronx was kind of made up to sound tough and urban... gritty. Turns out it's actually legitimately a historical name. Hmm. So here we are, a short walk from the northernmost subway station! I tried to parallel park like a local in front of Tony's building, and bumped my back tire on the curb. D'oh. But then the guy who parked behind me did exactly the same thing but more often. So i am parking like a local, i guess. We're planning on driving like locals, which is to say "not". We'll take public transportation or walk.

Day Two in New York

Today, recuperated from The Drive, we relaxed until it became clear that we would be enjoying a day with not much to do. So Billy and Marilyn took us to Playland, which is a family oriented mini amusement park, with roller coasters and everything! The motto is mind-bendingly understated: "Have some fun today". Some fun. Yeah... have some fun. Not too much, just a modest helping. A bit. A tad.

All of our kids got to ride their very first roller coasters! They all LOVE them. I've tossed them around enough that they aren't afraid of rapid changes in velocity or gravity, so we knew they wouldn't be too scared of them. But i was a little surprised by the enthusiasm. Houston was the only kid who could ride the biggest coaster -- old, wooden, "The Dragon" -- and he ran through the turnstiles four times to hit that ride, and we had to drag him away. Zane could ride a very small metal coaster with a decent drop, and he loved that unequivocally. Katrina's favorite seemed to be the Log Flume ride, with its 40 foot drop. Splashy times.

We got home at nine thirty. The kids crashed. We're tired. Time for bed. Karen will have dozens of pictures, i'm sure. Our new Nikon D40 DSLR with 18-55mm ED lens takes such awesome pictures. Karen keeps saying "I am SO HAPPY with this camera!" Awesome.

First day in New York! We're HERE!!!

We're in the Big Apple! Karen did all the packing while i was at work Wednesday, so as soon as i got home at about eleven we hauled the groggy kids out of bed and strapped them into their car seats, which i'd shifted to make them more reclined and comfy than usual. So we went on our way, bidding adieu to Demitrius, our fictitious 300 pound, 6'6" ex-boxer housemate, and our valuable-less house.

GPS! Having a GPS makes long trips so much less stressful. I know we're always on course, i know when the next turn is, i know what lane to be in... it's so awesome. And here in New York, they have things called "curves" and not just "corners", where streets don't always go in grids, north-south and east-west... it's interesting. At least we're not in Boston where the roads are laid out like a spider web. But even there, Mister GPS would guide us faithfully!

But having kids makes trips more stressful (good stress). At about four in the morning, Zane woke up and screamed. He was panicked. I thought he'd hurt himself or something, but it turns out he was terrified because of "THAT GUY!!!" which was ME! I did have my dreads in pigtails... but every time i'd turn to look at the mirror even he'd scream and tremble and tell Karen "Daddy not scare me again!!!" It was so sad and cute and sad. He got over it, and after letting me hold him, with his face very much averted, he got more used to me and remembered that i'm his gentle loving daddy, and am not a scary monster intent on eating his head.

We visited a dam yesterday, which is one of the reservoirs which provides metropolitan NY with their water. The massive engineering of the dam (there's several others) to provide such an area with necessities is fascinating. I see things like that and am glad i'm not in charge. I mean, i know there's no one human in charge of the workings of a giant city like NYC because there's multiple strata of administrators and technicians all sharing the load. Amazing.

Our house will be empty.

This is mostly a note to let any thieves or internet stalkers know that while we're on vacation, our house will not be worth breaking into. Everything valuable (which is reasonably portable) will be gone. We were discussing writing notes for potential do-badders stating as much. "Nothing to steal here... move on please."

Another strategy would be to post a fake foreclosure notice on our door. There are twelve houses on our block, and five of them are unoccupied, three are "abandoned", according to the stack of papers sloppily taped to the front door of one of them. Yeah, i would have thought that people paying as much for their mortgages as people do in our neighborhood would be able to afford them, even in a recession. However... even small monthly bills get impossible to pay depending on the circumstances.

Furthermore, if i read between the lines of the (moist, faxed and photocopied) documents on the abandoned house's door, it seems like the people who owned it kind of... ran off. Andrew our alcoholic neighbor had always seemed to have an issue or two, with his temper and stuff, but he was a personable enough guy. But then, in the space of two days, he had rented a giant truck and moved everything out. And now the three houses he had owned are "abandoned".

So basically, in this economy, if you want to theft-proof your house, convincing looking documents making it seem like the house has been foreclosed upon might be far more effective than an actual security system or proper locks. Cheaper too.

Or! A big arrow saying THE NEIGHBORS HAVE TEN IPHONES AND A LAPTOP!!!

Mister Materialist

Okay, i rage against materialism frequently enough to my friends and on this Blaahg, so i earnestly hope i'm not sinking into shameful consumerism.


Because we just bought a new phone AND a new camera.

We've had the same cell phone plan since we were preparing to call people across the nation with news of Houston's birth -- that was seven years (and a horrific amount of money in basic-plan charges, i'm sure) ago. I called Verizon's customer service to see if New York City is in our roaming area (it is), and the kind lady seemed quite amused by how old our plan was. Time for a change. So Karen chose a nifty new pay-as-you-go phone from Virgin Mobile, which will save us quite a bit of money. It's cute. It's pink. It flips open!!!

Oh yeah, and the thief who stole Karen's pot with her stash of coins also stole Karen's Nikon SQ camera, my extremely broken but still functional run-over-by-a-scooter Sony DSC-S40, and a totally cheap CMOS-chipped digital camera that Karen's brother Jim gave us... remember that thief? He also stole my Virgin Mobile phone, used up all the minutes, and let it lapse. Since he didn't have any way to put more minutes on it. Again, no big loss, but still... JERK.

Finally, we've gotten a few unlooked-for bits of money recently, and are heading to New York, after all, and Karen's really nice but aging DSLR broke, in spite of my efforts to fix it. So we bought the cheapest modern DSLR kit we could find. And it's good. A Nikon D40. Reviews say it's amazingly good for the price, and "blurs the line" between professional and amateur digital cameras. We're looking at this purchase as a 15th anniversary present from each other, and the aforementioned unlooked-for sources of money. Expect the quality of pictures on Karen's site to go up a lot. Exquisitely narrow depth of field. Increased dynamic range! Less chromatic aberration!!! Less pincushioning or barreling at tele or wide angles!!!!11!! I KNOW y'all be looking at our pictures thinking "Ugh, that chromatic aberration! What's they got, plastic lenses?"

Oh yeah, did i mention that i was walking around Wedgwood's rapidly developing campus, and found Karen's and my name? Yeah! I did! First, a couple kids and i were wandering around, looking at the paving stones and how they were laying them down (it's interesting), and i noticed that one of them said "God Bless the Childern". Heh... Childern. I mentioned it to the workers, and the stone disappeared and has been replaced. I'm slightly sad that i didn't keep my mouth shut. But... i saved Wedgwood a few bucks in labor, i suppose. But then, walking around more, i saw a paving stone which said "In Honor of Juanito and Karen Moore"!! "What?" thought i, mentally reviewing recent expenditures and coming up with "never" as the last time i donated money to Wedgwood. So somebody else donated money? Cool! I guess the culprits are Karen's grandparents! Thanks, Karen's grandparents! Or, as some might say, my baby's momma's daddy's momma and daddy.

Yesterday AND today!!!

Yesterday we went down to Kalamazoo, which has one of the coolest names of any city in the US, along with Walla Walla Washington (near which i used to live). We were there for the Doo Dah Parade, which may be the only parade we go to this year. Karen and i have been increasingly disappointed by parades. There used to be marching bands, dance squads, fire trucks and politicians, but now it's just politicians and fire trucks, with a generous helping of businesses handing out fliers. Not that i deny the rights of business owners to put their names before people's attention (Eric), but i would like my mind to be free from the influence of those who would like to take advantage of me.

That's right -- advertising has broken capitalism, and perhaps even democracy.

The Doo Dah Parade was generally a success, with quirky, interesting things to see. There were dozens of dogs from shelters. There was one Model A Ford, which reeked of unburned gasoline and hot oil. There was a giant balloon shaped like a dragon, which was suspended by hot air? Helium? It was an interesting engineering solution, and there were geeks carrying little lead-acid batteries on backpack frames tending the balloon.

Moving on to today; Katrina was throwing up all morning, so she stayed home from church with Karen. Both the boys came with me into church... sigh. Zane won't be quiet when you tell him to be quiet. Because he's two. So we left early, and Katrina was still miserable. So we ate bratwurst, hot dogs, and toast, and napped. So now i feel all foggy from taking a nap.

I'm.... i'm sore!

The first month or so of regularly working out, i would usually be somewhat sore the next day or two. Especially PowerFlex. That was a killer. But since getting in better shape, i haven't suffered from soreness at all, unless it was brought on by the 'flu', or the shoveling a (probably literal) ton of dirt.

However, the warm weather has brought on a disturbing trend in the kids at work. They want to go outside (the big room with a very high ceiling which is blue and white) and run around on grassy fields throwing a prolate spheroid made of rubber and leather. Weird. Also, they like to hit softballs. So they've roped me into participating in these pointless, physically demanding pursuits a few times, and swinging bats and sprinting downfield and throwing balls has left many of my muscles and joints feeling old and creaky.

Now, in the past when i was less fit, i would run for a while and then be winded or tired. That never happens anymore. My cardiovascular system is in better shape than even when i was a teenager. So i mistakenly assumed that my musculoskeletal system would have kept up. Nope. I kind of forgot that the systems are related but distinct.

Check out this double-muscled whippet. There's a genetic malfunction which causes these giant muscles. It's extremely rare in people, universal in beef cattle, and there's no scientific reason we couldn't create that genetic anomaly in humans. If you were like this, you'd have muscles of banded steel, you'd need to eat like a horse -- but if you lifted a box of books, you'd faint because your giant muscles would use up all your oxygen. Funny.

Two Cards

See? I can draw!

Barely related: i was surprised today when i got to work to notice that the entryway to our building is no longer simply the entryway, it's the "Foremost Insurance Group Vestibule". Our unit is now "Engen Home". The living room is now the "Van Andel Greatroom".

Oh my freaking goodness.

So i drew a bunch of signs of my own. Now we have a "Stephen X. Surine Light Switch" and the "Daniel Cuthbertson Memorial Doorknob", plus about eight others. My boss isn't one for subversive humor, unfortunately, so she'll rip them down as soon as she sees them... but that's okay.

Downtown!

We're planning our trip to New York, and there's at least one day where the schedule is "Central Park". This will work well.

See, when i got home after leading ZUMBA! (with one paying grown up there... bummer) Karen was as crashed on the couch as she could be with three kids hurricaning around, so i took them all downtown Grand Rapids to "walk around and play our guitars", as Houston has been begging to do. We parked in a free parking lot right by the Gerald R. Ford museum with ambitions of walking to Calder Plaza, Rosa Parks Circle, and maybe (thought i) the fish ladder. But we made it barely across the river... and that was it. Instead, the kids ran up and rolled down these big grassy domes which look like burial mounds to me. I played U2 and Radiohead. They ran up, rolled down, ran up, rolled down... over and over and over. Shoes on, shoes off. They loved it. I played Foo Fighters and Live... Then we walked a few dozen yards to the big fountain where the kids soaked their appendages. I played Tom Petty and Queens of the Stone Age. They jumped all over the sculptures littering the area. I played RuHythm and RuHyme and songs i made up. Houston wanted me to play "When I Rock and Roll, I Turn Into a Mole", which i'm pretty sure he made up.

Instead of a two or three mile walk (which might have pushed Zane's stamina) we walked less than half a mile, and were utterly entertained for about three hours. Oh... and i ended up carrying my guitar, Houston's guitar, two lawn chairs, Houston's sweatshirt, and Zane's Crocs. And still managed to play my guitar.

So then it was to the grocery store for a baguette and lunch meat, and home to have a front-lawn-picnic. And then BrushTeethReadABookPray, and the kids fell asleep nearly instantly.

Success!

A couple techie things

Houston took that picture.

When Karen got back from Chi Town yesterday, she told me that her watch stopped at four thirty five in the afternoon. Um... i was thinking... you have a digital watch? The kind that when they break the display quits working? She confirmed that it IS a digital watch, and sure enough there it was sitting at 4:35pm, doing nothing but displaying those numbers. Funny. Both of her recent digital watches have broken in unusual ways. All my watches break by being crushed, smashed, or otherwise abused to death. But not Karen's. She emits a magnetic field which disables certain electronic devices. That's probably what it is.

Also, when i use my mouse, i hold in by my fingertips. The right edge of my palm (right palm) makes incidental contact with the mouse, but i don't rest my hand on it at all. I think most people rest their hands on their mice! Part of my technique is, i'm sure, due to the fact that my mouse is incredibly sensitive, so i only need move my fingers around to make the pointer zip from one edge of the screen to the next... okay, i move the mouse one and one sixteenth inches, and the pointer goes across 1,680 pixels. I think that's atypical.

Besides that, Houston is an enthusiastic guitar player! He can't whack out anything more than the open chord, but he is on rhythm when he does, and he likes carrying his guitar around and playing it whenever. He wanted to go downtown today and sit around playing his guitar with me. I don't know where this idea came from, but Tim used to do that, so probably we've talked to Houston about that. Dunno.

There's some steps in our neighborhood. They're featured most prominently in the film RUBBER DUCKIE, which is being uploaded as we speak... so basically, there's these long steps between our little neighborhood and the section of neighborhood down the hill. We've walked them frequently. Since RUBBER DUCKIE was filmed earlier this decade, the rails have rusted and fallen off (or stolen for scrap) and the steps themselves are crumbling. The city evidently decided it made more sense to take them out of commission than to fix them, so they erected chain link fences at the top and bottom. Well, many of our anarchist (or at least anti-establishment) neighbors have used these steps for years to walk to work, school, home, etc. So they destroyed the chain link fences (interestingly, not stealing the fencing) and now we can use the steps, and the city can claim that they're Not To Be Used when some drunk falls and bonks his head and sues. Everybody wins. Except it would be nice if Grand Rapids (all of Michigan, i guess) could have a bit of money to fix stuff around here which is falling apart. Right... all that to say that today we walked down the steps, and Houston took his guitar, proudly strumming it from time to time.