Today

Zhanna opened the door by herself and came out of her room this morning.
They say that the kids are not going to be little forever. And, I feel like I am one step closer to entering their era of "self-sufficiency."  Contrary to what most women say, I actually like it. I enjoy carrying conversation with Gavin when he keeps asking me about why or converse with me in logic.

Such as...

G: Mommy you didn't finish your ice-cream."
Me: I know but that's mommy's problem, not yours. So, you don't need to worry.
Gman: Okay.

I am sorry. But, I am that 0.2% of the population. So I enjoy things that people are annoyed by but dislike the things that most people love to do.

AND,


Today, the teacher at her Sunday school said,

" Z is so head of the game. She is much more verbal than most kids in her class.
she also knows exactly what she wants. During  craft time, she says,

'I want circle and triangle, but not square."

It's nice to know that I don't have to have hands on every single milestone 'cause I can only do so much, for real.

hallelujah!




she is almost 2.5 years old.

Let the record says

Today marks the day that Gman closed the bathroom door to keep everyone else off of the bathroom to finish his business on the toilet. Then, he was caught attempting to wipe his bottom off when I opened the door.

Me: " What are you doing?"
Gman: I am trying to wipe myself off.
Me; Oh, you are not ready. Mommy will do it.

Gman: Nooooo! I want to do it myself! Pleeeeease!!!!!please! please!!!

Me: What?@?@?@?@?@



He is 4.5. years old.

Days off

I have come to realize there really is no such thing.  You either work at work or work at home whether it be on work itself or doing your best to give your loving wife a day (or part of one at least) off.  On today's day off I've learned the following:

1. The internet is useful for Christmas shopping.  I now have one less gift to buy and was able to clean the kitchen, modify a booked gig to another, pay our health insurance bill and make coffee for YB who is taking a webinar.
2. The basket next to the bed that's been used for dirty laundry since we moved in last year had clean laundry.  My dirty socks and unmentionables were not supposed to go in it today.  The placement of the dirty laundry basket?  Conveniently next to the washer.
3. I finally checked out whoever that guy is who has been advertising the end of western civilization as we know it.  I want to say he's full of it because his sources and citations are full of it, and his stats are arbitrary.  But he's not totally nuts because his thesis is based on the reality that the world does not contain enough wealth to pay off all total outstanding debt.
4. Building off number three, if I listened to as much talk radio as I have today (mostly just to catch up because it is so easy to become out of touch and uninformed in my line of work) I would go crazy.  I know now why YB stays away from Drudge and Rush as much as she does. Chris Plante is as entertaining and right on as ever.

Size, I mean refresh, I mean...both I suppose...

With the work season in full swing posting to the ol' blog has taken a back seat to the responsibility of life.  With the holidays now in full swing at least one issue is front and center in my mind which lends to what I hope will be a faint smile across the faces of those who know us (read, me).

Travel with me back to a time before YB (b.yb).  It was a sad, lonely time.  I had tried freelance enough to know I didn't want to do it (what a foolish, young JD I was).  I had better things to do, like sleep.  But at some point I got bored with sleep and needed something else to do.  So aside from buying a motorcycle to ride on the weekends I also bought a TV, 21" of digital tube goodness if I remember the size correctly.  It was to watch the Super Bowl, alone, by myself, in my apartment...by myself.  I was all happy about the purchase.  Set it up, turned it on, and then realized my apartment was perfectly situated around radio/tv transmitters and the Navy to the point where all the broadcast signals cancelled each other out.  Eventually I bought a PS2 for the sole purpose of playing the lone game I owned, Spiderman 2, and watching Pixar movies over and over again.

This situation remained until after I met YB when we raided her parent's house and brought home a 40" Sony.  Now before you get all excited I have to say a couple things.  First, yes, it is (because we still have and use it) 40".  It's production year was around 2000 which means, it's rear projection, it is not easily transportable, at the time of manufacturing the bulb cost somewhere between $300 and $400.  Its max resolution?  480i.  HD by the strictest sense; but come on.  No.  Not HD at all.  And, as YB and I found our our first New Year's Eve after we were married, analogue.  Meaning no ABC's Rockin' New Year's Eve.  We scrambled to find an online stream.  It might have DVI and VGA inputs, multiple HD component as well, and a coax antennae, but no HDMI.  What does that mean in layman terms?  Nothing modern can be plugged into it.  When my soon-to-be in-laws sent a gift with which to buy a Blu-Ray player, I had to make sure it had the correct components to do so.  This TV, the 40" behemoth, is one of the highest contributors to our electric bill.  Our house actually dimmed when this thing turned on.

You can imagine the range of emotions when the original bulb blew.  I had prepared YB for that day and had money in the bank.  A new bulb, $300?  We can buy a new TV for that.  Finally, aside from the abysmal specs (or lack thereof), we would be rid of an electricity HOG.  I went online to do due diligence.  Had to check the price of the projector bulbs.  South of $30.  Yep, not happy that day.

Fast forward to Black Friday/Christmas sales of 2015 where consumer sanity always wins and retailers never try to upsell perceived need.

I finally talked YB into giving me a $300 budget for a new TV.  Finally, not that our electric bill hasn't astronomical because we honestly don't watch enough to make a difference, but for the love of all things energy efficient we would finally have a TV modern enough to not spin the meter faster.  We would have decent resolution when watching a Blu-Ray, we could easily hook our laptops up or get something attached to the network which could do the same.  And I know exactly what we need.  A 50" 1080p LED at 120Hz.  The price should be right in our budget's sweet spot.  Why?  Because of all those jokers out there who believe the hype thinking they need a 40" 4K screen (go ahead and sit three feet from your screen).

I scoured the Black Friday ads.  I scoured the Cyber Monday deals.  I scoured DealsPlus.  Then I scoured individual websites like Costco and Walmart, BestBuy even.  You know what I found?  I found lots of sales and lots of retailers that wanted to take my money and give me a product not worthy of that money.  I even found this product which was exactly what I wanted, for the price I wanted.  Glad I went home to check it out, because they call it 120Hz on the box, but nowhere in their documentation does it mention that function and a call to their customer service line revealed their max refresh rate was 100Hz.  What is that?  Do we live in England where that even makes sense?

I do have to take a few moments here to explain the logic of my desires.  There are technical reasons why I'm looking for a 50" LED screen being refreshed at 120Hz.  Our (myself and YB) viewing distance is generally between five and 10 feet putting us in the sweet spot of the 1080 resolution.  If we rent a Blu-Ray, we'll get the most out of it possible.  If we hook a laptop up to it with a downloaded movie from iTunes, we'll get the most out of.  LED is better than LCD and no one makes LCD screens anymore anyway (backlights are different).  And at a certain screen size, a refresh rate of 60Hz just doesn't cut it anymore.  I work in TV so I notice that kind of thing and I think that line is crossed at 40".  120Hz means the screen is refreshed twice as fast which means for faster action (anything more than a stationary talking head) you're (me) going to want it.  M- and D, if you're wondering, your screen barely registers on the chart I'll include at the bottom of the post.

So here I sit, sort of depressed.  It was supposed to have been my Christmas present.  There will be other sales, other years.  And I know, it's only a TV.  But I'm a responsible, adult techie who works in TV.  It's like D buying a car.  Heaven help you if he can't find what he knows he can find for the price he thinks is reasonable.

So look out stores and online sites.  JD and YB are due for a TV upgrade.  You're going to get some visits.  Look out customer hotlines, you're going to have informed questions being thrown at you.  I know when you're being unreasonable.  And trust me, telling me your max refresh rate of a screen in America is 100Hz is unreasonable, though not as unreasonable as a store associate telling me they don't have access to a particular TV's remote to allow the customer to look through the adjustment menus.

Chart Reference
Article Reference

Seriously, when did that happen?

I can remember the day YB and I brought Gman home from the hospital.  Even before we left YB's room in the maternity ward I remember thinking, "They're going to just let us leave?".  I mean, here's a guy and a girl who've been married not even two years, there's no class or certification I needed to show to the staff or the world that I was qualified to be a responsible parent?  For real, between the YB going to the hospital and her coming home I had the roof of our first house redone and half of the downstairs windows replaced.

Times sure have changed.  I still had my iPad 2, a 24" Core Duo iMac, and quite possibly the slider phone before I switched YB and I to Straighttalk which means a also true digital camera since cameras on phones weren't considered quality yet.  So young.  So innocent.

I think tonight was the first time YB had that moment.  That moment where you just ask yourself, "When I grow up, when did I become this adult responsible for for other people?"

Gman just started his third month of preschool.  Sometime in September his teacher sent a letter home saying that she would like to take time to meet all the parents by meeting them whenever they had time.  In our area that means the evening since it seems both parents of many families work.  At 5:30 this evening there was a knock on our door.  Gman was super excited.  Z was too because she lives vicariously through Gman's experiences at school and is excited to go because of him when her time comes.

Gman and I answered the door in walked his teacher.  She's super nice and Gman loves being in her class.  We hosted her for dinner.  Gman was all proud of her, she enjoyed the chance to see him in his natural surroundings and got a kick out of it when he wanted to say something and raised his hand to be called upon.  YB and I liked seeing how she interacted with him and he with her.  I got the biggest kick out of how he showed her nearly every toy in his room.

The most telling exchange, though, came from YB who asked something like, "Our son's teacher is over for dinner.  When did we become these kinds of parents?"

The adult world is such a strange one.  You never know when you're going to look up and realize with a greater clarity you're not in Kansas anymore.

Wake Up Calls

I've probably written on this subject before, but it continues to be true and so I don't have a problem mentioning it again.  As a parent, one is tasked with responsibilities you would have never been able to do.  It takes an incredible amount of love to walk into a house that is permeated by a diaper that was mistakenly left out by yourself, throw it in the garbage and then empty the full diaper pale into said garbage which you intend to take out side but not before getting inundated with the aromas that have been brewing for a couple days.  It takes love to know that your son saves his number twos for when you are home.  It takes love to read the book your daughter asks you to read before you've even had the entire first cup of coffee in the morning.

It takes love, the latest definition of which occurred this past Labor Day.

The setup for Labor Day started the day prior, Sunday.  It was my first full day back from a four day work run.  Generally YB and I keep things simple on those days.  We'll take the kids to a playground and/or to our favorite coffee shop.  This past Sunday we just stayed home which was kind of odd for us.  At one point YB took off to Costco for something.  I stayed home with the kids.  It was close to dinner time so she returned with whatever it was she wanted to purchase along with a rotisserie chicken.

We've had those before.  Nice and juicy, makes great leftovers.  The problem with this one was it was kind of greasy.  It wasn't over the top or anything.  I had a small piece; YB and the kids ate most of it.  YB needed some carbonation to break up the rock it formed in her stomach afterwords.  It wasn't the first time and the kids weren't bothered by it so I didn't think much of it...

...until 6:30am the next morning.

I awoke to the cries of Z calling for me.  Passing through the living room I passed Gman who was sitting on the couch telling me Z was throwing up.  A two year old throwing up at 6:30am before coffee is even made is a bit much, a four year old who is up and out of bed an hour early makes the situation almost unbearable.  I sent him back to bed and went in to check on Z.  Yes, she had thrown up.

Off come her clothes, off come the sheets and blanket.  Changed her diaper and sat her down.  Half an hour later I got Gman up who was complaining of how hungry he was.  He headed to the kitchen to get a cup of water.  Five minutes later all of that came back up.  The rest of the day was spent keeping an eye on the clock and prepping or doing four loads of laundry to keep up with the regurgitation cycle.

Around 2pm Gman turned a corner and started munching on little pieces of bread every half hour.  Around 3:45pm Z turned a corner and did the same.  Each child's turn was marked by an inexplicable increase in energy (though they hadn't really eaten anything all day) and improvement in attitude.  For dinner they each had two pieces of toast with verrrrrrrryyyyyyyy light amount of cream cheese to make the toast have a little flavor, and a serving of apple sauce.  Both are now sleeping and, I've prayed, go right through the night without interruption.

Truth be told, I never thought I'd be able to handle the sounds of people getting sick until I had kids.

Politics

No, not that kind of politics.  The other kind.

Wait, is there any other kind?

More than a few years ago I had the distinct pleasure of being part of a new graphics package rollout at the studio I used to work at.  Yes, it was run like a committee. The in-house graphics department pitched a couple looks, story-boarded the accepted style, animated it and began delivering the final concept.  Part of the new look was to drive giant set plasmas with looping backgrounds which were supposed to be kind of eye candy but not really; doing something but nothing in particular.  They were there for movement behind the talking heads but slow enough to not be distracting.

It made the loops incredibly long.

It made the file sizes incredibly huge.

It made the renders (the time it takes for the actual file creation) around 24 hours a piece.

The amount of work put in on these loops was incredible so you might get a little bit of understanding as to why the graphic artist got a bit uppity when a producer who should have had nothing to do with the decision to not put it on air said for the third time, "I don't like it".

"Why?" the artist inquired.

"I don't know.  I just don't".

The inability to point to a specific thing, to not be able to classify whatever it is that rubs you wrong to a creative type is extremely frustrating to a creative type.  What's more frustrating is when the creative takes the time to try and explain what they are attempting to achieve and learns, or knows, the explanation will, for whatever reason, fall on deaf ears.  Such is life I suppose, even though it really shouldn't be.  Especially in a collaborative situation.

Last year YB and I started attending a church in our new area.  Aside from the general genuine pleasantness and friendliness of the congregation and how much Gman liked their children's program, the thing that caught me and held my attention was the volume level of the worship time and the mix.  It was spot on.  I could not believe it.  The last time I heard a good mix was at a Hillsong branch in '07.  It is one of the reasons I think we should stay at this church, it may not be the best every week, but it is amazing to me the effort put in by the church leadership and the worship/sound teams to make the best and most pleasant it can be.

Not everyone thinks so.

Tonight I attended a meeting hosted by the senior pastor and a handful of members of the sound and worship team.  The meeting was called because there were some questions floating around from the congregation of "why is it so loud".  Loud?  Really?  I was intrigued, have a history of running sound and being on the worship team, am impressed with how things are run at this church, and frankly quite surprised a question like this arose to the point of needing to address it.  I went.

I'm not bragging on the church, but I have to talk it up a bit.  I don't think I've every been a part of a church that is more organized, intentional, and grounded in their beliefs and purposes, is as well documented, and yet is as genuine, personable while being open to the move of the Spirit as this church.  We sat down tonight and talked.  The "it's too loud" folks raised their concerns, the sound and worship team had their say, and then a dialogue ensued about the challenges concerning both parties, why the sound is the way it is, how it got there, where it's going, where both parties would like it to go and how to meet in the middle somewhere.  In the end it seems like, if all things are equal, everyone is going to be happy with how things turn out.  Even I was given a chance to have my say which was basically, "it's pretty much perfect the way it is from a technical/production standpoint".  I mean really, it could go lower, maybe a bit, before the musicians would start to lose the feel or bond needed to play music together, but not much.  And it definitely could go higher, I gave examples from what I've been through.  And everybody had their say as well.

I've never seen this before.  Generally once this issue escalates to needing a meeting the only resolution is one party looks for another church.  I honestly don't see that happening this time.  It is just so incredibly amazing to see the body of Christ functioning the way it is meant to.  I just hope I never have the experience of attending a meeting about the color of ... well, whatever.

Value City

Toward the end of this past Spring or early Summer I started running low on ammo (read golf balls).  Seeing as how I never bought them before and having moved to a new area far away from my normal connected supplier I had no idea how much money was too much for a decent ball.  No way I'm buying the best because, well, I'm just not that good.  So I turned to UF.  "Free" was his first answer, citing something Grandpa Joe had said in life though at the moment I can't remember because it's late and I'd like to continue my rambling.  So, I took to eBay, being the semi-CB that I am, and scored 72 almost-pristine-or-better Pinnacles for $45 shipped I believe.  Not too shabby.  My golf bag increased in weight dramatically and I should be good through next year with that count especially if I keep find the number I do.  Our condo is on Hole #4's fairway at the end of the long range guys.

I call stuff like this, "Value City".  And you thought I was going to talk about the store...

Recently I received a letter from American Airlines stating my miles with them were due to expire but that I could use them to get a few magazine subscriptions.  I won't go in to my thoughts on American Airlines nor the company they recently merged with (or were bought by...both are horrible and the latter doesn't even get name status in my book).  The last time I flew American was on a borked trip to Boston for a lacrosse tournament.  Connecting through LaGuardia on their new partner airline in a different terminal doesn't work so well when your inbound flight is late arriving and departing and you can't get to your connecting terminal without hopping a shuttle outside of security. That was two years ago.  I have not flown them since.  Prior to that I had only flown them once or twice in the preceding four or five years.  Suffice to say there weren't many miles to speak of.  Getting the dollar value of them wasn't even worth it.  But I had enough to entitle me to a one-year subscription to a handful of magazines I would hardly ever read, or one magazine and a year of the Wall Street Journal (plus online edition).  Can't argue with that.

I lost the letter.

I did not, however, lose sleep over the lost letter.  The miles were nothing to cry about.  Too much effort had gone into earning them.

Two or three weeks passed before I, again, received another letter basically stating, "It's now or never".  Who can argue with that?  I made my selections and mailed it back.  The Wall Street Journal plus online edition and maybe two others I can't remember.  Today I got the electronic confirmation and all applicable information to set up my online access to the WSJ.  It was like being a kid in a candy store having access to all these articles that were forever behind a paywall prior to this day.  All the super interesting ones that are buried, the ones that Drudge links to...I CAN READ THEM ALL.

I don't know if it is one of the signs of being an adult, getting excited about reading the WSJ, or having frequent flyer accounts with horrible airlines and getting everything I can out of their benefits even if I never fly them.  I don't really know how much junk mail I've now subjected my our mailbox to by signing up for these subscriptions or how often I'll receive the "Your subscription will end in..." notices and they'll be sorry to see them go.  But I do know that for the next year I'll get the paper without giving out my credit card number and a couple of magazines that will be travel reading when I'm on the road.

I call it value city.

Sink Drains and Vacuums

Being a husband is very rewarding.  You get to watch your wife get excited about life and see your kids grow under her care which makes you excited and thankful to God for giving such a woman to you.  Then there are there are the jaw-dropping moments, some of which you handle well and others not so much.

Earlier this week I was cleaning up the kitchen while YB was giving the kids a bath.  I don't quite remember why but it felt like a pretty long day which I was hoping to declare over in short order.  "Not a problem", I thought as I started rinsing dishes before stacking the dishwasher.  Then the drain in the kitchen sink backed up.

I know all about our kitchen sink drain.  I've had it apart twice since we moved in.  The left side goes straight down to the J-Pipe.  This vertical drop is joined by the garbage disposal discharge from the right side which also supplies the waste water from the dishwasher.  Pretty easy to grasp.  I'm super happy there's an access point after the J-Pipe to snake out clogs.

This time, though, was different from the rest.  There was no clog after the J-Pipe, and the plunger didn't force the issue along either (though I did get sprayed by the pressurized back lash...not fun).  I was already upset there was even a clog so knowing I had no snake or cheep de-cloggerizer plastic strip thing from Walmart added salt to the wound.  It would be another half hour or hour with traffic before I would return home with one.  But instead of storming off to the store I decided to take the drain apart a little more.

The J-Pipe was bracketed together (don't know if I'm saying that right) in such a way that allowed me to loosen it...a nice feature.  After loosening both wing nut/bolt things, pulling the pipe off and allowing the gallon of water stopped up to drain into my tupperware-made-bucket, I found the culprit of the clog.  It wasn't rice.  It wasn't potato skins that hadn't been completely ground up by the garbage disposal.  "It" was actually two things.  The first was something that should have gone down the drain with no issue, something that looked like spinach.  The second was the one that stunned me, which was three things...three clear plastic knives.  I don't know how they got into the drain, but they did.

Jump forward a few days to this afternoon, well evening more realistically.  Again, the kids are in the bath tub and I am vacuuming the house.  All is going well except I notice the vacuum sounds like it is working really hard.  It is relatively new and still has a fair amount of suction so I don't pay it much attention until it is unable to pick up the little things.  This vacuum is one of Walmart's clearance model from last year.  It replaced the one I bought when I moved into my first apartment (read, the back of someone's garage) 9 years ago.  Our new one is awesome.  I love vacuuming with it.  But heaven help you if you have a clog.

I determined the clog was after the brushes but before the discharge to the main tank.  Okay...that means the entire front plastic hood has to come off which can only be done by unscrewing four screws.  Out comes the tool kit.  Off comes the cover.  And out comes this monstrosity.  All I could say was, "Holy cow".

I call it "Vacuum Barf".

Grandpa Lives On...

If memory serves, which may not be the case this time around, I remember a point in time where GS made TD go snag a soda can to redeem the deposit value, a whopping $.05.  May not seem like a big deal, sending a boy around 10 years old to get an old soda can, except the can was in a street or off to the side of one and we had pulled off the side of the road to get it.  We were driving at the time.

I remember GS's trunk full of soda cans, beer cans and bottles.  He'd bring bags of them to the store for redemption.  TD has taken up his mantra, or used to at least.  I, however, have no use for collecting old cans and bottles.  My state does not do deposit redemption and I am always looked at weird when I return home and throw a soda bottle in the trash.  "How could you do that?!" is what normally follows that action.  Some piece of GS's thinking, or rationalization more like it, did make it in my brain, and it seems that Gman has picked up on it.  A tradition well worth writing about.

The condo YB and I rent is on one of the fairways of our golf community perfectly positioned to be at the end of the long range guys and a prime target for the hacks who need two shots get that distance but can't keep their ball on the course itself.  Needless to say, when it's a good week and the weather is nice, I can find anywhere from three to 10 balls in really good condition.  Our course is in a nice section of town and people try to keep that appearance so most balls I find are Nikes or Bridgestones or Titleist.  A few show signs of being helped out by a cart path or battle damage from a tree root, but, of the 16 balls I lost on my worst round ever this past spring, I've found at least 25.  Six or seven are on my mantle right now waiting for my clubs to come home from their recent trip out of state.

After my bad round this past spring I emailed UF to get his advice.  "How much should I expect to pay for golf balls?" I asked.  I can't remember the rest of the answer at this point because I am a CB.  But I do remember the first part.  "Free ones".  Can't argue with that.  The problem was those were hard to come by as the kids in the unit below us were generally the first to find them.  They've since moved.  And, being the CB I am, I found an auction on Ebay for 65 or 70 Pinnacles for $40 or so, all in near mint condition.

Gman gets so excited when I find a golf ball.  It's like Christmas.  "You found a golf ball?!?!".  "Yes, buddy, I did!".  Hysterical.  Today YB took the kids to the gym with her so I could get some office work done.  Reaching a point where I needed a break I donned my jogging shoes and headed outside. On my run I found a tennis ball next to the tennis courts.  Scooped that up.  Upon returning home I did my normal once over of the landscape between our unit and fairway and, wonder upon wonder, found a Nike ball in really good condition (It is now with the others on the mantle).

I went inside with newly found tennis and golf ball in hand.  YB, Gman and Zbug had gotten home a few minutes prior.  Gman was super excited that I found another ball.  YB informed me he found one himself.  Outside.  Now, to be clear, in order for him to do this he has to go past our main entry door so the ground inspection was intentional.

GS would be so proud.

Quick Glimpse

I do not view this blog as the forum for stories about my line of work and so, as much as possible (which is quite rare, if ever), I refrain from writing about anything other than family life which I so greatly enjoy.  But seeing as how today marks the “as official as you can get” start of my work season I thought I’d circle around and try to tie together the logistics of the peripherals of what it takes to do what I do.

If you ever want to do a study on the education level of the general population of America.  Look no further than the boarding process of an airline and continued instructions given by gate agents and a flight crew.  “Wait for your zone to be called before approaching the boarding door” is one.  Frequent flyers have a name for passengers who board later in the process but line up at the announcement of the 1st class cabin.  They are so lovingly dubbed "Gate Lice” and airports are full of them.  I can understand the logic.  General boarders have to fight for overhead bin space because they carry these monstrous roller boards.  The earlier in the process they can board (or sneak through) the more likely they will have space.  The problem is no one else can board easily because there is no way to get to the jetway door.  Gate agents of the world, please tell people to sit back down or move away from the immediate boarding area.

Once on the plane my absolute favorite announcement/instruction is made and, depending on the day or the flight, no one seems to be able to follow it.  It’s pretty simple,  “Once you have found your seat please step out of the isle”.  Really?  Does this really need to be said?  Apparently so.  There are two times this announcement is made.  The first is after First Class has boarded when the unlucky and un-upgraded frequent flyers get on the plane.  There is always that one frequent flyer who can’t seem to stuff his just-too-big bag in an overhead bin or has a coat and messenger bag and phone and boarding passes and jacket and just won’t sit down until they’re completely situated.  This clogs of up the process and makes line back up into the jetway to the boarding area.  This very thing happened to me on a recent outbound flight.  Dude would not sit down.  He just would not sit.  And it wasn’t rocket science.  He didn’t have a lot of stuff.  In his case he wanted to have a conversation with everyone around him before taking his seat.  Sit first, talk later.

The second time this announcement is made is somewhere in the middle of general boarding.  This one will be when the one person with a too-big bag will not have overhead space at his seat so he has to go searching toward the back of the plane, squeezing his way back up, or squeeze his way back up to where that space was.  Or it will be when two people traveling together, but not seated together, sit together, taking someone else’s seat and then the flight attendant has to get involved (by making the announcement) or by physically saying to the seat poachers, “You can’t do that”.  The worst is when the one parent with the two tween (or younger) kids board with their bags that should have been checked.  Most of the time it’s a mother who is trying to save $75 on checked fees but ignores the “Let us check your bag for free” announcement in the gate area.  They then spend incredible amounts of time trying to find an empty bin close by, which there isn’t, that will fit their stuffed roller boards, which it won’t because the bins aren’t big enough anyway.  Then the mother and the kids try to figure out what seat is which in wherever row they are supposed to be.

On my return flight I had a combination of everything happen.  There was a tremendous amount of gate lice.  First class boarded, then basically my group.  I had a frequent flyer bully his way past me AFTER a husband traveling with his family decided to cut in front leaving his wife and son behind.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  When I travel with YB and the kids we stay together.  Even if we have to let a bunch of other people go in front of us we stay together.  But this gets better.  After I got in the jetway the son (who has to be 15 or 16) jumps ahead…okay, really no problem there, I get it…but then the dad is being all uppity with his wife, daughter and son about where and how to sit.  Again, never seen anything like it.

I have not flown since May but I have to say, people in general have become much more rude in their traveling making this very real logistic extremely, well, astounding to deal with.  Hopefully what I ran into is just people and families (there were a lot of them for the middle of the week) finishing up the last of their summer vacations.  

Ice Cream and Sugar Rushes

Ice cream was a big part of my childhood.  I remember going down to Louie's Sweet Shop once or twice with my family and once on an elementary "field trip"...back in the days when you could do such things and not worry about the State or Feds getting all uppity about "Where's the education in that?!"...and also before it closed.  Which was sad.  Very sad.  MD texted a pic the other week with the caption Where are we?.  My first thought was Louie's.  The loss was momentary because we also had Russel's, another local ice cream place that was only open in the summer.  For upstate NY, that's a big deal because you're only talking three or four months of business.

I remember the lines always being long.  It seemed to take forever for our turn to order.  I always got orange Sherbet until I fell in love with Mint Chocolate Chip.  Kiddie sized.  In a bowl.  Not counting the phases of Vanilla Float with Orange soda or the couple of milkshakes I tried, I never looked back.

Every once in a while mom and dad would let TD and I play on the lawn of the church next door.  It had a giant pit that went down to the basement classroom windows.  It was kind of like a sledding hill in the middle of summer.  Most of the time, though, we would eat in the car.  Dad would finish his ice cream in two bites and then wait for the rest of us to finish ours.

Maybe it had to do with what I now see as the possible ensuing sugar rush, but I don't really remember what happened when the ice cream was gone.  We eventually made it home, probably most of the time.  That much I do know.  Maybe a couple times we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house which was reasonably close by.

Fast forward 31 years.

YB and I went to one of our Care Groups the other night, a church small group.  Cell group is the phrase I use if I want dad to shudder.  It was sort of a fellowship night where there was no teaching, just food and chatting.  Most of the time it involves a guy grilling meat with the others observing the process and the women making sure the kids get enough to eat while making sure more catsup goes in their mouths than on their clothes.  Tonight, though, was ice cream night and, please, keep in mind YB does not keep ice cream or, really, any sugary products in the house aside from a nibbling of dark chocolate as a personal snack and reward to Gman for staying dry overnight.

We arrive and walk up to the house, knock on the door and hear the gathering in full swing.  One of the older kids answers the door and tells us, "You're not late, you're just not the first to arrive."

Very observant.

Shortly after the prayer thanking God for the following sugar rush the first of two half gallons of vanilla ice cream is attacked.  We brought chocolate chip cookies for condiments which were accompanied by strawberries, mini Hershey Kisses, chocolate syrup and whip cream (there were some other options which were healthy but those don't count because one, they're healthy, and two, I didn't use them).  I had two bowls and four cookies and ended up going for a run after we got home because the heat from the sugar burn was making me sweat anyway.  I don't really know how Zbug fared aside from attempting to throw the frisbee around, but Gman also had two bowls.  The first known to YB since she made it for him, the second being revealed after he was in the middle of downing it as he got someone else to make one for him.  Next thing I know he is giving me a giant grin as he randomly runs through the kitchen and eventually out with a group of kids and an adult from the group to the playground at the end of the street.

I did not see him again until 45 minutes later when Zbug started her crash when she realized the big kids were at the playground and she was not with them.  She was happy to go with me to get Gman because she thought she was going to play, but lost it when we started heading back to the car.  Gman did a good job of holding it together and remarked about him being tired on the way home.  But the real crash ultimately came from Zbug who, once in the car, could not keep it together and started inexplicably breaking down from the time we walked through our front door, through the bath time, the Bible time, praying and bed time.  She crashed hard.

I think these are the kinds of things that memories with the kids are made of.  We may not have a great ice cream stand, and we may not go out for ice cream regularly (YB and I have some other traditions which I'll write about at some point), but I can honestly say I hope I remember nights like these 60 or 80 years from now and smile.  God has truly blessed YB and I with such good kids and has given us the gift to be able to make such good memories.  I am forever thankful.

Beating the Heat

I remember when mom and dad got TD and I an above ground pool.  We were above excited.  No longer would I have to hope for an invite to someone's backyard who was lucky enough to have one.

I savored the "you can only jump in once" rule laid down by the Kahuna.  We didn't get a deck till years later and our ladder was not "vinyl friendly" as you might say.  It had wood bases on the bottom of both legs which dad was afraid would tear the liner keeping the water inside the pool.  He wrapped the under-water foot with some kind of welcome mat and bound it with twine.  Our "one jump" was a compromise.  I think if he had his way, at least for the first few years, we wouldn't have been able to jump in at all.

Now that I'm a husband and a father I'm above excited our community has a pool.  August in our area of the country, as it is everywhere probably, is not a nice time of year.  It's hot.  Downright hot.  The kind of hot that you can't even be outside at 9am, made worse because the gnats seem to be coming back and the mosquitos are getting worse, so now we have a hard time going out at all.  But we have a pool.  And it is super easy.  The only hard part is staying hydrated and making sure we don't deplete ourselves before returning home for the afternoon/evening.

We were not successful today, in that respect.  I got back inside and plopped down on my Ikea chair, put my feat up and started writing a blog post for my techie blog.  Of course this was after a grabbed four mini Chips-A-Hoy cookies from the cupboard.  AC and BP visited the other day.  Neither of them would take the snacks YB bought so now I am practicing self-control.  Four is a good number.  So I grab the cookies and sit down to write.  YB is in a different part of the house.  G walks past me.  I didn't notice if he was carrying anything.  A few moments later I hear something.  I look over to see he is on his foot stool in the cupboard where the cookies are.  I know he's just grabbed some, how many I have no idea, but enough to take the edge off the empty stomach as we wait for lunch to be put on the table.  He walks back over to the living room, from where I have been watching most of the process, looking as if he hasn't just been eating cookies (really a perfect crime save for the fact that I saw him and he left the footstool in the kitchen).  I gave him a hi-five.  Very smooth, Gman.  Very smooth.

Goodbye Straighttalk

A few weeks ago I wrote Straighttalk an email.  In it was a list of things I wanted to see come to the service if they wanted to continue keeping me as a customer.  Visual Voicemail was biggest request.  #firstworldproblem, I know.  But still...Cricket offered it along with a slew of other prepaid carriers, for relatively the same price point.  Can't argue with that.

I few days later I received a reply.  I was expecting something like,

Dear Mr. D, Thank you for your comments regarding your service plan and future features you would like to be a part of the Straighttalk offering.  As of right now, plans are/are not in the works for such and such.  We are or may be rolling them out in the next blah blah blah.

Instead I got something like this,

Dear Mr. D, Thank you for your email.  Please visit our website to view the options and features currently available to our subscribers.

Well, Straighttalk, I did that already.  And I've been extremely knowledgable about your offerings as I've been a subscriber since 2011.  Four years is a long time.  That's the span of two two-year contracts.

To be honest, I know the quality, or lack thereof, of Straighttalk's customer service.  It's not known for its quality.  You had basically hope you never have to call them or have a technical issue.  The technical issue began for me, unknown actually for a while, right around the time I sent that email off.

About a month ago I started noticing I had missed calls from people what would normally leave voicemails but that they left no voicemail.  No big deal, I thought, they just aren't leaving me a voicemail.  Except they were, which I found out earlier this week when I tapped on my voicemail button and was sent to the Visual Voicemail screen instead of auto-dialing my voicemail box.  Huge problem.  I didn't lose any work, but the nature of the problem was, well, unacceptable, especially once I start traveling with my phone in airplane mode for hours on end.  I started searching the internet to see if anyone else was having the issue and what I found was also unacceptable.  Other people (not a lot but enough to know what I was dealing with) had the exact same thing.  It was clearly a Straighttalk issue and one that would not get resolved unless you fought customer service enough, and even then you had to get or request someone who spoke English well enough to understand.  And then even when it did get resolved it wouldn't necessarily stay resolved.  Well, if there's anything I love doing more than anything it is working on the same problem time and time again.  Oh wait, no I don't.

Still in the back of my mind was the process of helping dad put his new phone on Cricket when YB, the kids and I visited earlier this summer.  I marched on down to Cricket and got my number transferred over.  Hey look!  I have Visual Voicemail now!  For the same price!  On the same network!  With a real storefront to go to if I have a problem!  And it isn't Walmart!

Don't say I didn't warn you, Straighttalk.  The thing I love doing most with my days off is researching other cellular carriers and then porting my phone number to them.  Oh wait, no I don't.  Your service was just fine with me.  I never really had an issue with it.  But you created a #real1stworldproblem.  I don't have time for that.  Hopefully the battle testing on Cricket this fall will reveal a good choice being made with the service I've switched to.

Dinos and Ponds

I can't remember if I mentioned it or not so please excuse any redundancy in the news.  YB and I extended our lease last month.  We are extremely happy with the deal we are getting in our current rental.  It's not the biggest thing you've ever lived in, but the kids have their own rooms and I love that our master bath contains utility room with the washer and dryer.  It's such a nice thing to not have to do laundry at night next to a room with a sleeping child.  Our condo is in a golf course community with all the amenities minus the driving range (there's a practice cage, but there's no comparison) and our lease includes access to everything.  We're talking golf course of course, and community room and party hall to reserve, a gym which YB loves, and, oh yes, a pool.

I love our pool.  It is literally a two minute drive from our parking space and is three pools in one.  It has a wading pool for the little ones, a main pool with at least one lap lane always available, and a 12 or 13-foot-or-so dive pool.  I can now say, thanks to a lesson from BP and some practice, I can now dive off a diving board.  Only took 30 some odd years.

The Home Owners Association (a post for another day) runs all the amenities and, as far as the pool goes, does a good job.  The rules are pretty fair.  We are allowed to bring guests, a maximum of four per day at $2 a head.  Not a bad deal.  Kids under a certain age (16 I think) must be accompanied by an adult.  All the life guards are American (not something you get everywhere), are very friendly, and do a good job of maintaining a clean deck and safe environment in the water.  The rule that is most cumbersome happens during the last 15 minutes of every hour when ever person under 16 (I believe) has to take a break.

We spend a lot of time at the pool.  By the 45th minute of the hour Gman and Zbug have been in the main pool with me for at least 15 minutes and are generally happy with moving back to the wading pool where YB and I set up camp.  The reason why this rule is so cumbersome is because there is an age range in children where they are old enough to play in the water all the time and don't have the patience to be patient for 15 minutes.  They are the ones who are too big to play with little ones, or even in proximity to little ones, because they don't understand how big they are and how hard they play.  They are also known by their parents or guardians who don't teach them such things.  They don't belong in a wade pool with toddlers and preschoolers.  As YB put it so absolutely perfect, "These kids coming in here are like dinosaurs playing in a pond".

Rabbit Trails

Gman is at the age where he has questions.  Questions.  More questions.  And more questions.  It's awesome.  Most of the time they come out at bedtime because it's one of the few times I have absolute one on one time with him (Zbug has some kind of radar and always shows up when I'm talking with Gman).

Last night Gman and I talked about where the sun goes at night.  So this evening I re-downloaded an app to my phone that is an interactive tour of the solar system.  After I put Zbug down Gman and I sat on the couch for 20 minutes looking at Earth, the Moon, the Sun, orbits...Then it was time to go to bed.  I asked Gman what he was thinking about (because he had that thinking look).  He replied, "The Earth".  Our conversation then went from the earth to his solar projector YB and I gave him for Christmas, to spiders, their webs, what the webs are for, what they eat, why bugs get caught in them, what we do when we run into them, to snow, building snowmen, that it has to be cold for it to snow, to thunderstorms and being scared by them (I guess we've had a couple loud ones this summer).  I told him he could always come and get mommy and daddy when a thunderstorm comes.  That seemed to satisfy him.  That whole trail spanned 20-30 minutes.

Love that little guy.  ;)

Realtors and Education

Recent days have been a consistent dawning for me that the student loans are no more.  What a relief.  What a constant state of realization that a huge weight has been lifted and there is no seemingly infinite black hole our income continues to be dumped into.  Praise the Lord!

YB and I sat down and talked after the loans were paid off.  What did we want to do?  What did we now want to work toward or save for.  For me, this is the first time in my adult life I have not owed anyone anything.  Sure there's rent and health insurance, but it's not like you get your wages garnished if you don't pay.  You can move on and find something else.  You can go to another insurer and a policy with them.

Next year Gman will be starting school, or at least be at the age where traditionally kids start school.  YB and I have been discussing his schooling since before he was born but now was the time where the rubber would be meeting the road and we would actually have to move on a decision.  What do we do for his education?

With the Supremes being stupid and all YB was very intent on a private education and had one picked out, at least to look at, run by a Baptist Church.  I had heard about an elementary school in our area that was supposed to be really, really good and was pretty intent about checking it out.  In addition to asking the normal questions about teacher/student relations, teacher age, class size, we would now have to ask the RIDICULOUS questions which include what age they start teaching sex ed, what will your curriculum include (if any), and, more importantly, at what age will you start teaching that homosexual marriage is a lifestyle choice and should not be looked at as wrong.

YB called the Baptist School and set up a tour the same day.  I wasn't completely on board until we sat with the Principal, talked and saw the school, asked about the curriculum, class size, uniforms, security...everything we could think.  Some things he brought up.  Everything we could think of to ask was answered directly which was about 95%.

Gman has a new school.

In this new time of not being a debtor (PRAISE THE LORD) we've also had a realtor over who was recommended by some folks at church.  I try and stay away from these kinds of recommendations but this time it was a great experience.  YB and I were very upfront, "We have nothing to buy with right now and probably won't for a couple years".  No problem for him.  We had him over and talked for a couple hours about financial policies, the current state of the market, how it works in this our new area, how he proceeds with representing buyers and sellers, establishing an idea of what a buyer is capable of purchasing.  He is a second gen realtor, in business with his dad and is very big on the idea of not purchasing the amount of house you qualify for but the amount you can actually pay for.  YB and I are big on that.  It was a very nice conversation.  In a couple year's time we will probably be in touch.

If there are two things I've learned in the past couple of weeks, they are these:

1. It's such a relief when you don't owe anybody anything.
2. Being an adult is way more fun when #1 is true.

What a Joke

My morning routine, after crawling out of bed, includes perusing Drudge.  Lately its been to see if the parents of the EU can tell their cranky, whiny child that, no, you can't spend whatever you want on whatever you want and expect us to keep giving you more allowance.  Since it seems the parents are going to cave I've sort of moved on.

This morning two articles caught my eye.  Both regarding the city of Baltimore.  This one in particular made me laugh.

Baltimore is one of those cities that could be nice.  It's true.  But truth be told, it's not.  Two years ago I worked an event at John's Hopkins.  I took YB and the kids with me.  We stayed three blocks from the Inner Harbor.  Our hotel was literally on the border of the touristy section where things were relatively safe and not safe at all, and that during the day.  We did not go out at night.

That was two years ago.

Baltimore is on my "You Can't Come" list now.  YB and the kids are not allowed to come when I travel there and that includes the day I was to be at Orioles Park.  So you'll understand when I chuckle when the writer states,

One drove what was then still called a paddy wagon. He was the first person I ever heard speak of a “rough ride.” Baltimore prosecutors say Gray went for a rough ride in a police wagon on April 12, and died a week later from spinal injuries that appear to have been sustained while in police custody.

That could be because the roads in Baltimore haven't been maintained in years.  It's like off-roading anywhere inside city limits.  I think about getting my vehicle re-alligned whenever I'm done with an event.

Or how about this one,

Meanwhile, there is widespread public feeling that the police have stopped policing. This may in no small way be because of aggressive citizens who have taken to stalking cops with cameras.

Why does it strike me as funny that the police are basically being told, "Make your presence known but don't do anything or I'll get you in trouble"?

Then there's this,

Baltimore is a poor city surrounded by five relatively prosperous counties, and many residents of those counties regard Baltimore as a deadbeat relative with his hand out.

Or this,

...theirs is a city with a certain amount of corruption, whether it’s rogue cops, the last mayor who resigned in a corruption scandal (she’s seeking re-election) or a weird citywide speed-camera controversy that involved millions of dollars. The administrator of the city’s free downtown bus shuttle and water-taxi system was sent to federal prison last month on a bribery and money-laundering conviction. 

Sounds like Chicago and isn't there a candidate running for President who used to be Baltimore's mayor?  Sounds like a winner to me.

How about this one,

One consequence of the riots was that hundreds of thousands of doses of hard drugs are on the streets after an uncountable number of drug stores — 27 is the accepted figure — and two methadone clinics were looted. Baltimore already had a drug problem. Before he was replaced, Batts said there were enough illegal drugs on the streets to keep the city high for a year.

Definitely a city I want to visit and work in, a place I'd love to bring the family.

Meanwhile, the Gray killing continues to haunt Baltimore. Citizens from suburbia and out of state write to the Baltimore Sun and various websites vowing they will never come to the city again. Attendance at public events is off. Students accepted at local colleges and universities are said to be thinking twice about coming here.

I have news for the author.  It's not the Gray killing that is haunting Baltimore.  It's the years of rhetoric and liberal ideology.  And I'm pretty sure the drop off in tourism and college attendance was already happening.  The riots and consequently lack of policing is speeding the pace of that statistic.  I've never walked through Baltimore without having some part of my radar going off.

Baltimore is among a growing list of cities that can be compared to the modern world in Atlas Shrugged.  Some of these places may not be revived until they are allowed to die in their ideology.  We may be seeing the beginning of the end.

Lease Renewal

Last October YB and I downsized and relocated to a condo in a new area.  We've been here nine months now and decided we are probably getting the best deal for the money with a ton of amenities in a location that is super convenient.  Easy access to highways, the subway and airports for me.  Close to schools, church activities and educational opportunities for the kids for YB with shopping to boot.  We are very happy with the setup here.

Knowing we would need to take some kind of action on our lease, whether extending or moving on, I contacted our property manager indicating our interest in extending the lease for two more years.  A few minutes laster they emailed back stating they would contact the owner and find out their thoughts.  In less than two hours the owner had let the property manager know, and the manager us, they had no problem with us extending for two years with only a $50 increase in rent.  As Pumbaa from Lion King stated, "Home is where your rump rests".  Our rumps will be resting here for at least two more years.

Praise the Lord!

Gman's Fourth 4th

It seems kind of odd to me that fireworks are legal in our area of the country.  I'll admit they are not the biggest things you've ever seen, and that by local ordinance.  But still, they're legal.  A month ago YB and I walked into Costco and found two pallets of them on sale and I convinced her to let me buy the cheaper of the two (My reasoning was G and Z are still too little to take them to the big fireworks, or at least to make the trek...that and I really wanted to shoot some off on my own).  Should the local government change its mind before then and July 4, I was going to be sure to have a set.

Our plans for the 4th remained pretty small.  The Dr.s were in town visiting BP.  So we invited them over for some food and a jaunt to our community pool which was a ghost town because of course the weather was cool and rained earlier in the day to boot.  But we got almost two hours in once the thunderstorm cleared.  After the pool is when the real fun began.

We got home and changed into dry clothes.  Then the pyros, BP and I, went to look for some prime ground to set off some of the fireworks I bought.  I didn't know how big they would be so the local golf course which forbade such practices earlier in the week was a prime target, made even more desirable from the rain that fell earlier in the day.

We all made our way to the fairway and set off a half dozen.  Not the best show, but getting to set off your own fireworks makes up for the smallness.  Even the bigger one we brought was pretty small...ish.  So we made our way to our community's parking lot and set some more off.  The best part of the night was yet to come.

I should say "night" is relative.  The kids were starting to lose it as it was past their bedtime and the sun was still up.  It was actually dusk when I set a firework on the pavement and looked over at Gman.

"Would you like to set this one off?" I asked.

You would think he was seeing the beauty of the sunrise for the first time.  Of course I told him what to do and helped and held his hand as he did it, but that firework was the one that he enjoyed the most.  Jumping up and down, clapping his hands and smiling and laughing the entire time.  That one he enjoyed more than all the others, even the one we set off an hour later after dark (I wanted him to see what fireworks actually looked like) after the BP and the Ds had left and Z was in bed.

It was a great 4th of July.  Definitely looking forward to next year.

VacaFiles

One of the best qualities about YB is her ability to open my eyes to new experiences.  Last year we spent a month together (with the kids of course) in Seoul.  Officially it was for Z's first birthday with YB's mom.  Unofficially, for me specifically, it was for a much needed vacation.

We spent a lot of time touring the city, drinking coffee, going to Paris Baguette and Cafe Bene, and taking the kids to the zoo and a couple water parks.  Many realizations were dawned in my mind but the one that sticks out the most to me now was, is, the Korean Sauna.

Now, let me tell you, the Korean Sauna is no joke.  YB, her sister and mom make sure they all go together every time we visit, kind of like a family outing.  YB took me last year and I didn't really know how to enjoy myself because I didn't bring anything to do and I didn't understand the concept.  I'm one of those weird people that can't enjoy something on the first try because I'm so busy trying to learn the thing.

Imagine, if you will, an early summer night.  It's not hot, not muggy, but a warmer than pleasant.  A pasty white guy lead by a hot Korean enters a sauna, down what I can only assume (because I've only been in two) the normal inviting hallway.  YB says something in Korean.  Probably something like, "Please take my husband to the locker-room and show him what to do.  He doesn't speak any Korean".  You'll see why this is hysterical shortly.  I am handed a numbered digital key which opens your personal locker (with the same number) in the locker room and with which all transactions are recorded.  Admission is paid when you get there, anything you buy goes on a tab tied to the key (used like a credit card inside) which you pay upon your exit.  My sandals go in a tiny locker in the entrance (again, with the number as the key).  I will not see them again until I exit and my tab is paid off.

YB disappears.  I am left with an older Korean guy who starts talking to me in hand motions.  "Great," I think to myself, "This is going to be awkward."  He takes me into the mens locker room which is way nicer than anything I've ever seen in the States (except maybe the member's locker room at the local YMCA my grandfather used to take me to).  Another guy hands me a set of clothes I will eventually change into.  The Korean guy walks me to my locker and motions me to, at least what I hope, to put on those clothes.  He walks away a safe distance.  I put them on and follow him.  He then stops me and, in very broken english, manages to say "shower".

This is where the backstory comes in.  YB had prepared me for this moment but I had hoped it would not come.  I had hoped Korean tradition would stop for one night at the very sauna I visited.  Before entering the coed part of the Korean Sauna it is necessary to shower.  The shower area of the Korean Sauna is wide open and generally contains Bade Pools with massaging waterfalls and different kinds of jet areas to work different parts of the body.  It's very therapeutic.  It's also very intimidating when you, for the first time, are in all your glory in front of whoever happens to be there as well as they being in all their glory in front of you.  Added to that, you do not put on the shirt and pair of shorts  the sauna gave you until you are clean and ready to go to the coed section.  So not only are you and the rest of male population nude in the shower/hot tub area where it can be rationalized as acceptable, you are nude in the non-acceptable as well.

So I shower and soak in a hot tub for a few minutes.  Goodbye stress.  More like "ThankGodI'mclothedIcanbreatheagain".  I dress and find the door to the coed section.  Down a flight of stairs I find YB.  She asks me what took so long.  Down two more flights of stairs is the common area.  It has a large, dimly lit (remember it is nighttime), sitting area with a couple of TVs with what I can only assume now were the latest Korean Dramas.  At the far right end of the room is a little cafe, directly across are doors to individual 15'x15' rooms with their own theme for bodily health.  One has oxygen pumped in.  Another has something "to help the mind" where a mom was keeping her kids while they were doing their homework.  One of the rooms is a super hot room to "sweat out the impurities and improve blood flow".  We didn't get any snacks.  We used all the rooms except the "Cold Room" which is kept somewhere just under 40 degrees to "lock out the impurities you sweat out".  I lasted maybe, at most, two hours.  A very short period of time.  On our way back up to the locker rooms YB showed me the "Salt Room".  This room consisted of salt and was heated to 160.  I couldn't stay in there.  We left.  The following day I was so drained I could barely move.  All I could do was eat and walk very slowly.  It was like I had been worked out but did not move one muscle at all.

Fast forward to present day.  YB found a Korean Sauna not far from our house.  It is set up the same way, doesn't have the oxygen room, but does contain the cafe and bade pool and hot rooms.  We have made use of it from time to time.  Last time I was there was a month ago.  After I was done I was no good at all.  Same side effects, I felt like I had been run over (in a good way).  But today I am feeling pretty good, functional, relaxed and enjoying it.  YB mentioned to her mom how I was feeling last time I went.  Her mom's response was that I needed to go more.  The holistic approach to health that is a part of the Asian culture includes making sure your body is free of impurities and that your blood flow is good.  The hot and cold rooms, the bade pool and hot tubs in Korean Saunas are designed to facilitate that.  And let me tell you, it works.  It really does.

And the Hot Stone Bip and Bop today was absolutely AWESOME.

Fixing Chronicles

There are certain things you give up on when going from owning your own house to a rental.  A powerful dishwasher is one of them.

And the dishwasher in that kitchen was   

Our rental has "one of those" dishwashers.  You know the kind, one of those lower end models that only has one spinning jet at the bottom.  Placing anything big on the bottom rack causes everything above it to go completely unwashed. YB and I weren't expecting the world of it when we moved in and at that time it washed as well as could be expected.  A couple of months ago YB and I noticed the washing quality started to go downhill.  The dishes started coming out cloudy and the top rack looked like it had hardly been hit with water.  

My first thought was the primary intake was clogged so I cleaned that out.  That fixed things for a few days.

Then I mistakenly used a dish gel so cheap it didn't work at all and, in fact, gummed up the secondary intake and part of the spinning jet.  

So I took those apart, cleaned those out, which, for a time, made the dishes "washed" but not "clean".  We lived with that for a few weeks, rinsing out the dishes before running them through the washer and even rinsing them again after coming out from the washer.

Yesterday I had enough.

I opened the dishwasher after a load had been done to find that a small piece of food which should have been easily rinsed off had not moved one bit.  It was after dinner and the kids needed a bath and be put to bed but I could not put it off any longer.  I rechecked the secondary intake nearest the door.  Clean.  I removed the spinning jet.  Clean.  I took apart the primary intake.  Seemed clean.

Cue the muttering under my breath.

Then I dug down deeper in the primary intake.  I found a grill area where the water is pumped through before being sent to the jet.  It felt like one of the soft plastic pieces was loose.  I pulled at it and looked at what broke off.  It turned out to be a piece of very old food or a piece of a label.

Hmm.

I spend the next 20 minutes pulling junk off of the grill area.  Bits of food, bits of labels, bones, a piece of wood from who knows what, small chunks of glass from broken whatevers.  How did the washer work at all with all this stuff down there?  I put everything back together, loaded it up and turned it on.  And oh joy!  There could be no better sound than that of water actually hitting and moving dishes on both racks.

I now know way more about our dishwasher than I care to but for some reason am proud of that because it is actually a relevant knowledge.  I suppose the signs of adulthood are such as these.

Milestones...

Praise be to the Lord, the God of hosts!  YB and I paid off our final student loan today!

Vacation Thoughts

Earlier this week YB and myself with the kids in tow returned home from a vacation to the Grandparents house.  Life is full of new experiences when married, and those experiences multiplied when married and traveling with kids.  So below are a few of my bullet point observations from our experience last week:

1. If your wife travels a few days ahead of you be prepared for the longest, quietest day at home you've ever experienced.  Also, be prepared for the phone call and text messages describing the awesome time she is having at her connecting airport in a coffee shop.
2. When the kids arrive at the grandparents house, expect to see videos of them doing things they have yet to experience, like dancing in the rain or watching grandpa eat something he's not supposed to.
3. Throw every piece of their normal daily schedule, like naps, out the window.  You'll probably make it about six days before they begin to fall apart or start randomly laying on the floor, drifting off to sleep.
4. In the same kind, throw every part of their normal diet out the window as grandma and grandpa, auntie and uncle sneak them goodies they otherwise do not ever have in massive amounts.  S'mores is a good example.  Then watch your son terrorize the yard for 30 minutes and then start inexplicably crying at nothing when the sugar crash comes.  See the last part of #3.
5. If they are too young, do not expect your kids to realize what "going home" means, especially if a six-hour car ride is what it takes to get there.  Do not expect you'll get a fight.  Do, however, fully expect there to be much tiredness, crankiness and sleeping for at least three or four days once you do get home.
6. Regarding your wife, should you have the resources to let the kids stay with the grandparents and you and she have the resources to stay at a hotel, expect her to live it up.  At midday use of the gym should be expected, as well as long uninterrupted naps, while you help the grandparents out with unexpected and well timed yard work during your stay.
7. Your drive back with the family in tow will be much longer than the drive up when it was just you.  Bathroom and meal breaks will be more frequent and the latter will be very random.  "Daddy I have to pee pee" will be heard as you are driving down a country road and the first gravel pull off you see will have a cop car in it with a police officer who is trying to concentrate on catching speeders.  He will have a back row seat to your son who has been holding it in all day.

I think trips to and relationships with the grandparents are absolutely necessary to the well-being of a child's life.  I have very fond memories of the experiences I had with my grandparents and want G and Z to have the same.  Of the things I want to give G and Z in life toward the shorter of the long term, a yard is one, but more importantly is time with the grandparents.  We pray.  We will see what God will do.

Tripping It

This week YB, G, Z and I are visiting my parents, a trip timed with a cousin's wedding which I was not able to attend as I was committed to a day of work.  To make things easier, I flew YB and the kids up.  One person driving six hours in a car with a one and three year old is not something I wanted YB subjected to.  It's not like flying is any easier.  Sure someone else is doing the transporting but the hardest thing to watch is a mom with a kid or multiple kids in an airport, especially a mom who hasn't packed correctly.  If you're a frequent flyer you know the kind of moms I'm talking about.  Generally speaking they have a packed suitcase that passes as a carryon for themselves and one for each kid.  The kid may or may not be carrying or pulling their own suitcase.  The mom also has has a stroller or car seat and diaper bag along with her purse and cell phone.  None of these bags are consolidated.  One mom, four bags, a stroller, a phone, and a kid.  No good comes from this.  It breaks my heart.  I used to see Navy wives do this all the time when we lived in Hampton Roads.  I don't know where they were going so frequently, but there they were.  Making a valiant attempt at something that needs a very logistical approach if you're going to have any kind of success in it.

When I fly by myself I have two bags.  One carryon that has my clothes for the trip, and my backpack containing my laptop and tech supplies.  When YB and the kids fly with me I always check one or two suitcases.  The thought of trying to save $50 at the cost of navigating an airport, even if it's one direct flight with two kids and a parent for each, is just not worth it.  Checking two bags still leaves us with three carryons, a diaper bag and stroller.

When YB and the kids fly on their own, like last Friday, I pack them as logically as possible.  They have one checked suitcase, one carryon, the diaper bag, the stroller, and a papoose for Z.  Somehow last week they managed to not need the carryon.  Everything consolidated into the diaper bag.  It was a miracle.

When all is said and done, the hardest part of putting YB and the kids on an airplane is not the packing, logistics or preparation that goes into it.  The hardest part about putting them on an airplane is when they go through security without me, when I watch my entire life go somewhere that I cannot go, into situations that I cannot help them through, making that long, painful walk back to the car without them, driving home to the empty, quiet, lonely house.  That's the hardest part.  Even though I know I'll see them in a few days it still feels like my heart is torn in two and true healing only happens when we are reunited again.

Life After Facebook

Life after Facebook?  Is there such a thing?

Oh yes, there is.  And let me tell you, what a wonderful thing it is.  What a wonderful thing it is to not check something that 80% to 90% of the time was people reposting memes, "Wish I were at Disney" postcards, ads to friend Mark Zuckerberg (give me a break), and 5% asking you to give up more and more of your personal data.

When I first got Facebook back in the day, '06 or '07, it was fun.  Yes it was a time waster, but it was a fun time waster with the ability to lock yourself down securely.  Seriously, whatever happened to the Flare Board?  But today it has turned into something that takes work to use it.  It's no longer something to kill a few minutes with.  It's something that takes time to maintain and navigate, and Facebook sure isn't paying me to do that.  My time is way too valuable.

So what is life like after Facebook?  Well, I have more time during the day.  I honestly wasn't spending much time on it anyway, but having 20-30 contiguous minutes of your life back per day is a noticeable addition.  My phone's battery life went through the roof.  Even the backend process on the iPhone (without the standalone app installed) had a noticeably negative affect on power consumption.  Install the standalone app and you wind up not being able to get through two days of careful usage. YB's old 4S is worse.  Heaven help you if you're traveling.  And then there's creativity.  I'm beginning to write again, not anything heavy or necessarily material for thinking, but YB and I haven't updated this blog for over a year and I think it's time to start again.  It's amazing the number of things that you think of doing when you're not thinking, "Oh I have to post this picture/thought/meme".  At some point in the future I will be starting a blog for the TD in me.  Posting that material here would probably make the two readers (YB and I LOL) pass out from sheer boredom and cause me to go back to Facebook.  I'm also thinking of adding a section for what I hope to be the experiences and growth of my *cough* golf game *cough*.