Friday, May 31, 2013

#155 - Guys working on cars - May 31, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24:
1) We had Aria's friend and Libby's friend, and all of our kids in the pool yesterday afternoon it hit 90.  Our house was a happening place.  That was awesome.  We always wanted our house to be the place our kids wanted to bring their friends to play.  And it is right now.
2) My brother's efforts to install a new set of speakers in his car coincided with my efforts to finish tearing apart the fuse box in my van to repair it.  It was the first time in life that I've worked on cars with my brother.

This is odd for us, because my dad was always fixing cars, and my brother has done his share of car repair, and I have done a little myself.  We've just lived in different states or different continents for most of our lives.    It was super-American for is to have 2 cars torn apart, asking each other for advice on how to get things done, swapping tools, and talking shop for a couple hours.  I love having him as part of my life.  It's one of the best things about New York.

The weather has finally turned to summer.  We have the AC set for 75, and I hope it can keep up.  It's syupposed to be 90 today, high 80s tomorrow, cooling to mid-70s next week, but then it'll get hooter, I'm sure.  The forest is alive with birds all day long, and soon the cicadas will emerge and change the whole landscape.

3 weeks left of school for the kids, and they can't wait.  Life is good.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

#154 - Pool time - May 30, 2013

Cool thing: I was home from work and the neighbor girl who is Libby's age came over, as she normally does.  "Can we swim?" she says.  It was almost dinner time, and breaking up dinner didn't seem like a good idea, so we said, "After dinner, yes."  She smiled a huge smile.   "You're the best neighbor ever!" she said.  After dinner, we swam for about 2 hours, until it got dark.

Jacob now can swim.  I caught him doing the dog paddle in the shallow end a few nights ago.  Libby won't go down the slide without a life jacket on, but she swims in water over her head all the time, no problem at all.  The kids are all relaxed in the water.  We have rules in the pool - no squirting unless you want to be squirted, all squirting stays in the pool.  They play and swim and dive and have a lot of fun.  It's really excellent recreation, and a good investment.

I called around to find the part I needed for the van.  No luck with parts dealers, so I had to call the Toyota dealer.  The part wasn't too much more than I had seen online, and I was able to talk to somebody and make sure it was the right thing.  It should be at the dealer on Friday.  In the mean time, We're driving the other cars.  Good thing we have 3 of them.  I will pick up the maintenance manual this morning from the auto parts store, and I'll be in business.

A couple days ago, it wasn't very warm, but the kids wanted to swim.  It was Libby's first day back in the pool after losing her stitches.  She fell asleep, wrapped in her warm towel, as the sun cast shadows through the trees.


Wednesday, May 29, 2013

#153 - Who is this child's mother? - May 29, 2013

Cool thing from 24 hrs: I opened a certain child's report card.  Here it is:
Once again, I don't know how to get Blogger to post my upright picture as an upright picture.  This child's report card is unnatural - 9 subjects, 7 As, 2 Bs.  I don't know who this child's parents are - I can assume that her mother is Katrina.  I'm not sure who the father is, because this is not a report card like I brought home ever from 7-12 grades.  

Made some progress on the van yesterday, but I still haven't been able to pull out the fuse box to replace the fusible link.  I'll figure that out soon, hopefully tonight.  And I need to get the part moving here so I can replace it.

Last night was my regular Tuesday late night.  Twice a month I work a regular day, go home for a few hours, and then come back in to meet with my night shift team from midnight until 1 or 2am.  Then I sleep for a bit, and go to work a little late on Wednesdays.  These team meetings are usually lots of fun, and I always learn something from them.  Good stuff.  And that's it.  



Tuesday, May 28, 2013

#152 - Filming the Lewis and Clark expedition - May 28, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24hrs: got to play Charbonneau the explorer in Aria's school film project about Lewis and Clark.  Learned that Charbonneau was Sacagawea's husband.  Had a blast speaking French and Japanese (should have been Ihatsu, but the audience won't know the difference) and coaching one of the boys on how to pronounce French appropriately.  I hadn't realized that the entire expedition, they played telephone: Sacagawea to Charbonneau to Labiche to Lewis and Clark.  Wow.  How much more could she have taught them if they had treated her as an equal and didn't have all the interpreters in the way?

After filming, we wandered the towns looking for donuts.  Eventually we found them at Hannaford, then went home and spent some time in the pool.  It's gradually warming and becoming very clear.  It was crystal clear before we swam in it and stirred up some of the gunk in the bottom.  It also seems clear to me that we have a broken line coming from the pool to the filter.  We lose a lot of water every time I run the filter, and it's getting worse.  The jets don't seem to be spewing dirt, so it's either the pool drain or the skimmer line.  I'll have to filter with each alone so I know which one has the problem.  I suspect it's the drain line, which could be a huge "I don't want to think about it until we replace the pool liner" endeavor or a "let's dig near the filter unit and see if we get lucky" endeavor.  No idea which it might be.

The girls leave soon, and the boys will stay with my brother for a couple nights after they go.  Looking forward to a weekend away with my sweetie.  And the van broke.  I think it's the same fuse assembly that my dad and I repaired a few years ago.  This time I'll get a new one - they're only $47 new and I'm not confident I can repair this one correctly myself anyway.  But Christian and I may explore the local junk yards first, just for fun.  Christian mowed the lawn for the first time today.  Looks much nicer.


Monday, May 27, 2013

#151 - Stella! - May 27, 2013

Cool, cute, or odd thing from the last 24 hours:

1) driving home from church, a streetcar on wheels (instead of rails) comes at us.  In bold letters on the front, the word "Stella" is stenciled.  This strikes me as odd, and it takes me a few seconds to link the two things.  Eventually my Tennessee Williams memory kicks in, and I get it.
2) During the basketball game, Christian comes in and shows me his lip balm cannon.  It shoots the cap when you push the plunger and increase air pressure.  Memories of being an 11 year old boy and doing the same thing come back.  And I tell him about the clicker pen shooters I made when I was a kid.

When it was evening, I put the Heat-Pacers playoff game on my phone, and wrote the next installment of my Book of Mormon rewrite.  Just 1 Nephi 2:16, where Nephi first gains a testimony.  I finished at half time and put the game on the TV.  Aria hung out with me for a bit and then went to bed.

The Book of Mormon ReWrite (I'll abbreviate it to BOMR I think) looms large in my understanding of the scriptures.  To make the story into one with characters instead of figures, you have to write dialogue.  As you write dialogue, you have to get inside the head of the people, try to make sense of what they do and why, and you have to add color and flavor.  For instance, here's the 1 Nephi 2:16

"And it came to pass that I Nephi, Nephi, being exceedingly young, nevertheless ebing large in stature, and also having great desires to know of the mysteries of God, wherefore, I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father; wherefore, I did not rebel against him like unto my brothers."

This one verse turned into 2 single-spaced pages as Nephi goes off by himself to pray and has his seminal spiritual experience.  It's the first one we read about, and sets in his mind that his father is a prophet.  Hugely important, but so easy to skip over when reading through first Nephi.

Exercise milestone today: 1 mile.  I haven't run a mile in 20 years.  It wasn't fast, but I was going 6mph most of the way.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

#150 - Back to the daily - May 26, 2013

So I don't blog regularly, and my excuse is that it takes an hour, and when do I have an hour for this when so much else needs doing?

My answer, finally, is: don't take an hour, idiot!

So when I have an hour, fine, I'll use it.  But I'll take a few minutes each day at least, and I'll try to have a little structure as well.

First: I have started working out again, and this time I'm using the treadmill for cardio instead of the bike.  It's  much more enjoyable than I expected.  Yesterday I did 0.5 mile in 6:14, this morning was 0.75 in 8:14.  I'd like to get this to a couple miles a day, we'll see how that works out.  I've started strength training, too, but that will take a bit to work up to a milestone (beyond the fact that I started).

My goal with this is to lose the spare tire.  I don't have a specific weight goal, but somewhere in the 210 range is my target.  Depends on how much muscle I get in the process, since this is a new way of weight control for me.

Cute thing from the last 24 hrs: I'm in the kitchen making oatmeal and Jake is at the table reading the front of the Honey Nut Cheerios box.  I think I hear him say, "Whole Brain Oats".  Turns out he said "Oil Grain Oats", and then I that "oil" was actually "whole" and showed him where the ingredient list was on the box.

The driveway is completely a leafy green canopy.  I need to do some serious tree trimming.  And the pool is finally completely clear.  There's still junk on the bottom, which is going to take me a month to clear, but the water is very nice (and cold!).

And that's it for today!  When I blog from work, I'll add pics, since I sync my phone on my work computer.