As The Worm Turns

Running

2012-01-25T11:38:00.001-08:00

I started running again - with the intention of seeing whether or not my body would be agreeable to do it for another Beaver Freezer. A friend from Life Works (that seminar I just finished) told me she'd come and race with me if I did it (she has a goal of competing in a race of some kind in each of the 50 states).

So, I'm spending January figuring it out.

My body isn't crazy about running, but I think it will be ok with me doing the Freezer.

Yesterday's run was in the mist, and the streams were flowing high. I took a couple of crummy photos with my iPhone.

At the end, my knees complained a little bit (I resorted to more walking than running), but was happy to be outdoors.

Self-Made Coloring Book Pages

2012-01-22T00:36:00.000-08:00

Just the other day, Simone decided to draw some pages to color in. We've had a couple of different coloring books, and she likes them well enough. Lately she's paid a fair amount of attention to coloring in the lines and choosing very specific colors. I've always preferred her free-hand drawings, but some of the colorings have been very pretty.

This, however, was a new twist. She drew two pictures with black pen and we colored one in together. I had artistic reign over the fairies (well, one had to be a rainbow fairy, oh, and they needed blue eyes and gold hair, but I did the coloring), and I colored in the brown roof, the chimney, and the tree. But I just love her drawing, with the wings and the tu-tu.

And then she drew another page, which we didn't get to color. It's a drawing of Jade (the larger one) and Juptier.

Simone Book

2012-01-22T00:02:00.000-08:00

Simone loves creating things. Last fall (Sept 2011) she wrote a book. Well, she wrote many books, but one in particular stood apart. I just scanned the images in, and here it is.

Of course it has a title page, which is her name:

Mary got some watercolor pencils, which are way cool. You draw with the pencils, using whatever colors you want, and then you come back with a water brush and apply the water and you get a water color painting.

Simone loves using them. She draws with a pen for the outline, and then colors it in.

I can't remember if the next drawing was a boat, or just the clay birdhouse we have in the back yard. Ah, that's probably it, the birdhouse was sitting in one of the clay pots that have soil.

I knew I should have kept notes, I'm pretty sure this is a picture of Hazel. She was really missing Hazel last fall.

Flowers are a big part of her drawing. Though this one actually reminds me of a duck. This one is a black-eyed susan.

I believe the next one is a self portrait, note the blue eyes and blonde hair. She is wearing her Hawaii dress.

Rainbows were probably the first concrete thing Simone started drawing, and they make frequent appearances. Edit: Simone informed me this is a sunset - which makes sense, there's no green.

From another picture she drew about the same time, I think this is a picture of the horse named "Red."

After creating all the pages, Simone ripped them out of the notebook and stapled them together. She's made a number of books, some are full-blown stories, and some are more abstract. This is certainly one of my favorites.

Edit: This morning I showed Simone the pictures and she read the file names and corrected me on several accounts. So, she recognizes the words rainbow, clifford (I'd incorrectly named the in the filename).

Three Weeks In

2012-01-21T20:00:00.001-08:00

We're in the new year, and what's happened?

I had LASIK (at PCLI) and it went really well, though I'm itching to get back to mountain biking (I took a week off as a precaution, then had other things get in the way - including the flooding of Corvallis which has closed down the forest b/c of landslides).

I finished up the Life Works seminar, which was a great experience.

The last weekend of LW, Simone caught a bit of a stomach flu and was puking all weekend, I returned from my weekend away to help out as Mary got winged by it, and then I took a day off because it laid me low for a day. I think it's our first illness that got all three of us.

Simone is drawing lots (I really want to scan them in... maybe that'll be tonight's project), and speaking more and more complicated - I wonder where my little girl has gone.

This weekend is a papa weekend as Mary is at a conference. Simone and I played outside in the brief patch of sun, we made mustard and kimchi, we read lots of books, and then more books, and we've been eating lots - including rice pudding for dessert.

Mary hung up some paper lamps in the bedrooms, and the fairies turn them on and off for us. The three in our bedroom are remote-controlled, so the mystery might still be holding there. It's hard to tell if Simone is just playing along or if she still believes.

Tonight I read "A Fairy Went A-Marketing" to Simone while she took a bath. Cute book, great illustrations. How geeky of me was it that when the fairy gave a coat to a frog my first thought was, "That's not right! Frogs are cold-blooded! What is this book teaching?!"

The year has started off well - looking forward to the remaining 49 weeks!

New Year

2012-01-02T23:38:00.003-08:00

Well, it's a new year.

The highlights so far - a lovely 3+ hour walk with Mary through the woods (Lewisburg Saddle to the top of Dimple Hill, down Dan's and back) while Simone was at school, then lunch at Vietnamese food, then a 2 hour mountain bike ride up to the top of McCulloch Peak (taking nearly 3 minutes off my PR, yay!), and coming home to see Mary and Simone, both happy to see me.

The lowlights so far: Spending nearly 8 hours re-installing all the software on my laptop from scratch (yes, I could buy a new one, but facing 8 hours versus $1K, I went with the time I had).

It's Good

2011-12-04T08:26:00.001-08:00

Simone woke up early this morning and called out for me. When I came into her room she wanted help blowing her nose and then asked if I could snuggle. As I snuggled in next to her she said, "It's good to snuggle in the morning."

It certainly is.

Breakfast

2011-11-23T12:32:00.001-08:00

So we're at the beach for Thanksgiving. Mary, Simone and I drove through Astoria because 101 is flooded just south of Seaside. The road is flooded because there was a crazy storm happening, winds up to 60mph (seemed like 80, but what do I know).

We woke up (I use that term loosely, I slept in until 8:30) and then decided to have some breakfast. Oatmeal porridge was on the menu, but for some reason Mary pulled down a package of marshmallows, and she said the word "marshmallow."

Of course Simone heard this and came into the kitchen asking about them, face very bright and excited. There were two bags. One of the ridiculously over-sized large marshmallows - large enough that you need a graham cracker the size of a piece of sandwich bread to match. The other bag was the regular size marshmallow. Simone told us how the big ones make her sick and she'll "never eat those again" ("never" and "always" are popular terms right now, everything is absolute). However, she did want one of the regular-sized ones.

She had 3 marshmallows, very excited about each one - I should have gotten it on video.

We did actually eat oatmeal after than, and then I high-tailed it to McMennemin's to put in half a day of work, leaving Mary to hang out with Simone hopped up on sugar.

good-luck!

Riding With Simone To School

2011-09-23T10:47:00.002-07:00

Simone and I rode to school today.

Yup, she's in kindergarten at the big Waldorf school, it's her second full week.

We woke up this morning, had breakfast (hens in pens), dressed up nice and warm, hopped on our bike and road the 6 miles or so to school. It was super foggy in parts - I meant to take a photo of some trees in the fog, but I wanted to be to sure to get to school on time.

We got there in plenty of time, being the second kid in the class to walk in.

Simone peeled off her many layers, kissed me goodbye and she was off.

It felt great to ride her to school, and I hope to do it a few more times before the rain sets in.

I took a slightly longer way home, riding along Walnut/53rd, and I did take the time to snap a photo of the sun shining through the oak trees. I was on a bit of a hill here, and was just barely out of the fog, about 2 minutes later I was back in the thick of things.

I do love the fall weather - let's hope it sticks around for a while longer.

If Only "The Onion" Reported Real News...

2011-09-15T15:01:00.001-07:00

I didn't read/follow much of the 9/11 navel-gazing that happened, but I saw that The Onion wrote a piece and thought I'd check it out. It's worth a read (it's really more sad/ironic than funny).

U.S. Commemorates 9/11 By Toasting Stable Afghan Government From Top Of Freedom Tower | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

NEW YORK—In a moving and beautiful ceremony held atop Lower Manhattan's gleaming, 120-story-tall Freedom Tower, the nation commemorated the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by raising a glass to the stable democracy of Afghanistan and to a decade of unprecedented peace and prosperity across the globe.

A sobering/depressing read

2011-09-05T22:02:00.001-07:00

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult:

"If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power."

He heaps a lot of blame on the Republicans and (more or less) discounts the Democrats as incompetent. I think I'd disagree with that statement about the Democrats - I think they're basically in cahoots with the Republicans. This isn't Gilligan's Island, the Dems are professional politicians - they know what they're doing, they know who butters their bread - it's the same as who butters the GOP's bread - large corporate interests...

I do have half a mind to take Mary up on her occasional, "we should move to another country..." thought.

Wouldn't that shock people.

Farm to Farm - a ride for me

2011-09-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

Mary noticed a bike ride coming up, the Farm to Farm. It totally has my name written all over it. A ride through the countryside, with 4 stops along the way at farms with fresh food, ending with a meal made from the ingredients from the farms. Woo-hoo!

I'm in. Anyone else?

Studying Obesity

2011-09-05T20:49:00.002-07:00

(From the archives, a post started in January 2011 but never finished)

Today I saw two articles. The first was in our Friday paper: "OSU wins $5 million grant for rural childhood obesity research", and the second was a blog post "The American Fast Food Syndrome". Oh, and I heard a story on the radio last night, "Overburdened Food Banks Can't Say No To Junk."

It got me to thinking about obesity again, and wondering how much money will we throw at studying this problem and how much time (lives) will we waste?

The OSU research has a goal of "improv[ing] the fitness level and reduce the body mass index of rural children, ages 5 to 8." That's a great goal, and you do need specific goals in order to win research money. Which are you more likely to give money to, a study with the goal, "make people happier" or one whose goal is "decrease incidence of days of depression in 20-25 year olds"?

We, in the U.S., seem to like to research the hell out of things and not do anything about it. How many diet/lifestyle studies do we need to do?

It's clear that if we feed ourselves too much food, and crummy food at that, we're going to get fat. The government heavily subsidizes corn/soy/wheat/sugar and that gets turned into cheap junk food.

Biking and a Hike

2011-09-05T20:46:00.000-07:00

We found a trail-a-bike (tag-a-long) on Craig's List yesterday and I picked it up today. We should have gotten one in the beginning of the summer... oh well.

We hooked it up and Simone and I went riding off into the summer day. She had a blast, and so did I. Simone felt very confident on the bike (after the initial 30 seconds of "I'm tired"), and about half way into our ride she was pedaling enough that I could feel the help. I'd occasionally stop pedaling (on request) so she could be the one to make us go, and I'd do all the steering.

We went through Avery park, to Noah's house (he wasn't there), and then on to Bohdie's (he was, we chatted for a few minutes), and then we came back through Avery park to see the big train engine there. All in all, we covered nearly 8 miles, and Simone would have easily gone another 4 (she was asking to go further).

Instead we came home to connect with Mary, who was hanging out at home recovering from her first half-marathon. Yay Mary! She did it with Tracy (Bohdie's mother), so the papas and the kids rolled down a little later to catch the mamas as they crossed the finish line. Tracy finished 49th out of the 1000 - running way fast (about 1h45m). Simone and I walked them back to their car and made it back to the finish line a few minutes before Mary crossed - so we cheered her on.

Anyway, we came home from the bike ride to tell Mary all about it, and then headed out to Alsea Falls for a little hike and to cool our feed in the water. We rarely go out there, and I don't know why - it's lovely. We crossed over the creek and headed down the trail to where it got a little slippery. But we made it down to the water and hung out in the bottom of the gorge on big rocks, wading in the water, feeling as though we had the entire forest to ourselves.

A wonderful labor day to finish a great weekend.

It Begins

2011-09-01T21:26:00.002-07:00

Today was my first meeting at Weight Watchers. I weighed in at 263.8 pounds (socks, shorts, t-shirt), and I've got my goals set.

The leader (Sandy) is energetic and pretty entertaining (though she reminds me a little bit of my mom...)

Here's to reaching some new goals and staying there. The medium-term goal is 235 pounds, but first I've gotta lose 5 pounds (you get a gold star! - it's just like kindergarten)...

An Adventure

2011-08-21T22:13:00.000-07:00

We woke up this morning and figured we'd try something new, and adventure perhaps.So, after a rousing game of bananagrams,

Mary made one of our favorite breakfasts, sunny-side-up eggs over a bed of wilted spinach. yum!We then piled into the car

and headed off for a little hike just outside of Lincoln City called Drift Creek Falls. We'd never been there before and it sounded neat.The last 10 miles of the drive there were through a narrow, winding road, and it seemed as though we were going into the middle of nowhere. But, when we arrived, there was a huge paved parking area with space for 20 cars, most of which were filled. We parked, hopped out, and headed down the path.The trail is very gentle, mostly following a ridge down to a little creek at the bottom. You walk through a variety of sunny forest with lots of vegetation, and darker forest along a steeper portion of the hill.

After getting to the bottom, we had a snack next to the stream:

Drift Creek from Trey Jackson on Vimeo.

We crossed the stream, walked through some nice old growth forest

and then came to a neat suspension bridge over a surprisingly large gorge (very little water seemed to flow through it)

We then hiked down to the bottom to dip our feet in (Simone came fully prepared with water wings)

The hike back out was almost as nice - a little busier, and uphill of course. Simone did find one little fairy chair to sit in on the way out.

After the nice hike, we drove into Lincoln City and found lunch at a wonderful cafe named Blackfish Cafe. The fish and chips was awesome, Mary's fish tacos were delicious - almost as good as her glass of wine. And the hostess said dinner was even better (reservations recommended).The fog rolled in, and Mary and Simone started to fall asleep, so I pulled into Agate Beach (a childhood favorite of Mary's) and we played in the sand there for an hour. There are sand dunes all over the beach, ranging from 2 feet tall to nearly 6 feet. Much fun for climbing, sliding, jumping and the occasional tackle.

We finished the day with a light dinner at Mo's, some ice cream (and brownie!!!) for dessert and then headed home.

A very good day indeed.

Camping In Her Room

2011-07-08T09:33:00.002-07:00

Last night Simone camped in her room, it was very exciting.

Vision

2011-06-29T20:36:00.003-07:00

I went to the eye doctor about a month ago. It'd been... 6 years? Something like that.

My contacts were beginning to bother me, which, it turns out, is expected because the lifetime of gas permeable lenses is 5 years. Oh, and the fcsking cleaning product tells you to clean it in a way that warps the lenses.

So I go and get some soft contacts. I like the gas permeable, but they shape your eyes a little bit. And that's a problem if you want to get LASIK. So I'm in soft lenses, and my eyes are slowly changing shape - reverting to whatever their "natural" shape is.

It's been 5 weeks and my eyes are settling down pretty well. With my next set I should have 20/10 vision.

For Fox Sake

2011-06-29T13:41:00.006-07:00

I've been debating with a guy about a variety of things, he's arguing from the standard GOP talking points.

I've come to the conclusion (broad generalization coming) people like him live in a constant state of fear: fear of Marxists/communists trying to subvert the government, and fear of the global Muslim jihad. It's not a grip of fear that controls every aspect of life, but a constant fear nonetheless.

Another theme also seems to be that the liberal media is just not giving their viewpoint the time it deserves. If the rest of us (non-Republicans) just knew what they (Republicans) know...

While I don't think Comedy Central is necessarily the place to look for objective reporting. I do think this recent Daily Show segment sums up how I felt during the debate very nicely:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Oh, for Fox Sake

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

Plus, there's the classic Stephen Colbert quote, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Climbing Through The Eyes Of A Five Year Old

2011-06-28T21:05:00.003-07:00

Simone drew some pictures of Sam and I climbing Mt. Hood. I think they're great.

The first is just the two of us on the mountain.

But, as the second drawing shows, as Sam and I reached the summit, a blizzard began.

The Horror

2011-06-20T20:00:00.003-07:00

We babysat a monster this weekend, reminiscent of Jack Torrence in The Shining.

Words can not describe the horror, I'll let the photo speak for itself.

Note: she got along swell with both Jupiter and Hazel - actually chasing Hazel around.

Arguing...

2011-06-10T21:28:00.004-07:00

So, I've been debating/arguing with a guy on facebook. He's someone I knew at Intel, and also works at Mentor too.

He initially commented on my status about Osama Bin Laden:

Note: Obama said "justice has been done" - and that pretty much sums it up. U.S.A. where we either hold you indefinitely without charge, ore we kill you without trial. You're either with us, or you're against us. And you'd better hope you fall on the right side of that line b/c there's no recourse if you don't.

And we began a discussion. It turns out he's more of a GOP/Tea Party/Fox News kind of guy, and I'm obviously not.

I've been hoping to learn something about the way folks with his view point think. I figured, he's a highly paid engineer, he must have somewhat an analytical mind, maybe he can shed some light on the views I clearly don't understand.

Clearly I was wrong. It's almost as though we were speaking two different languages. I'm certain he's making absolutely no credible arguments, and he's probably thinking the same of me. At one point I mentioned that he was throwing around wild accusations without any proof, kind of like Glenn Beck. And this guy said that he loves Glenn Beck.

I've found some value in the discussion - I've certainly looked into some of the things I believe in a little closer, and found them to hold up pretty well. I've also read most of the links he's sent my way, and I feel comfortable saying that (for the most part), they are a series of diatribes about people with barely any connection to reality.

One of the threads is about George Soros - it started with a post of his pointing to an article showing how Soros has given a bunch of money to journalist schools and organizations. I had heard the name Soros a couple times but didn't know anything about him. I posted that the Koch brothers spend lots of money and asked what the difference was. Turns out, Soros is evidently a Marxist (whatever he wants that to mean), along with Obama, and he's undermining the country. It took an untold number of posts for him to actually point out something that Soros has done that could be interpreted as undermining the country. And, of course, the two things that were "undermining" seemed either very loosely connected (friend of a friend kind of relationship), or weren't very malevolent.

Long story short, my foray into arguing with someone from the right hasn't given me much of a basis to understand their side. So far, it just seems to be a bunch of fear mongering, vague accusations w/little to no evidence, conspiracy theories and name calling.

Oooh, some more responses. Back to the battle.

Hood

2011-06-10T20:13:00.002-07:00

I climbed Mt. Hood with Sam Wednesday night.

We'd wanted to climb last year, but the weather never cooperated. This year things looked better, and the weather opened up nicely this week. We'd planned on climbing Thursday night, but things looked good a day early, so we pulled the trigger and went up early.

You can read Sam's riveting account, and check out the pictures he took.

We took a nap at his place, but both woke up after less than an hour, which was a little disappointing. I packed up a bunch of things I borrowed from Sam, the gear hound, and we headed up the mountain shortly after two guys Sam knows showed up.

It was raining a tiny bit as we drove up the mountain, and rain just turned to fog as we turned off to Timberline and continued driving up.

I put my old school leather boots on while Sam put on his fancy boots with integrated gaitors, and we began the trek.

We started in the clouds, quickly stripping off layers because it was pretty warm. After about an hour of hiking up we started to come out of the clouds. The moon was half full and kicked off enough light that I didn't use my headlamp until it set, an hour later. The clouds were a dark gray, and looked like the fake clouds you saw in the movie Airplane - but they were very real. There were even a few shooting stars.

We got to the top of the Palmer lift after about two hours where we took our first big break to eat and drink. The pace was good, the snow was even better.

Sam had been feeling a little ill before we left his house, some stomach cramps, but he was climbing stronger than the rest of us. I was feeling a little winded but fairly good - all my hill climbs were paying off.

Sam pointed out Illumination rock to the west, which you could barely see silhouetted against the horizon. I then looked to the east and saw a an even larger face of rock and snow (don't know its name) looming over us.

The snow got steeper and the going got a little tougher. We found some steps people had already kicked in, but they disappeared as we passed some tents where folks were camped out. At that point we had to make our own steps, and it was steep enough that it was difficult walk with your heel on the ground. Sam kept the pace up, but I caught up when he slowed down on the ascent of the Hogs Back. The snow got a bit soft and it took us a little longer than we expected, and we were happy to reach the saddle for our second rest, some food, water, extra clothes, and crampons.

Sam roped us up and headed up the saddle, and I waited for the slack to get out and then followed him up. Other people were starting to climbing up the Hogs Back.

This last push was definitely the most strenuous. I took several rests on the way up - the calves were pretty tired from standing on my toes for an hour. Sam kept making sure I was doing OK, but kept lying about how close we were to the top.

One couple caught up to me but decided to go up a different chute than what Sam had chosen. We saw them about 40 minutes later to find out the chute was a dead end and they had to back track. This was important because...

Sam and I reached the summit first. boo-yah!

We were up there before everyone else and in time to watch the sun rise.

Sam broke out the cocoa (made from half and half, wow that was good) and we relaxed for a short bit. I don't know that I appreciated it enough, but it was pretty amazing to have reached the tallest point in Oregon. And to think, 25 years earlier, dad and I did the same thing.

We started climbing down as bunches of people started up. Sam and I talked and I decided to go down un-roped. I felt pretty solid going down the steepest part - the foot holes had been enlarged by all the other people coming up and I just took my time. The worst part was that my toes started getting cold and my hand got cold holding onto the ice ax head I put into the snow.

We made it to the hogs back, snacked, and headed further down. After we got to a not-so-scary-steep part of the mountain, we slid the next 3 miles down the mountain, only having to walk the last 1/2 mile or so, making a quick exit.

I put up some of my photos here.

NBA Finals and Mary

2011-05-31T21:12:00.003-07:00

The first game of the NBA finals were tonight, I told Mary that the Heat won. She remembered that there was talk about a group of guys going to the team. Then I told her the other team was the Mavericks, and her response:

"With that short guy .... Spud?"

June 1, 2011: Edited to say the Heat won.

Memorial Day

2011-05-31T09:05:00.003-07:00

We did a bunch of yard work over the weekend, and the weather cooperated beautifully.

But it wasn't all work, Simone got to hold a new bunny (who fell asleep in her lap):

Simone's Birthday

2011-05-31T08:46:00.004-07:00

It was a very busy day.

We started off with some Swedish pancakes filled with blueberry compote, and candles of course.

Then it was time to dress in white for preschool.

At preschool we had a little puppet play showing how Simone came to be with us, we said some of the things we remembered about Simone each of her first five years. As a part of the celebration, Simone got to wear the birthday crown and the birthday fairy wings.

The grandparents all came for the show as well.

Then it was back to the house for a yummy lunch and presents.

Mary made a doll (named Lilla by Simone) which has become a new bedtime partner.

Here's a closeup of Lila, and she has the felted doll of Simone that Christine Waters made for Simone.

At bedtime, Simone snuggled up with Lilla and Daisy, and we read stories and began learning a new nighttime saying.

All in all, a fantastic day.

Tent

2011-05-30T09:55:00.001-07:00

I made Simone a tent for her birthday, here's the one photo I took of it:

All in all, it looks pretty good. Mary gave me the link that showed me how to do it.

Time To Mow

2011-05-28T20:17:00.002-07:00

It's been a while...

Last Day @ 4

2011-05-25T21:20:00.002-07:00

Simone turns 5 tomorrow (5am if I recall).

One thing we've done for most of her 5th year (yah, her 5th year) was running hugs.

She'll tell me to stand in just the right spot. I crouch down with my arms open wide. I have to have my mouth open, in a big gape. If I don't, she reminds me.

She goes to the other side of the room, puts her arms out wide, opens her mouth open wide, and runs full speed at me, slowing to swerve around any objects in the way.

At full-tilt, she collides with me and we both fall down giggling.

It looks like a slow-motion fight scene where the two guys are screaming at each other. Only it's Simone and me and it's nothing but love.

I hope they continue when she's 5.

Lemonade

2011-05-21T14:53:00.002-07:00

"Lemonade is one of the colors of the sunset!"

We squeezed two oranges into a can of frozen lemonade, mixed it up, and drank our fill using straws.

Bedtime and Books

2011-05-20T20:53:00.003-07:00

I just went into Simone's room b/c she was calling out for a little attention - it'd been an hour since I finished reading/singing and saying goodnight.

Her room is pretty dark, the sun has been down for a little while, but she has around 8 books on her bed. I start picking them up, telling her, "I'll put them right here beside your bed."

"But I want to read them in the morning."

"Yeah, they'll be right next to your bed in the morning."

I then look at her and notice she still has her eye mask on. So I ask, "How can you read with your eye mask on?"

Giggling, she responds, "I don't know. "

Silly girl.

Gee... thanks Senate

2011-05-19T09:01:00.002-07:00

If you read the headlines, "Senators Grill Phone Execs On Mobile Privacy", you might think they care about the privacy of the citizens.

Yet my first thought is, where were the investigations into AT&T's illegal behavior of handing over personal data to the NSA? (phone calls, emails, web browsing, etc.) Oh, right, all the companies involved in tapping our phones were granted immunity.

Way to look out for the citizenry.

OBL is dead...

2011-05-18T22:16:00.003-07:00

So we killed Osama Bin Laden over two weeks ago, and I thought I'd write down some thoughts. I recall exactly my position about invading Iraq (against), but don't remember where I stood with Afghanistan (would like to think I was against, but that could just be wishful thinking).

I saw the news that OBL was dead when I came out of Simone's bedroom. The images were on the TV and the closed caption said he'd been killed. My first feeling was a little stronger than "meh", but not a lot - it was probably a combination of "meh" and relief.

I did see that President Obama said that "justice has been done". That struck me as odd. I would have expected that "justice" would have meant bringing him back to the U.S. and trying him for crimes, or heck, trying him for crimes in any of a dozen countries where he was wanted on terrorism. Instead, our form of justice was to just out-and-out kill him, old west style.

I'm not sorry he's dead, I'll certainly lose no sleep over it. My problem with what Obama said was that it continues the "us versus them" and the "you're with us or you're against us" mentality that the U.S. has in its foreign policy.

Since 9/11/2001 we have invaded 2 Muslim countries and bombed another 3 (Pakistan, Libya, Yemen), and that just seems wrong.

We continue to pursue an aggressive military "solution" to the "war on terror" when both DARPA and the former head of the CIA's task force to find Osama Bin Laden (Michael Scheuer) agree that:

1. "The threat to the U.S. arises from Muslims plausible perception that the things they most love andvalue - God, Islam, their brethren, and Muslim lands - are beign attacked by America." (Michael Scheuer)

2. "policing and intelligence, rather than military force, should form the backbone of U.S. efforts against al Qa'ida. And U.S. policymakers should end the use of the phrase 'war on terrorism' since there is no battlefield solution to defeating al Qa'ida." How Terrorist Groups End

So, the Department of Defence and the CIA both recognize that our current approach is the wrong one, yet we continue ahead full-steam.

I'm frustrated at the Obama administration for not closing Gitmo (where only 40 of the original 700+ people have enough evidence against them to even go to court), I'm frustrated at our abandonment of the Nuremberg Principles (starting with W), Obama doing a 180 on signing statements/declaring war, militarizing the CIA, attacking government whistle blowers more fervently than W, and attempting to assassinate a U.S. citizen! I'm frustrated.

The latest "battles" between Democrats and Republicans have all gone to the Republicans. Take the latest budget battle, which had Republicans starting with "$35 Billion" in cuts, Dems with "$10 Billion" in cuts, and the final budget being $38 Billion. eh? Ok, that's off topic. OBL...

But it's related, because what used to be GOP talking points have been completely adopted by the Democrats.

Gah!!!!!

And the "liberal media" just continues to repeat, without any hesitation, the talking points of the GOP and the government. I mean, we send in Seal Team 6 to get Osama, they kill him. Why did the White House have to lie? They changed their story 4 times in 4 days, OBL was using his wife as a human shield, there was a firefight, he was fighting back, he drew his weapon. Lies, all of them. Very few in the U.S. would raise much of a stink if we killed him in "cold blood", yet the government put forward this story of how he resisted. The Seals would have taken Osama alive had that been their task, they're the best in the world - and especially if OBL wasn't armed, it would have been a piece of cake. Now the government is leaking photos of OBL watching himself on TV, of his stash of porn. And the media is continuing to just regurgitate it. I don't know if it was true. I don't much care.

One post I read basically points out the the U.S. isn't ready to face the truth. With the lies and the retractions, we, as a people, can console ourselves over questioning what the facts are and completely avoid what the facts show about us as a country. I think they show that our government is continuing to pursue an aggressive, military occupation of most of the world, we care naught for human rights if they're not in our "best interests", the government represents and defends corporate interests over personal interests, and our population (for the most part) is happy to sit back, watch Glee, and remain ignorant about what our government does.

One piece, Obama's "bad negotiating" is actually shrewd negotiating, did shine a light on Obama's positions that changed my perception of his stance. The main point is that Obama hasn't "failed" at pushing the "liberal" agenda, he's been very calculated and chosen to side with GOP ideals because it's all about getting re-elected. It's worth a read.

Sheepy and Books

2011-05-16T22:26:00.003-07:00

This morning I called home from work to see how Mary and Simone were doing. Mary reported that the morning, while a bit early, was a lovely one, and that Simone was in the process of making Sheepy a superhero costume.

I'll have to dig up the pictures of her costumes for animals she's done in the past. Needless to say, Sheepy gets a number of them. Sheepy is a soft, finger puppet with the standard two legs and a head. The previous costume was a hat and a coat - made of paper. Tonight I checked out the costume and can see that Sheepy's cape is bright red with a grey collar, and Sheepy has sleeves (gauntlets?) that are grey. Very fun.

And tonight I read stories with Simone at bedtime. We read three books in the big bed, then transitioned to her bedroom for the standard nighttime ritual. Unfortunately, we're in a little bit of a rut, and are having trouble falling asleep - due to the late daylight hours and never quite getting back on track from daylight savings. I'd been out of the room for a few minutes when Simone started loudly complaining that she was having trouble going to sleep. I went in and we talked for a minute - I suggested she tell a story to Clifford and Daisy (the cat), or sing songs to them. I leave and check back on her about 15 minutes later to find her sitting cross-legged on her bed, with Clifford and Daisy sitting next to her. She was reading them stories.

TV Critic at Large

2011-05-13T20:58:00.004-07:00

So... I was working out at the gym the other day. I wasn't very inspired, so I avoided my weight lifting and decided to alternate jogging and walking, work up a good sweat.

There are three TVs at the gym, two were set to their customary shows at 8am, SportsCenter and Charmed. My brother-in-law turned me onto Charmed years ago and I watch it at the gym. The third channel was showing something called GMA, which took me 5 minutes to figure out it was "Good Morning America."

First things first, I like Charmed. Magic, demons, beautiful people, fairy tales, etc. - it's my kind of escapism. My gripe about the show is that everyone has such incredibly slow reflexes. It's not hard to figure out that when someone evil looking apparates in front of you, chances are they're gonna try to kill you with some magic, or steal something, or mess up your day. This happens every show, several times a show. The Charmed 3 just don't seem to get it, they stand, dumb-founded, and then get whooped, then later in the show they do the same to the bad people (winning in the end). Tightening up the action just a little bit would really help.

SportsCenter - the Dallas Mavericks happened to sweep the LA Lakers the night before, and the first 4 "stories" on SC were all about that - from the point of view of LA. "LA Swept" "What Will Happen To Phil Knight" etc. All the stories were about the losers, the Lakers. It was pathetic, the bias was disgusting. Fine, do a story on Phil Knight leaving, that makes sense, but give the Mavericks their due and show them *winning*, not LA losing.

Lastly, GMA. I have no idea why people watch this show. My comment on it is that they had a 10-15 minute segment on how good or bad frozen food tasted, having different groups of people doing a "blind" taste test of each. Some were regular Jills and some were foodies. The frozen food lines were things like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig. It was a blatant commercial for these foods, and if GMA had any desire to help educate people about how they might lose weight, perhaps they should show how to cook real food. It was disgusting.

Mother's Day Hike

2011-05-08T15:08:00.003-07:00

We took a hike on Mother's Day. Simone wanted to take Clifford, so he came along.

We stopped for a snack at the rock quarry.

We took the road all the way out, and the path back. Last photo on the road, it was still sunny.

Patiently posing for a photo on the bridge...

The moss on the tree is sooooo soft, time for a snack and a nap after the rain and hail storm that lasted 3 minutes.

White Car Is White, the photo

2011-05-08T14:54:00.001-07:00

The roof was nearly red from rust. I'll get to the sides/front/back later this year.

White Car Is White

2011-05-01T19:54:00.002-07:00

Yah, the Mazda got a paint job.

I sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded the roof of the car to get rid of the rust. Then I taped up the windows with some help from Simone. And then came the cans of spray paint - two coats of primer and three coats of white with a few minutes between each coat.

Now it's white. ish

Simone was very proud of how the car was going to look. She said that everyone at work would be surprised how shiny it was, which is true.

Watching Muppets From Space with my girls

2011-04-24T17:02:00.002-07:00

One of my all-time favorite movies, perfect for a rainy Sunday.

"I'm not a shrimp, I'm a king prawn!"

Spring Flowers

2011-04-20T10:28:00.002-07:00

Took a hike up Dimple Hill yesterday. It was pretty eventful. I misplaced Hazel's leash and the keys (while taking off my outer shirt), saw 6 deer, found the keys and leash (whew!), and took some photos of flowers that were starting to show.

Critters on parade

2011-04-17T08:59:00.001-07:00

In the paper: Critters on parade

Earth Day | Procession of the Species

2011-04-16T19:22:00.003-07:00

Today was the Procession of the Species, which meant a parade! I've never done one before, and Simone was super stoked to do it. So we threw on the Halloween costume, hopped in the Burley, and walked downtown to check it out.

We got to the farmer's market and really didn't see anyone dressed up - much to our disappointment. But we held out and figured the others would show. Sure enough, over the next half hour we saw more and more costumes. We also saw a bunch of friends from preschool - which excited Simone.

In the Burley with Clifford* (note the purple ears, odd for a Clifford)

Checking out the costume before the parade

A friend, Nava, at the parade. They giggled nonstop.

During the parade, Simone held Gracie's hand the whole time, and a new friend Jackson was on the other side.

I'm pretty sure the three of them are going to make the paper, a photographer was very interested in them (not the guy in the photo, no clue who he is).

After the parade, a bunch of the kids hung out and chatted. Gracie and Simone were always close.

After the parade, Simone wanted her face painted like Gracie's, so we did that.
Checking out the handiwork.

Trading Places

We had a great time, and on the walk back it started to rain - three cheers for the Burley! And a train rolled through town, so we stopped to watch that for a while.

A very successful parade, we'll have to do it again next year.

F#@&! U.S. Cellular Companies

2011-04-16T16:56:00.002-07:00

A friend gave me his old iPhone, which was great. I'd been thinking about a smart phone for a while, the big thing holding me back was the forced data plan for the 2 year contract. You see, 99% of the time I live in a wi-fi enabled area (either work or home, or most places in Corvallis have free wi-fi) - so why pay $30/month for something I'm not going to use?!

Here was my chance, a free phone (many thanks) that works on my carrier (AT&T), I'm good to go.

I start asking friends for their must-have apps and a couple of them mention that I might want to check with AT&T because they think I might get a data plan added because I'm using a smart phone. So I call up and get a service person who says all the wrong things to me (like, "you need one to use a smart phone" "you can't use a smart phone w/out a data plan" etc. (which are all technically wrong)). I get very frustrated quickly, but have a work meeting in 5 minutes, so I don't have time to go postal on the guy.

I wait a few days and finally call up AT&T again today and I get this calm-voiced woman who says more or less the same thing, but she's a lot smoother about it. The kicker for me (in terms of whether I wanted to try to argue up the management chain or not) was when she said, "I can transfer you to the technical department, but they'll say the same thing. And, you can quote me on this, you will be charged for a data plan on any cellular provider if you're using a smart phone."

Hm.... that kinda took the wind out of my sails. I stay on the phone for a minute or two longer, but the fight is gone. I sit down and google things, and yup, everyone is charging data plans for smart phone users. Some forums have people saying that if your phone is unlocked, somehow, magically you won't be charged, but they don't seem to be able to back it up.

AT&T's own site says they'll charge you: Answer Center | AT&T - Is there still a minimum data plan requirement for smartphones? ...

Sigh... looks like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place here. Is it worth it to me to get the minimum plan ($15/month) to only carry around one device? Or do I carry around two?

And I kinda really want/need two pieces of functionality the phone can provide. The first is a calorie tracker that enables me to keep track of food w/out having to dash off to the computer every time I look at a snack. The second is access to my work calendar. For a few years I've been able to get by without running MS Outlook, but work just switched to the latest Outlook, which means the meeting notices are no longer in a reasonable format for my scripts to add to my calendar, and I've gotten several meet times mixed up. The iPhone seamlessly integrates my work calendar and my personal one.

So, I'm kinda hooked (after a whole 5 days).

I'm still pissed off at the situation in the U.S. where the customers have very little power (as opposed to Japan/Europe), but I've come to accept there are some battles that really aren't worth the effort, and I think this is one of them.

The other thing that ticks me off are the rates.

We pay about $80 for 1400 minutes. Ignoring the free weekend and evening calls, that works out to about 12.5 cents per MB of data (assuming skype-like data usage, 60kpbs).

The two data plans offered are $15 for 200MB, which is 7 cents/MB, almost half the cost of the regular phone service. And the $25 for 2GB, which is just over 1 cent/MB. And you know they're making money on the $25 plan...

It just further convinces me that they're charging way more than it costs for the regular phone service, and the data plans charge way too much, but progressively less.

Just think, if they're making money on the $25/2GB plan, then they'd be making money charging me $9/month for the phone plan (that's the same rate).

For years we've had certain aspects of life get cheaper and cheaper. Moore's law has made it possible for us to have hand-held computers storing 100's of gigabytes of data, touch screen displays, etc. etc. Yet the phone service we get still costs the same as always, cable TV still costs the same.

Wise Words From Seth Godin

2011-04-13T14:49:00.001-07:00

I just read the post Insist on the coin flip, and I think it's completely true. The hardest part will be convincing people (and remembering it myself) to let go of their (my) attachment to knowing there's a "best" decision, even when the differences between the top runners are smaller than they (I) can detect.

Fantasy writing

2011-04-12T12:09:00.001-07:00

I've been reading a little more in the last year than I have in the 3-4 years before then. Some SciFi and some Fantasy - I did enjoy the fantasy books The Dwarves and Orcs, and have enjoyed the SF books by alastair reynolds.

One question came to mind as I read the fantasy books...

Why don't fantasy books take place in warm climates? Like in jungles or deserts?

Anyway, Brin wrote a little post on The Difference Between Science Fiction and Fantasy?, which prompted me to ask the question.

Anti Joke

2011-04-10T20:19:00.001-07:00

Hilarious web site: Anti Joke

Top "joke" on there is:

What's worse than finding a worm in your apple?

The Holocaust.

hee hee

Artsy Shots

2011-04-09T22:52:00.008-07:00

Some artsy shots from Oswald West.

Beach Party

2011-04-09T21:28:00.005-07:00

The Bauerschmidt clan came to visit Oregon for a week, after all, what better place to go for spring break than Oregon! It kind of reminds me when Sam and I went to Cape Cod for spring break. It was cold and mostly shut down.

Luckily, the Oregon coast doesn't really shut down, and it certainly was warmer than Cape Cod.

We started off the 4 day extravaganza by both leaving Portland around the same time. I recommended they stop by Camp 18 for some decent food and a really neat Oregon experience. Mary then had the idea to surprise them there, so we did.

Then off to the beach house we went.

Everyone got along great. Paul and I had all the kids in the minivan, and Mary and Lauren took Hazel in the Subaru. Simone instantly decided she was going to be Elise's shadow - they were like long-lost sisters.

Two years ago we brought Hazel home, so we decided this weekend would be a good one to celebrate her birthday. Everyone made hats out of paper and decorated them. We decorated the house a little bit and wrapped up a present for her.

The kids wrapping a present with Hazel completely oblivious to the fact she was the star of the day.

Now she knows she's the star of the show.

Elise and Simone help make the chocolate cake, which was of course not for Hazel.

Mary and the girls whipped up a chocolate chocolate cake which was enjoyed by all, especially with a large bowl of whipped cream and some strawberries. We sang happy birthday, and everyone helped unwrap Hazel's gift.

It took Hazel 5 minutes to find and destroy the two squeakers, and another 3 minutes to rip it apart into what looked like a bunch of purple spaghetti. It was probably the flimsiest toy we've gotten for her.

When we weren't partying, we were reading books.

Lots and lots of books.

Even more books.

And more books.

We did leave the house, it wasn't all parties and reading.

Simone and Elise shading themselves from the sun.

We hung out in the yard, coloring bricks with chalk, running around the house, collecting flower petals and pine cones to decorate the house.

We checked out the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

I hadn't been to the cheese factory in ... 12+ years. You used to only be able to see the big vats where the milk turns into curds. That's now done somewhere else, but what you get to see is the 40+ pound blocks of curds wrapped for aging, and 40+ pound blocks of aged cheddar sliced, chopped, bagged and sealed. Very fun.

Hug Point at high tide.

We also tried Hug Point, but unfortunately at high tide, which meant we couldn't get to the waterfall. Instead we let the kids climb high on slippery rocks. They had a blast.

We later checked out Oswald West, which was as cool as I remember. Huge trees, a suspension bridge (Hazel wasn't so crazy about that), and a pretty little beach.

We had a great time connecting with Lauren, Paul and the kids. We seem to see each other around every 5 years, though this was so much fun we might just have to do this again a little sooner.

When we left, Simone was sad and wanted to head back to the beach house. And, it turns out, Elise was missing Simone a lot, and Evan missed Hazel.

Rico Suave

Happy Family

2011-04-09T21:11:00.001-07:00

Everone loves hanging out on the sheepskin...

Beaver Freezer 2011

2011-04-02T12:36:00.002-07:00

I finished it, with a time around 1:25.

The swim felt pretty good, about 8m30sec, not too bad since I've only swum twice since my last triathlon (July of 2010). The men had the joy of swimming in Langton pool which has the benefits of a longer run to the transition area, and no lane marker at one end of the lane. Oh, and the side of the pool is a good 20" above the water (meaning you have to haul your tired body out). The two other guys in my lane were a bit faster than me, so I didn't get to draft at all - which means I really did swim the 8:30 on my own, and I felt pretty rested - not dizzy or exhausted.

I was one of the last out of the pool (I'd said I would swim an 8:00 500, oops), and definitely the last one out of the transition area. The temperature outside was a chilly 43 degrees, and a little breezy, but almost sunny - not too bad of conditions.

The ride went pretty well, I passed about a dozen people, most of whom were in my heat, and nobody passed me. There was a bit of a headwind from the west, so it felt like I was barely moving while headed out to Oak Creek, but the trip back into town went smoothly and the sun felt warm on my face.

The run started off fairly well, slow as usual, but not too painful. I was passed by a lot of people, and at one point the fast guys from the heat after me ran by in a blur. The third (and final) lap started off well, but then my left knee began bothering me. I walked for short sections and tried to shake it out. Another guy from my heat caught up to me and was encouraging me as we headed up the slight hill with 1/3 a mile to go. I said I'd see him at the finish line and I took off. The last 1/4 mile actually felt pretty good (though exhausting), and I heard someone catching up to me on the straightaway to the finish, so I picked up my pace and didn't let him pass - so the ending felt great.

On the walk back to the bike a grey cloud came overhead, the rain started coming down - sideways, and it even hailed for about 30 seconds. Luckily I didn't have to race in that.

Now just to wait for the official results...

Fool You Once...

2011-03-31T23:09:00.003-07:00

What did I do on my birthday? I worked until 11:09pm (that's the current time).

Ha ha, April Fools!

Wait, it's still the 31st...

Damn, I did work that late.

Click Clack Moo

2011-03-29T20:53:00.005-07:00

The other day, Simone wanted the typewriter so she could write some stories. She wrote a long story for Memere using 6 or 7 pages of typing, with an illustrated cover.

The next day she decided to type some more, but wanted to do it on the floor, as you can see:

She began typing away, then pulled the sheet out and told me I was the farmer, and she was the cow. She put the letter on the floor and said, it's on the barn and the cows were cold and wanted electric blankets.

She typed another page, put it on the floor/barn door and said the chickens were cold, there was no milk and no eggs. She told me that I, the farmer, was supposed to say, "No milk?! No eggs?!"

I think there was another page of demands, but don't recall what they were.

We haven't read "Click Clack Moo Cows That Type" in at least a year or year and a half, and here she was, reciting most of the story from memory.

Very cute, very impressive, and a good reminder to watch what I say.

On a related note, the Bauerschmidts visited (great time, another post) and brought a copy of "Click Clack Moo" for Simone (having no idea she'd just re-enacted the story). That's synchronicity for you.

Getting Old

2011-03-23T13:24:00.002-07:00

The other day I was driving home, thinking about someone at work and how to describe him. He's older than me ... but not so much that I'd consider him "old."

That's when it hit me, the gap between my age and what I consider "old" is getting smaller rapidly. Uh-oh.

Fittingly, Pearls Before Swine ran this comic the next day:

And while I remember them, my first thought was, "The TARDIS isn't red." Which shows I'm both nerdy and old.

Yay, The U.S. Bombs Yet Another Islamic Country! (Libya)

2011-03-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

Not only are we not out of Iraq or Afghanistan yet, we're now bombing Libya. Sure, it's "sanctioned" by the U.N. Security Council, but since when have we let the U.N. say when we can (or cannot) use our military? I thought acts of war (i.e. bombing another country) needed to be approved by Congress.

Oh, no, that's not the case says the Obama administration. From NPR's story, Libya Overshadows Obama's Latin America Trip:

Now, over the weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the administration would certainly welcome a congressional seal of approval for this action but that the president is acting within his existing authority.

In his letter, Mr. Obama pointed to the Security Council resolution and his authority to conduct foreign relations and as commander in chief.

Glad to hear it.

Two more eloquent analyses of the attacks on Libya, one by Scott Adams, and one by Glenn Greenwald.

And it should be remembered, the two wars (now 3, including Libya) is completely ignoring the unmanned drones bombing Pakistan (and the incursions across the border from Afghanistan), but who's counting.

Oh, NPR today did have a story that makes a little more sense: If This Is Not 'War' Against Libya, What Is It? That's more like it NPR.

Mustard, take 1

2011-03-20T20:28:00.002-07:00

There's a gal who makes mustard for sale at the local market. We've chatted a few times, and I even volunteered to help make a batch, but so far she's not taken me up on it.

Mary pointed out that a (somewhat) recent edition of Sunset Magazine had some recipes for mustard. They looked pretty easy and fun. Mary even bought some mustard seeds and powder from the bulk bins at the co-op, so I had no excuse not to try them.

Simone and I mixed up 3 different batches. Two have to soak for at least another day to let the seeds hydrate, but the other was made from powder/ground seeds and just sat for a few hours - at which point I finished it up. It is the Hot and Tangy Mustard Recipe, and I think it's pretty good. It's got the heat of Chinese mustard, but is definitely more complex - like a cross between Chinese and dijon.

The other two are Rosemary Thyme Mustard and Cognac Mustard.

The next thing is to figure out how to use 3.5 cups of mustard...

Murphy

2011-03-20T19:19:00.002-07:00

Mary spent the day with some friends, so Simone had me to herself. We watched a little March Madness (I don't think she was so crazy about the basketball, but she liked the mascots), cleaned the bathrooms, made some rolls, drank hot chocolate, and had a good time all around.

Yesterday, we all went to the hardware store and picked up some shelving pieces. I had planned on installing it while Mary was gone. Murphy stuck hand into things twice, and the project is not yet complete.

The first was my fault of not double checking the orientation of the support bar, and so I cut it on the wrong side. It's not a big deal, it just limits the 2nd set of shelves to have a little less clearance than I'd planned, and I have to now make a 2nd cut with the hacksaw.

The second was the kicker. My 2nd battery for the cordless drill died. No juice means no screwing in the support bar, means no shelves.

bummer...

Potty Humor

2011-03-20T15:01:00.002-07:00

The other day I went to our half-bath to use the toilet (Mary was taking a shower in the other bathroom), and I found Simone sitting there. She looked up at me and said, "The other one is available." - available, that struck me as hilarious.

Today, Simone was helping me clean the bathroom, she likes scrubbing the toilet. Honest. She asked why the toilet brush was waterproof, and also commented that it was really good for scrubbing poop. hee hee

LFMF

2011-03-16T22:19:00.003-07:00

I went on my weekly night ride tonight (becoming less and less night-like now that daylight savings has kicked in (or off, I always forget which is which)).

It was the standard spring ride, a little drizzly, a cool 57 degrees, and on-and-off fog as the clouds settled over portions of the trail.

I did my usual ride starting at home, out through Oak Creek, up to the top of Dimple Hill, out the road to Lewisburg Saddle (descending Upper Horse along the way), and coming back to the top of Dimple Hill.

I decided to go down the face of Dimple Hill as a bit of a challenge because it was pretty wet. I knew the trail would be slippery, but since it's rarely used, it wouldn't be very muddy. I did stop a couple of times (front tire side-slip is still very scary), but rode it all. The plan was to then ride out the roads to MLK Jr. park, and back home along Walnut. You can check out the forest map here.

As I was descending Dimple Hill, my bike sounded a bit funny, but I was pretty focused on just getting down in one piece. Once I hit the gravel road I did a quick check... and the rear tire was going soft. drat.

I rode it a little further to see how much distance I could make before I had to pump it up.

Not much further I pulled over and got out my trusty pump. You see, the last time I had a flat, I didn't have the right spare tube. And I wasn't crazy about the pump I'd brought. So when I got home from that, I ditched the "new" pump for my trusty old pump.

Tonight I pulled it out and tried pumping it ... it was stuck. I finally got it to go, but the pump just felt weird. So I opened it up to check it out, and the gasket was stretched out and had a ton of crud built up... Long story short, I swore loudly and packed the pump back in the bag (so I can throw it away when I got home), and began the walk out.

My lovely wife came out to get me (a friend came over to make sure someone would be home if Simone woke), and I made it home only about an hour later than I would have w/out the flat.

So... the next time I switch to a "trusty old" whatever, I'm gonna triple check that the trusty thing still works.

Life is good ... so let's complain

2011-03-16T14:10:00.004-07:00

Not big complaints, just little complaints. Things that have been rubbing me the wrong way.

I'm hoping to release them into the ... um... universe (web?) and move on with my life, with the goal of not fretting over them (as much) from now on.

Messages notifying you of messages that take as much space as the message itself. For example, my cell phone informs me that I missed a call with a little popup window that says "1 missed call" and a bunch of whitespace. They could have just as easily displayed the phone number.
Daylight savings time: This has totally thrown Simone's sleep schedule for a loop, and it's not cool.
People who don't push their chair in after getting up from a table. This seems to be common to most engineers at both places I've worked.
People who don't close their locker after using it in the locker room.
People who don't wash their hands after going potty. If you ever go to Intel, be sure to wash your hands after shaking hands with any men, because I never saw more than half the men wash their hands before leaving the restroom. At Mentor, half the people use the paper towel to open the door, and the other half just used the paper towel to dry their hands (almost everyone washes their hands).
TV/Radio folks who say "backslash" at the end of their URL. It's not a backslash, it's a forward slash, commonly referred to as just slash.
Programmers who can't touch type. Seriously, if you were a professional newspaper boy and needed training wheels, you'd be laughed at. What about a professional baseball player who has to use a tee? A competitive bowler who uses lane bumpers? A dancer who can't walk to a beat? An architect who can't use a straight edge? A singer who uses Auto-Tune? (oh, they're doing that).
That anyone gives James O'Keefe a second of their time.
Externalized costs (the environment is constantly picking up the tab).
Oregon's law preventing you from pumping your own gas.

Those all seem pretty petty, eh? That's because life is good, I really can't complain. A list of things I'm grateful for is much longer, perhaps another time...

Kauai, 2011

2011-03-13T21:27:00.003-07:00

Well, we went to Kauai. The short summary is:

North side for a week, in a house in a jungle valley - where Mary and Simone were sick for a couple days, getting healthy in time for the rain. Lovely beaches, slow-paced, and very peaceful.

Second week was on the south side, in Poipu, with Nana and Grandpa. We went to our first Luau , drove up to Waimea canyon to see clouds, walked around the art night in Hanapepe (where Simone played with one of the many bands on the street), and we went swimming and sunning. Oh, and we watched whales swim/splash/breach and turtles too (no breaching turtles).

You can check out the photos I took on this page.

Heat

2011-02-13T13:50:00.003-08:00

The furnace hadn't come on in 48 hours. I've reset it at least 75 times in the last two days, but the heat never kicked on.

Now, a mere hour before Mary gets home from her retreat, the furnace spontaneously turned on and is pumping out warm air.

I don't know if the furnace is scared of Mary, or if she's playing a trick on us... it's all very suspicious.

Either way, I have the heat set to 74 so that we can get nice and warm to make it through the rest of the day in case it fails to turn on again.

A slice of today

2011-02-12T20:55:00.003-08:00

Mary is on a (well, leading a) retreat this weekend, so it's just me and Simone. That's the good part.

The bad part is that we have no heat. Some part involved in the control of the gas flow has wildly fluctuating voltage swings. Which, until the day the heater guy came meant that if we turned it off and on a few times, the heat would eventually kick in. That stopped yesterday around noon. I've flipped switches some 50 times, but no heat. Simone barely notices - though she'd run around barefoot if I let her (I didn't, she was pretty warm all day).

We had a great day today, starting off the day with french toast made from some lovely challah made by Mary. I must say, that made some of the best french toast I've had in years. Simone liked it just as much as I did - eating a full 3 slice. I would have made more, but we ran out of eggs and maple syrup.

Simone dressed up with silkies, played with her wooden animals - building houses for them out of blocks. Simone has started something new when playing with blocks, she's building towers of blocks and topping them with a horizontal span. She also made a treadmill - which I then had to explain b/c she didn't know what it was. I don't know where she heard about it, but we talked about the moving walkways at the airport (where we'll be in 4 days).

We headed downtown to go to the bookstore to pick up some cheap paperbacks for Hawaii (so I can ditch them there). Simone read books while I browsed, though she did come and ask about titles of some of the books in the sci-fi section. The last time she helped me pick books out, she grabbed one that was great, this time she wasn't so helpful - most of the books she asked about were very cheesy. She did point out a book I really do want to read, but it is a sequel, and they've never had the first book in the series. That is sooooo annoying.

After waiting for me to finish, we read a couple of books, and she chose a Skippy-John-Jones book that she really wanted. I found a fairy book, and that couldn't distract her.

We then did a little shopping as we needed some maple syrup and eggs in order to turn the remaining challa into bread pudding.

Oh, we also needed eggs for the fresh pasta we were planning on making. What is better for dinner in a cold house than chicken noodle soup with fresh noodles? Oh, and I surprised her with some fresh mushrooms for the soup - they were a hit. Simone often says, "that's exactly what I wanted." when she gets something she really likes.

Simone got to work as son as we got home, tearing bread up for the pudding, sprinkling on the raisins, and pouring the liquid in. She then kneaded the pasta dough, and helped pull the noodles through the pasta machine for every step. Of course, she played a vital role in quality control for the noodles.

Dinner was nummy, and dessert was warm bread pudding ... with fresh whipped cream!

Yes, momma goes away and we pull out all sorts of treats.

Not Sure How I Feel About This

2011-01-31T09:37:00.002-08:00

So... where to start.

First, it's an awesome photo.

Second, I think "Launch!" every time I see it and have to chuckle.

Third, I'm wondering why the baby has no harness - it's as though the parents have no love for their baby. Both the adults have their harnesses on, the woman still has her chalk bag. If you're gonna take your kid on an outing that involves climbing, the kid needs a harness at the least, and one of the parents should have some sort of sling or backpack to carry the kid (and keep their hands free). It just seemed like they could have gone the extra step to make the staged photo a little more real.

Fourth, I think what tickles me so is that the baby looks like a penguin launching out of the water onto an ice flow.

Note: I originally saw the image at Picture Is Unrelated, who attributes the photo to this site, but I doubt the second link is the originator of the photo.

School Buses And Seat Belts

2011-01-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

I just came across this article which had some good information about seat belts in buses.
Why your child's school bus has no seat belts.

The most telling excerpts from the article were:

Numerous federal and academic studies have concluded that school buses are the safest form of ground transportation of all, in fact. The National Safety Council says they're about 40 times safer than the family car.
...

"Lap/shoulder belts can be misused and NHTSA's testing showed that serious neck injury and perhaps abdominal injury could result when lap/shoulder belts are misused," - NHTSA

I can't imagine a bus driver trying to ensure kids are wearing seat belts, and wearing them properly. Think about the last time you flew on a plane and the flight attendants had to remind a couple people repeatedly to use their seat belts. And, the fact that there are only 6 deaths per year in school bus accidents - that's carrying 24 million kids 4.3 BILLION miles.

I do feel sorry for parents who have lost their kids in a bus accident, but our money and effort are better spent elsewhere.

A Time To Break Silence

2011-01-17T09:11:00.002-08:00

An excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr's speech, "Beyond Vietnam -- A Time To Break Silence". The entire speech is as relevant today as it was then:

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

Saturday With Simone

2011-01-15T19:38:00.003-08:00

So.... we didn't get out in the woods like I'd hoped, but I didn't push very hard - it was raining and gray all day.

We did, however, play bunnies, listen to lots of music, make a present, eat yummy food, learn to pour from a pitcher, put a jig-saw puzzle together, tell stories, and take a bath by candle light. We spent the last 2 hours or so with just candles (well, and the stove light while I was cooking). We walked around with the candle and explored the house - even feeding Hazel in the dark.

A nice day all in all.

Now it's time to watch Firefly and knit!

Saturday Morning

2011-01-15T09:32:00.000-08:00

Pancakes and Atole with Simone. Mmmm....

Drinking and Sipping Chocolate

2011-01-09T09:10:00.001-08:00

Santa brought me a block of Drinking and Sipping Chocolate, and last night I made it.

Mmmmmm.... delicious, two thumbs up! A wonderful replacement for the no-longer-available Chantico drink from Starbucks.

Simone in the new year

2011-01-01T20:19:00.004-08:00

We went to the beach for the week between Christmas and New Year's. We luckily caught 2 days of blue skies and sun (pretty cold though) in between a bunch of rain. Nana and Grandpa were there, and Tim, Maria, and Tomas joined us for a day and night.

Simone and Tomas had a great time together and wore each other out rescuing each other from Grandpa, reading books together, and playing on the beach. We hadn't seen the Johoski's in probably 1.5 years and it was nice to catch up. Tim made some tasty paella for everyone.

Tim took the photo above and did a little photo-shopping to get the effects. Pretty nice.

We were out at a really low tide. The waves were far enough away that there was about 100-150 feet of flat sand with a film of water on top - it looked like a mirror and made for some (hopefully) pretty photographs.

Simone and I were paying attention and did not get caught by a wave like Tim and Tomas. Luckily, Tim only got his feet wet.

We measured Simone at the beach, she's grown an inch since September, and is now over 40" tall.

And tonight we learned that Simone can reach the medicine cabinet all by herself, open it up to get her tooth brush and paste, brush, and put it all back.

Simone got a nice, long nap on the drive back, so we're watching movies tonight. We started off with "Heidi" but that was a bit scary (the grandpa is pretty grumpy and mean), so we switched to Kipper, which has proved again to be a favorite. Such a simple show, but very kind and fun.

And, not only did our neighbor, Maddie, take care of Jupiter and the chickens, she also brought over a friendship cake (yum!) tonight. It feels a little backwards - we should be giving her something. It's a give and take.

Sigh...

2010-12-19T10:12:00.002-08:00

It's the Sunday before Christmas, the sun is shining, it's warm, there's blue sky.

And I'm about to climb into the attic to try to figure out why the bathroom fan is dripping water.

wheee....

Walkies

2010-12-17T20:04:00.004-08:00

I've been heading up into McDonald Forest with Hazel, up road 6021, trying to find new ways to get elevation into the walk to make it a good workout. The trails I'd used in the fall are way to wet and slippery, so I'm mostly confined to roads.

The weather has been pretty nice lately. I happened to drive through a rainstorm on Tuesday to get to the trail-head with pretty much blue skies. On the last two trips I've taken the camera and here are some shots.

The fog started lifting today, and the sun started to shine.

Here we head off the road and walk through the grasslands.

Spiderwebs abound, luckily you can see them before running into them.

A ways off the road you enter some other world. We trekked right across this looking for other exciting places to hike. Hazel bounded down these hills like some wild downhill mountain biker.

In the drier times the grass is higher than Hazel. She still loves to ripsnort around the grass even though it's all laying down.

Can we keep going?

Headaches, part 2

2010-12-11T15:17:00.002-08:00

Simone had another headache today. Just a little one, behind the eyebrow.

She said, "my brain is biting, biting, biting me."

This one didn't peek out her nose, but came up from her stomach, through her throat and into her brain.

It was very cute, not at all the disturbing sense that I'm getting now that I'm typing this...

A Hat!

2010-12-11T15:14:00.001-08:00

A hat, I knit my very first hat.

It's for Miles' and Robie's baby girl (due end of January). Simone had a hat very much like this one, and people think this style is very cute. Not bad for my first non-washcloth project.

And now on to my next project - a mobius strip!

Tweet!

2010-12-11T13:26:00.003-08:00

Simone has some new pajamas.

I noticed that one of them has a cute little purple bird on the shirt, shaped kind of like a paisley.

And it's saying "tweet. tweet."

I think it's her first geek shirt, it's a twitter shirt in disguise.

I was hoping her first geek shirt would be about Emacs, or xkcd.

Advent Spiral Walk

2010-12-11T08:15:00.003-08:00

This week at preschool we had the Advent Spiral Walk. It's a beautiful way to celebrate Advent. Each of the kids (then the parents) walk with a candle into the center of the spiral, light it, and then walk out, placing the candle somewhere along the path coming out. A lady plays songs on a cello the whole time. The kids love it.

Some of the kids walk fast, some shuffle along, last year one of the kids walked with super slow and exaggerated steps (like a cartoon character trying overly hard to be quiet). Simone walked in very peacefully, lit the candle, walked out a ways and placed the candle. Then she proceeded to do spins, arabesques, and other ballet moves the rest of the way out. It was awesome.

Simone Update

2010-12-10T17:17:00.004-08:00

Her favorite stuffed animal is "KittyCat" (or "Daisy" when her name comes out). And just the other day, Simone gave KittyCat a bath. KittyCat's nose is pink! Who knew?

Simone is climbing bunches. On the couch, on the chair, on me (when I crouch down to put something away).

Oooh, and she's ringing the doorbell right now. Gotta run.

Edited to add: Upon coming in, she started climbing on me.

Doodling In Math Class

2010-12-10T17:05:00.002-08:00

I saw this page and was blown away by the doodles and Vi Hart's humor and explanation of the intricacies of math and doodles. They're well worth the watch.

(hat tip Ze Frank)

Random Thoughts

2010-12-08T22:04:00.002-08:00

Corvallis has been smelling of cigars lately. Very odd.

I've recently seen a couple of people defend/promote vegetarianism on the argument that it's immoral to eat animals, for they are animals with the same right to live as humans. Usually bolstering the argument with the fact that most meat/eggs/dairy is produced in a CAFO setting (akin to torture, with which I agree). I understand that, but why differentiate between animals and plants? Are plants not as alive as animals? Shouldn't they be accorded the same rights?

Plants are the tallest organisms (trees), oldest (trees), largest by area (fungus), etc.

It seems kind of arbitrary.

Terrorism

2010-12-02T10:10:00.003-08:00

Recently I read this article: Schneier on Security: Close the Washington Monument, which (more or less) leads off with:

I think we should close the monument entirely. Let it stand, empty and inaccessible, as a monument to our fears.

The actions we've taken to make ourselves more "secure" just feel like theater, or at best, crude political overtures in order to get funding/be re-elected.

I've found these articles to be somewhat sobering, and I hope that people in power start to read this kind of thing and take a few steps back toward thinking rationally.

"Don't Be an Ass About Airport Security" - Christopher Hitchens
"Full Body Scanners: What's Next?" - Bruce Schneier
"The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother" - Cathal Kelly

A little thinking can go a long way...

Headaches

2010-11-29T19:51:00.002-08:00

Simone didn't feel well today. She woke up with the sniffles and hung out on the couch most of the day. Thankfully, by the end of the day she was doing hand-stands on the couch, and by the time I got home from work, she was very bubbly and energetic in the bath tub. We read a couple Clifford stories in bed, said the nighttime verse, and sang a song. Very sweet.

While lying in bed, Simone told me that headaches leave through your mouth while you sleep. I said, "really?" And that's when I learned

Headaches go down your head and peek out your nose, then down into your mouth, and out your open mouth while you sleep.

Lesson learned.

Let it Snow!

2010-11-24T09:12:00.002-08:00

It snowed about an inch in Corvallis, and it isn't even Thanksgiving! I know, how crazy is that?

I didn't get any pictures of Simone and Mary playing in the snow in the back yard. They looked like they were having a blast, throwing snowballs at each other and giggling. Durned work, I should have run out and joined them.

Hazel and I did go out toward the end of the day for our classic hike up to the top of Dimple hill. Dusk was approaching fast, so we went as quickly as possible.

The forest trail right before the old clear cut.

In the middle of the clear cut with Hazel racing towards me.

Up on Dimple hill, with the snow almost 2 inches deep.

Overlooking Corvallis

Hazel normally really likes running around in grass that is about as tall as she is. When it has a couple of inches of snow she goes berserk! She would bury her muzzle into the snow so that her eyes were buried and hide, then race off through the grass and snow.

It was a little slippery coming down, and a tad dark in the forest, but I did have the foresight to bring a flashlight.

Snowing!

2010-11-22T22:11:00.004-08:00

I read stories to Simone tonight while going to bed, an later went in to check on her when she was calling for "Momma." We had a nice chat and I told her that it might snow tonight and maybe she should cross her fingers (that's a recent trick she's learned) and dream for snow.

Simone got very excited (hmmm.... maybe not the best for going to sleep), and talked about getting her snow clothes ready for going over to Memere's with her cousins (they're coming down in 3 days for Thanksgiving). I told her the snow might not be around then, but, if it is here tomorrow morning, we'd gather up all her snow clothes. She seemed satisfied with that.

Tonight, while going out to lock the chickens up, I found snowflakes falling.

I think her crossed fingers did the trick!

Oops

2010-11-22T08:55:00.002-08:00

Forgot to bring my regular shoes to work, so I'm wearing my workout shoes all day. We'll see how comfortable they are while sitting in a chair for 8 hours.

Mushroom Picking

2010-11-21T22:18:00.001-08:00

Sunday morning, Mary woke up before the rest of us and took Hazel on a lovely early morning walk in the frosty morning with blue skies and sunshine. She came home stoked and was ready to go mushroom picking.

We talked about a couple of trails to check out and decided to go to the North Ridge Trail, a place I'd gone on my mushroom class. I knew it had a nice, flat area, which should be Simone friendly. The other places I'd gone picking (all 2 or 3 times) I'd gone to steep areas w/out much of a trail.

So, we headed out and as we got closer and closer to the trail head, it got cloudier and cloudier, and a couple of miles from the trailhead we could see snow in the trees a couple hundred feet higher in elevation. No worries, it was cold, but we were dressed for warmth.

We hiked down to the flat area and started looking around. Hazel ran around like a kid in a candy shop, exploring everywhere and running at top speed. Simone found mushrooms at every turn and constantly yelled, "Look Momma! Look Papa! Mushroom!"

Simone and Mary posing next to a mossy tree.

Then it started to rain. No worries, we were under big trees and weren't getting wet.

Then it started to rain hard, and Simone was a little hungry. We sat down for a little snack (not far from frozen breakfast bars) and some hot (too hot) tea. I figured we'd be heading back real soon b/c Simone was going to get cold pretty fast.

Then the rain started to change, it started falling a little slower, and a little colder.

Simone having tea as the rain started turning to snow...

Then the flakes got bigger and bigger, and we had a real snow shower. Simone got so excited and started eating the snow off the logs and off the moss (blech, it tasted like dirt, not so fun).

We started exploring other areas (to keep warm) and on our way out of the place we'd had snacks, Mary noticed something. I dug it up, and it was Mary's first wild Chanterelle mushroom. Very exciting. She found two more, and my competitive drive got going. I found 5 or 6, but it was all in one spot, right next to the road (where Mary shortly thereafter walked and would have found them).

We had about a pound of mushrooms, ready for some Hungarian mushroom soup. Hazel found some deer bones (a jawbone with teeth even), and we found a couple of patches of snow to play in.

The snow level falls.

Simone posing on a log in the snow - with Mary in the background.

We hiked back up to the car to get out of our wet rain-gear and to warm up with some now drinkable warm tea. A very successful mushroom trip.

Simoneisms

2010-11-14T07:57:00.004-08:00

This morning Simone asked me if I'd woken up with bubbles in my feet. Turns out, she was referring to how I pop my ankles when I get up. She says she doesn't have bubbles in her feet.

And yesterday we were eating bagels with cream cheese and she wanted to split the last half. Instead of cutting it in half or sharing bites, she wanted me to cut around the hole in the middle, that way we each still had a bagel. Though her part was transformed into a donut.

Halloween at the Stevenson's

2010-11-09T20:00:00.003-08:00

I think this is our second year going over to the Stevenson's for Halloween. They live in the kind of neighborhood where every house is handing out candy and eagerly awaits the pitter patter of little feet. We had a lovely dinner beforehand (thanks Pamela!) and headed out.

We knocked on about a dozen doors, and I think Jack and Connor would have raced around from house to house for another half hour, but the twins were done. Simone was so excited to be trick-or-treating that a dozen houses was great.

John reading to the little ones.

The perfect little piggie.

Can we go yet???

All the kids, pre-candy.

Fall Colors

2010-11-09T19:56:00.002-08:00

We went back east two years ago (two?!!!? wow) and the colors were pretty. I'm definitely enjoying the colors Corvallis has to offer this year, they've been pretty spectacular.

A Walk To Sunset Park

2010-11-09T19:55:00.001-08:00

Sunset Park is a popular place to go, and these photos were taken on a walk there a couple of weeks ago.

If you look closely, you'll see a pile of moss by Simone's feet - that is the bed for the fairies.

The duck whisperer in action.

Simone building up a pile of leaves to jump in.

Pre-Halloween Piggie

2010-11-09T19:53:00.002-08:00

Mary had the idea to make Simone a pig costume (wearing a tu-tu of course) for Halloween. To be honest, I figured we'd just take the easy route and have Simone dress up like a fairy with one of the "princess" dresses we'd inherited (they're pretty cute - just add wings, which we have).

But, Mary had the itch, and she found some wonderful pink fabric at the craft store, so we started planning. Mary put the nose together - using a TP tube cut down, some black buttons for nostrils, and some elastic cord. I figured out the tail would be made of a wire coat hanger bent into a spiral.

Unfortunately, Mary was off to a seminar and couldn't finish it before she left. I might have been able to finish it on my own, but I'm real slow. Enter Nana. Nana put fabric on the tail while playing with Simone in the time it took me to take Hazel for a run. Then she whipped together the ears even faster. I was working in the other room and heard Nana giggling in the living room - and figured she'd gone back to reading her book, but she was attaching the ears to the pink hat and just thought the ears were hilarious.

It was a team effort, and it all came together splendidly. We got many comments on the costume at the pre-halloween party we went to.

Someone Mary was talking to noticed a barn-yard pattern. Simone has been a cow, a chicken, and now a pig. Who knows what next year will bring?

A nice shot of the outfit.

Look at the nose. Later I had to make another one because Hazel ... well, she likes the pink fabric.

Pigs can climb rock walls it seems.

Dimple Hill

2010-11-09T19:50:00.002-08:00

I've been avoiding running for the past month or so, and walking on flats isn't very satisfying. Here are some photos of the trail up Dimple Hill. There's another trail just to the east of the grass one pictured below - but that one is so steep it's challenging to walk.

This is the grass Hazel loves so - she blends in really well.

The low sun provides for some nice lighting.

There are a few old trees left.

Nana and Simone

2010-11-09T19:49:00.001-08:00

Nana came down, yay!

Bowling

2010-11-09T19:48:00.001-08:00

I wrote about our bowling trip, here are some pictures.

The lovely ramp - what a great idea to let little kids bowl.

Strike! Yes, she was beating the pants off both of us.

Sunset Park October 2010

2010-11-09T19:47:00.002-08:00

Some pictures of a rainy day at Sunset Park. We had a little picnic in the covered area.

Stop and smell the day lillies?

2010-11-09T19:45:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you've got to stop and smell the day lillies.

Visitors!

2010-11-09T19:38:00.004-08:00

We had visitors a couple of weeks ago. Carl, Jana and Ayli came down to visit. I tried taking some photos, but the two wiggle worms wouldn't sit still long enough. The one picture in focus with them in the rocking chair doesn't have Ayli looking at the camera. But they are all pretty cute.

Hungry?

Two peas in a pod.

They're still long enough for a focused shot, it's a miracle!

Full service strolling.

In addition to taking rides in the stroller, Simone and Ayli spent a bunch of time in the kitchen cooking up food, and dancing to music.

We only see Carl, Jana and Ayli once every year or two - they have made the trek down to Corvallis twice now, and methinks we should head to Chicago at some point to return the favor.

And so it begins...

2010-11-09T10:57:00.002-08:00

My first project:

This is where we live

2010-11-02T21:10:00.003-07:00

This is a panorama from Dimple Hill, with Corvallis in the distance (and the edge of my finger on top).

Dog Running

2010-10-29T15:47:00.005-07:00

We're working with Hazel a lot more consistently, in an attempt to help her adjust to being a well-mannered dog. A part of that is exercise, for her and me. We've taken to walking in McDonald Forest and hiking up the steepest trails we can find. One of them leads directly up to Dimple Hill.

I took this video of her running the other day - she loves tall grass.

Bowling

2010-10-24T20:17:00.003-07:00

Today, Simone, Mary and I went to bowl at OSU's bowling alley. We got there before 2pm, which meant $1 off each game, and (bonus) on Sundays shoes are free!

We used the bumpers to keep from doing gutter balls, and there was even a slide that Simone could use to aim and propel the ball.

Well, Simone whooped our hides real good the first game. She got well over 100 the first game, beating Mary and myself by a good 20+ points each. On the second game, she got 100 even, but I got 4 strikes and a spare for a high score of 143, thereby reaffirming my position in the family hierarchy.

We won't discuss Mary's scores.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-23T19:29:00.003-07:00

We finally carved jack-o-lanterns!

We've bought pumpkins in years past, but never gotten around to carving them.

Today, we hung out on the back patio, with a fire in our fireplace, and carved away. Here's what they look like:

Shady Dell

2010-10-23T19:13:00.003-07:00

I can't believe I didn't blog about this when it happened.

We went to Shady Dell, a club outside of Mollala where guys have been driving scale trains around a mile of track since I was a little kid.

Mary and I had no idea how often trains passed our house until this summer, when Simone's interest in trains went ballistic. For a while she's yelled, "plane!" when she hears a plane fly by, "truck" when she heard the rumble of a garbage truck, "bus" when she sees or hears a big bus. But, this summer she's gotten to yelling "train!" when she hears the horn of a train. It's kind of cute, but the other night she was yelling it out from her bedroom when it was time to sleep. Not so cute.

Of course, while I was sitting with her the other night and she was insistently whispering "train" to me (b/c she knew it was time for sleep), it took all my resolve not to bust out laughing.

Anyway, that's all to say that Simone is nuts for trains (to grandpa's delight).

At Shady Dell you get to watch the trains roll by, and then you get to ride in them. Here are a few choice photos from the event. We were joined by Grandpa and Nana.

First, everyone in the station, getting ready to ride:

Everyone on the move:

What the engines look like (complete with cow on the cow guard):

And a shot for Grandpa, a detail of the wheels. They're about 8" tall, you'd never know from the photo:

As The Worm Turns

Running

Self-Made Coloring Book Pages

Simone Book

Three Weeks In

New Year

It's Good

Breakfast

Riding With Simone To School

If Only "The Onion" Reported Real News...

A sobering/depressing read

Farm to Farm - a ride for me

Studying Obesity

Biking and a Hike

It Begins

An Adventure

Camping In Her Room

Vision

For Fox Sake

Climbing Through The Eyes Of A Five Year Old

The Horror

Arguing...

Hood

NBA Finals and Mary

Memorial Day

Simone's Birthday

Tent

Time To Mow

Last Day @ 4

Lemonade

Bedtime and Books

Gee... thanks Senate

OBL is dead...

Sheepy and Books

TV Critic at Large

Mother's Day Hike

White Car Is White, the photo

White Car Is White

Watching Muppets From Space with my girls

Spring Flowers

Critters on parade

Earth Day | Procession of the Species

F#@&! U.S. Cellular Companies

Wise Words From Seth Godin

Fantasy writing

Anti Joke

What's worse than finding a worm in your apple?The Holocaust.

Artsy Shots

Beach Party

Happy Family

Beaver Freezer 2011

Fool You Once...

Click Clack Moo

Getting Old

Yay, The U.S. Bombs Yet Another Islamic Country! (Libya)

Mustard, take 1

Murphy

Potty Humor

LFMF

Life is good ... so let's complain

Kauai, 2011

Heat

A slice of today

Not Sure How I Feel About This

School Buses And Seat Belts

A Time To Break Silence

Saturday With Simone

Saturday Morning

Drinking and Sipping Chocolate

Simone in the new year

Sigh...

Walkies

Headaches, part 2

A Hat!

Tweet!

Advent Spiral Walk

Simone Update

Doodling In Math Class

Random Thoughts

Terrorism

What's worse than finding a worm in your apple?

The Holocaust.