#135 - Laboring with love - October 16, 2012

Tuesday.

Aria got sick last night about midnight.  She didn’t go to school today. 

The rain cleared off in the morning.  I got up early, took out the garbage, burned a ton of cardboard that was overfilling our recycle bin, took the recycle bin out, and worked on reviews.  They were due last week, but I still had a few to do.  I took the kids to the bus while Aria slept.  I got a couple done, then it was time for Katrina and I to learn about my company’s changing benefits plan.

We know which plan we won’t choose, but we’re undecided on which HSA plan will be better for us.  So we have to do some analysis on our family’s likely medical usage and make a choice in the next couple weeks. 

I got home and evicted some woodpeckers from our house.  Katrina noticed a woodpecker pecking at our house a week or so ago.  The hole is large enough for the bird to easily get in and out of.  Today, Aria noticed that the woodpecker was pecking on the sheetrock now, trying to get into the house.  It was time to take action.  She did some research online and found that woodpeckers don’t like tinfoil.  So I took a rolled up pie tin and stuck it in the hole.  While I was up there, I found 2 more woodpecker holes, so I put tin foil in those.  And then we looked around the other corner of the house and found 2 more woodpecker holes.  It appears I have some patching to do. 

Then it was time to clean up leaves.  We have a push broom that I bought when we first moved in to sweep the driveway.  The leaves have been down for a while, and it was time to sweep them off.  So I spent about an hour out there with the push broom and got most of the driveway done.  I had forgotten how wide it actually is.  It was nice to be out there working up a sweat on a cool fall evening.

And I realized that I enjoy working on this house.  Our house in Beaverton was a lot of work to maintain – everything grew with abandon, and it was manicured.  So you would notice if something was untended for a while.  And there was the fact that that house did not feel large enough for us after we’d been in it for a year.  Katrina hated the tile floor in the kitchen, the kids were sharing cramped rooms, and our office was always clogged with stuff. 

This house is different.  I enjoy cutting and hauling wood.  I have enjoyed building the pantry.  I enjoyed taking care of the pool.  Katrina has been working piece by piece to make the house beautiful – 6’ high family trees on the wall, fall decorations on the partial walls around the kitchen, figurines in the display case by the dining table, new lights for the front porch.  She likes this house.  And even though the kitchen floor is tile, we don’t complain about it.  It’s on our list of things to do, just not quite yet. 

I will admit that I don’t like bringing wood inside.  I like cutting, hauling, stacking, and building a fire.  Just not the between part.  I don’t know why.  But living here is a labor of love.  I will trim the bushes back in a few weeks, but I have time to do that.  And I’ll do a million other things, too, as it gets colder outside and I have to turn the focus inside to finish unpacking the house and organizing the basement into usable space.  Much of it is still clogged with boxes that need sorting.

But what a nice day it was.  As evening fell, we ate dinner and I went up to the bedroom instead of watching the debate.  I was hoping that Obama would come out swinging.  But I read the second book in Aria’s series instead.  “Pretties” (by Scott Westerfield) is a better book than the first.  I’ve enjoyed it.  And before I went to sleep, I was nearly done.

#134 – Reading in the Autumn rain - October 15, 2012

Monday.

It rained all day today.  A hard, uncompromising downpour.  On my way home from work, I stopped twice to pick up garbage in the middle of the road that was making cars swerve.  I got home, soaked to the skin in my purple shirt. 

I spent the evening finishing “Uglies”.  A good book – some kissing and hugging, but not too much.  Certainly not too much for a teenage girl.  It certainly was interesting and a little offensive to hear the characters talk about one girl stealing the other’s boyfriend.  As if you can steal a person.  I have never understood that dynamic.  If you’re married, sure.  If you’re not even engaged?  In that case, nobody has made a commitment.  Fair game.  And it was not even intentional.

It was a warm evening, so at first I sat on the porch, reading with the rain stripping the leaves off the trees.  After dinner it was too cold for that, so I settled into the recliner by the fire and read there as the rain beat down on the skylight.

A very simple day.  I did not accomplish anything special today – a normal day at work, and a relaxing evening.  My back was sore all day, probably due to the lumberjacking on Saturday and Sunday.  So taking the evening off was logical and extremely enjoyable.

As an important side note, Katrina has been awesome the past few weeks.  I’ve been focused on building and home maintenance.  After I did a full weekend of laundry with our louse problem, I haven’t done a single load, but Katrina has been making progress every day.  She has planned and made meals for the most part.  I made tuna melts tonight, but she has been putting everything else together.  So I’ve been free to accomplish things.  It has made my progress on these projects much faster, and has encouraged me to get them done. 

Thanks, babe.  You’re the best.

#133 - Cutting up trees and reading ink on wood fibers - October 14, 2012

Sunday.

I made waffles this morning, and we got out the door to church.  Primary is fun – I’m comfortable behind the piano now.  Not that I’m good yet, but I’m getting better and I’m comfortable with my badness.  I can take all the improv the music leader throws at me, and it’s okay.  I took the time during the sharing time lesson to put some choir music into Noteworthy format.  It was nice to make some real progress.

Choir practice was okay.  I’m not quite comfortable there yet, but I’m getting better.  There’s certainly a learning curve to leading a choir.

After church we decompressed.  I played on the computer a little, ate lunch.   The kids played.  Katrina went in to take a nap, and I went out to finish the pantry wall.  Which I did.  We now have a complete room.  There is a door from the garage into the pantry, and from the pantry into the house.  No more walking through empty framing.  The room is 70% sheetrocked.  The other 30% has exterior siding and tar paper.  I have to do a little electrical work and then I can finish those walls.  And then I need to insulate the ceiling (it goes to an unheated attic) and insulate the walls between the pantry and the garage.

Then it was time for the chainsaw.  I took it out, refilled the oil and gas reservoirs, grabbed my safety glasses, and walked out to the Taconic side of our property.  The saw started up easily (much more easily than yesterday), and I sawed through 80 feet of tree.   I also got the piece that was leaning on another tree all the way to the ground and cut it up.  I’ve got a lot of maple to burn now.  I also took a walk to the edges of our property.  I found 2 large downed trunks that need to be cut up and hauled to the house.  I cut one in the middle and I’d guess it’s from the Halloween storm last year.  There’s a knoll toward the neighbor’s house, and I wondered where the property line was in relation to that knoll.  Turns out the brush fence (we have a line of fallen tree limbs that serves as our property line marker) gives us a whole new area that I hadn’t seen yet.  And there’s a great tree house tree and another tree that fell over on the October storm.  This one twisted about 15 feet up, and as it fell it hit a few more trees.  So none of them are on the ground, but this one is clearly dead.  It will need to be cleared. 

And there are a few other trees that need clearing as well.  So now I have a chainsaw, and reasons to use it.  Exciting.  I don’t mind the work – it’s cathartic, good muscle work.  Lots of thinking required, but it’s good sweaty work.  It just feels good. 

I threw the logs I cut up down the knoll, and went inside.  Light was fading, it was 5pm, time to relax.  So I sat down with a book that Aria just finished and read for a few hours.  The Giants were playing the 49ers, which is an important game for them this season, so I put the game on my iPhone on the armchair next to me and read.  Jake came to sit with me, and he pointed out words he could read.  He sat there with me for an hour, maybe more.  It was really nice.  We watched the game sometimes, we read sometimes, we talked sometimes.  He’s irrepressible. 

The book is good.  It’s called “Uglies”, and is set in a post-apocalyptic America in California.  Technology allows small pockets of people to live extremely easy lives, but the rest of the land has reverted to nature.  But along with the technology comes certain 1984-esque rules, and some people opt out of the easy life and run away to live more simply.  It’s an interesting premise, and Aria is well into the second book of the series.   There is entirely too much “kissing and lovey-lovey stuff” for her.  I haven’t seen any of that yet, but I’m only halfway through book 1.

I've been exploring better ways to start the fireplace.  I tried lighter fluid on the half-burned wood I had, but it didn't work out well.  I had a couple hot spots, but it was going to die.  So I added 5 charcoal briquettes, and blew on them until I could tell there were going to go.  An hour later, the fire was beautiful.  Hot, smokeless, lovely.  Briquettes  are so much easier than paper and cardboard.  Pretty cheap, too.  I think I found a winner.

And then it was time for bed.  It’s a good life.

A couple pictures.  We can see our neighbors now.

The sun sets left of the pool now.   This is about 5pm, looking
over the meadow.  The neighborhood below us on Gina lane
is visible through the trees.  

#132 - Some words about my dad - October 13, 2012

Saturday.

Today I just want to write some things about my dad. 

When my dad was 37, the year was 1978.  He had 3 little kids, and he and my mom were doing the young-married “let’s move a lot” thing.  The next year, they bought a house at 24680 S Barlow Rd, Canby Oregon 97013.  This address is how I learned to count by 2s when I was 4 or 5.  The house was a one-room, but I remember it being a studio when we moved in.  You walked up the steps to the front door, and when you opened the door, there was a low table with a little TV.  Looking straight ahead, there was a couch facing the TV, and then my parents’ bed.  Step in a couple feet and turn left, and that was the kitchen.  Turn left a little more and you could see the bathroom door, and the stairs that led to the attic that my brother and I slept in.  I don’t remember where my sister slept in those early years.

I loved that house.  It did not bother me that it was small, because, of course, I did not know different.  It was my house, and that was enough.  As soon as we moved in, my dad went to work on it.  I was seldom asked to help, as I recall.  I was 4 when we moved in, and 7 I think by the time the major work was done.  In the meantime, I watched my father frame walls, put in plumbing, put on siding, roofing, split wood, add wiring, texture ceilings, wallpaper, paint.  My mom did a lot of this, too, but the building part belonged to my dad.  When we sold that house, it was a 5-bedroom, 2-bath home with a large kitchen, living room, family room, 2 covered porches, and a truly massive 2-car garage. 

I was aware that it was a big job.  Dad spent all of his non-work time building it.  What I did not realize was how crazy it was to take on such a huge project all by himself. 

We moved to another home in 1986, a 1917 Victorian that could have been listed on Canby’s list of historic places if we hadn’t ripped the whole thing apart and reconfigured all of it.  I watched this project as a teenager.  Again, dad took the lead and didn’t ask for much help.  I helped put up a layer of insulation outside the house, and put up the blue vinyl siding that was all the rage at the time.  I helped clean up lathe and plaster walls that dad had taken down.  I helped carry a huge cast iron clawfoot tub down a flight of stairs and out to the driveway.   But I didn’t do much.  Not in comparison to my father.

But I learned a lot by watching my father.  I learned, most importantly, to never be afraid of the size of the task before me or its complexity.  We have never had this conversation.  He never sat me down and said, “Son, never be afraid of any task’s size or complexity.”  My did simply saw a 1917 house, and remodeled all 3 floors of it as a matter of course.  Don’t like the main floor?  We’ll rip out every single wall on the main floor, replumb and reconfigure the entire thing.  Lots of work?  Sure!  Big deal?  Nope. 

While I was serving a mission in Japan, my father took on another remodel job.  This one included jacking up an entire house, pouring a foundation under it, and setting the house back down.  Among a few other little odds and ends.

My father just lived his life that way.  Still does.  I have never heard him say that something was beyond my ability.  I have heard him speak of his own limitations, but there aren’t many of them. 

While we lived in Beaverton, I got to work with my dad on quite a few projects.  We converted a garden shed into a powered, insulated office.  We replumbed under my house to convert from cast iron to PVC piping, and separated the drain lines so the kitchen and washer drained separately and we wouldn’t have leaks in the laundry room any more.  We embarked on an aborted attempt to reconfigure my house so it would be better for the kids.  We roofed his new house together. 

Through all of this, I’ve learned some common sense about building.  Measure twice, cut once.  Perpendicularity is important.  Non-load bearing walls leave a lot of flexibility for configuration.  Check level and alignment a few times.  Then screw it in when you’re sure.  Some trim will hide almost anything.   Basic electrician’s work consists of matching the black wire to the black wire, and not a whole lot else.  Be careful in everything you do – the big project is not a risk, but not doing the job right is a risk.

The past 9 days have seen me permanently install a wall air conditioner above the freezer in our new pantry, frame a door in that pantry, and finish the other framing in the room.  It saw me buy a chain saw, read the manual, start it up and fell a tree in the woods around my house.  They saw me assign bringing in firewood as a chore to my son, take apart the filter unit for the pool to store it for winter, and build fires to keep my heating costs down. 

A teacher who has taught a child to read can be given credit for the words the child can read.  When the child is in med school, learning things the teacher will never know, the teacher still deserves the credit for giving that child the tools she needed to get through med school.

My father taught me to build in much the same way.  I know what’s important, what can wait, what I need to have a pro come and do.  And I know, because of what my dad taught me, that I can do this man thing ok.   I can chop wood, start a fire in my fireplace, add a pantry to my house, replace doors, saw up trees, play ping-pong, read a book my kid recommends, and laugh a lot. 

I love my father.  I have a ton of respect for him.  And he has made my life as a man more complete, and enabled me to do the same for my kids.  Thanks for not handicapping me, dad.  I needed to know all of this stuff.  It’s important.

#119 - Darth Paper Strikes Back: A book review - September 30, 2012

Sunday.

Overslept a bit this morning, but thankfully the kids all had clean Sunday-appropriate clothes.  We left on time, and I was able to steal close to an hour during Primary to organize the choir folders and music.  There was a baptism at the same time as choir and in the same room, so I cancelled choir and we went home. 

Lunch, a nap, some relaxing.  Katrina’s mom is trying to come out to spend Christmas with us, and we talked with her on Google video chat for a while.  Aria had the computer in her room, and we sat on her bed and talked.  It would be nice for her to come visit.  No reason not to at all.  Note to self: the count down clock is down to about 10 weeks!  We have work to do!

I put up a few more blog posts, and stayed up (again) to watch the Giants get beaten by the Eagles.  Just barely, and they beat themselves (a penalty at the end messed up the game-winning field goal try).  But a loss nonetheless. 

Now it is time to add a belated book review: Darth Paper Strikes Back.  This is book 2 in the Origami Yoda series.  I will assume that my readers have never heard of Origami Yoda.  This series is hugely popular with 10 year-old or so boys.  I took Darth Paper on my boy scout campout last weekend, and they all had either read it or knew about it.  The premise is clever: there is a boy who is socially inept at a junior high.  He creates a simple origami finger puppet of Yoda.  When his friends need an answer to a tough life question (as in, “I splashed a little water on my pants in the bathroom.  Now it looks like I wet my pants, and the bell is about to ring!  What do I do??!?!?”) origami Yoda provides a cryptic answer.  The kids follows Yoda’s advice and things turn out well.  (The kids gets the rest of his pants wet and walks to class.  No big deal.  The kid has wet pants.  But nobody can accuse him of wetting his pants.)

The trouble is that teachers see the Yoda thing as disruptive, and Yoda makes a prediction at the beginning of this book that another kid interprets as a threat.  The school has a zero-tolerance policy, and the principal removes him from school and recommends he be sent to the remedial school.  Meanwhile, his mom cuts off all communication with his friends – no phone, no visits, no email, nothing. 

The book is ostensibly written by Origami Yoda’s creator’s friend, Tommy.  And Tommy’s friends contribute chapters as well.  His buddy Kellen adds doodles to the book, and Tommy’s nemesis Harvey also writes rebuttals to each chapter.  Each chapter recounts an incident that Origami Yoda was involved in and how it turned out. 

The book is clever and funny.  Well about a 4-hour reading time.  Thankfully, the book is mostly clear of fart jokes and things, and deals more with interhuman interaction (among the boys and between the boys and girls) and the hilarity of being very uncertain of oneself than it does trying to put out one-liners.  For those reasons, it’s worth a read.  The third book, The Fortune Wookie, is out in hardback now.

A truly gorgeous day today.

This picture is on its side.  

#118 – Winterizing and project completion – September 29, 2012

Saturday

Today was a huge day for us.  Less so for the kids, but I was still very proud of them. 

We woke up some time after the sun came up, and wandered in for breakfast.  I had a normal breakfast.  The kids took the leftover hot dogs and cooked them on a resurrected fire.  It had gone out over night, but we had a cardboard box that needed disposal, so I got the fire going for them.

Today was the culmination of 2 months of worry and work by Katrina.  The ward’s annual day of service was tasked to the Relief Society, and Katrina got the project lead assignment.  So she has been arranging logistics, calling, marketing, etc, for a few months.  She has been worried about it consistently, and freaked out about it more than once.  This morning she went in at about 8 to help set up.

While she was out, I tackled my big project – I moved the washer into the laundry and set it up.  I tested the water, everything is good.  I ran a load to test it, and then cleaned up.  I put the tools away, pushed the dryer back into where it belongs, pushed the washer in next to it.  It looks quite nice.  The plumbing job doesn’t look very nice.  My focus was to make it operational and not leak, and I think I accomplished both of those things. 

Then Katrina came back close to 10.  Her entire perspective had changed.  For one thing, there were people there, waiting to donate before she left.  She also got a feel for the thing she had done, and that she had arranged something that is probably going to save the life of a few people.  She was happy, relieved, and grateful to have done it.  It is the kind of thing everyone should feel often.  She doesn’t feel that feeling enough, and I’m glad it worked out well.

I spent the rest of the morning finishing off the pool.  I drained 6 more inches of water out of it, took the chlorine tablets out.   I had thrown them in when I initially winterized the pool, but my reading this morning called out very specifically to not do that.  So I removed the cover that was sitting there, fished out the tablets and the dead mouse, and ptu the cover back.  Then I tied it in place using the fence posts, drained the filter tank, disconnected the power to the pump, put the cap on the electrical outlet, turned off the breaker, and unscrewed one of the 3 rings that need removal before I can put the system indoors. 

Katrina and I went off to donate blood.  No problem for me, but Katrina wasn’t able to donate.  Which was very disappointing for her considering how much she had prepared to do it.  We were some of the last people to go in, and I was #31.  We had exceeded the magic number of 25 donations, and that was cause for celebration.  So we went to Debra T’s.  I get an apricot soft serve and she got some fries.  Then we went back home.

I assigned the kids to deflate all of the pool toys in the basement, which Libby and Jake got to.  Christian cleaned up all the miscellaneous stuff left from our last times in the pool (swim masks and snorkels and such).  All the kids helped cleaning up our camping site.  And then I organized the pool toys in the basement storage area, pulled the umbrellas inside, removed the lounge chairs, moved the small table into the covered porch, and got Katrina’s help to move the large table off the covered porch.  The area looks much better now.  I need to disconnect the filter/pump unit a bit more and blow out the skimmer line, and then the water parts of the pool are done.  I have some plant trimming to do before everything dies, but it’s in good shape now. 

I got a few blog entries written, and we had leftovers for dinner.  Then the kids went to bed.  The Ducks didn’t kick off until 10:30, and I was tired.  But I realized that I wasn’t that tired, and I went out to watch the game.  It was a tough game to watch – by halftime, it was a one-score game, 23-19.  And it looked like our defense was not rattling their quarterback, and their defense was rattling ours.  Everything changed after halftime.  Our defense started to pressure the quarterback instead of the receivers, and we put together a 6-minute, 18-play drive to score.  We were completely in control.  They got the ball back and got into the red zone.  And then we sacked the quarterback 3 times in a row, pushing them out of field goal range.  1 minute later, we had 3 huge plays and another score.  On their next possession, it was an interception for a touchdown, and we were up by 24 points halfway through the 3^rd quarter.

It was fun to watch the complete makeover.  It was an entirely different game.  The best news was that the other top-10 teams all won by fewer points than we did, and the number 3 team especially only won by 18 points over a team I’d never heard of. 

Then it was 2am, and time to sleep again.  

Big bonus on the East Coast: I can watch games late at night when nobody else watches TV.  Big bleh on the East Coast: the games start at 10:30.
Very productive day, hoping tomorrow is as useful.

The leaf picture for today.

Pool area is cleared, almost ready for winter.

And all the pool stuff fits down here.  And the lawn mower, too!

Some of our trees are becoming brilliant.

#117 – Camping at home! – September 28, 2012

Friday.

Today was a nice day at work.  I had some time to listen to the Tech Support team discussing some action plans, and to work on some other lingering things.  My big thing today was trying to set myself up for a productive week next week.  Our big monthly meeting is the week after next, and we need to give the customer a new look at our data.  Not because they’re unhappy, but because we understand the current data set really well.  We’ve addressed the things it has told us to do, and it seems to me that we are missing opportunities that the raw data can show us.  So I have to spend a full day working on it to make it look right.  And I have a new guy to bring on next week, so that will eat a lot of time.

I got home, took an hour to play on the computer, and then I got busy.  Tonight we went camping.  I set up the tents and took a shortcut to get the fire going.  Briquettes and lighter fluid on a platform of wet wood, build a log house of partially burned wood from the previous fire, and put some new wood on top of that to dry out.

I slept in the little blue tent on the left.
The boys took the large red one, and the girls
snuggled in the little orange one on the right.

In half an hour, we had a beautiful fire and the tents were all set up.  The kids came out, got a stuffed animal, a sleeping bag, the roasting sticks, hot dogs, buns, and condiments.  Katrina came out, and we had a dinner around the fire.  Marshmallows followed, of course.

Katrina slept in the huge brown 2-story tent in the background. 

We stood around the fire a bit, Jakers went in on his own volition to brush his teeth, and we all settled in.  I read the news in my tent.  Jakers was singing to himself in the boys’ tent, and the girls were giggling in theirs.  I really thought they would lose patience with each other, but they didn’t.  And I love the fact that I don’t have to give any kind of thought to the neighbors.  Not even half a thought.  They are so far away, I’m sure they never hear us.  So the kids can relax out there.  It’s beautiful.

Eventually, I realized that the noise from the other tents had all stopped.  And that was it.  I went to sleep and didn’t hear a peep from them until morning.

Random bit of awesomeness: this little hole here is now
certainly a squirrel or rabbit hole.  The acorn debris is cool.
The tarp in the top of the shot was under the boys' tent.

The driveway today.  Lots of yellow showing up here.

Today's leafy pool shot.

#116 – Aria Baby Sits for Reals - September 27, 2012

Thursday.

I got home tonight just in time for Katrina to leave to see a friend at the hospital.  She just gave birth to a huge baby (over 10 lbs) via caesarian.  A friend came to pick her up, and left her 3-month old baby boy with Aria. 

This was Aria’s first time taking care of a baby.  She fell in love instantly, and hardly left him alone for a moment.  She held him, she laid him on a bed of blankets in the living room, she made faces at him, she was silly.  In 20 minutes, she was telling me what he liked, and that I should be silly with him, because he likes that.  She was adorable, my baby taking care of a baby.  She hadn’t had dinner yet, but she fed him first.  Then she didn’t know what to do with him while she ate.  I offered to hold him for a while.  So I got the little guy for 20 minutes or so.  He’s an easy baby as far as I could tell. 

I hung out with Aria.  I suppose I can put in a few more details that I omitted earlier in the week.  The first is that my mom is moving more strongly toward retirement.  It will take a bit yet, but her days of procrastinating this time are over.  I could not be more excited for her.  She and dad will both be retired, still able to get around and enjoy their golden years.  They’ll be able to stay with us and not have to worry about vacation time.  This is probably the biggest news of the week.

Fall is here in earnest – not just for temperatures, but the leaves are turning.  I have a specific rock I stand on, looking over at the pool area.  I intend to get a shot every day at about the same time to document the change.

 

I was beat – I’ve been a little ill all week, and had late nights and early mornings.  So around 7:15 it seemed late to me.  I didn’t even look at the clock.  I told the kids it was bed time.  To their credit, they brushed their teeth and got ready for bed.  They didn’t even ask what time it was.  At 7:45, I was in bed, going to sleep.  And the kids (including the baby) were asleep.  Except Aria, who stayed up.

I didn’t even hear Katrina come home.

#115 - Hot water returns, and lashing! - September 26, 2012

Wednesday.

The week has gotten better at work.  Several long-term machine problems are fixed, so I’m working through some new things.  Time really flies, and it’s very difficult to change focus on a longer-term improvement that needs to be done.  We see some of these things that need to be done, but sometimes they sit for 4 months while we’re keeping afloat.  Nothing particular to note on this, just that it happens. 

I couldn’t take a shower this morning – the cold water was on, but not the hot.  I had the cold water plumbing taken care of, but not the hot.  Not the most auspicious start to a day.  Then I got a call from Katrina about 10.  The leak had overflowed the bucket and we had water all over the floor.  She took care of it, and took the kids to Aria’s friend’s house for a birthday party.  They invited all the kids over to play.  

I left work about 4 and went home.  I finished the work on the plumbing and unloaded the washing machine. 

Then it was time for scouts.  Tonight we learned how to lash.  And I relearned the clove hitch.  It was a really good time, my first time leading these kids.  

This boy's first square lashing was a total success.
I was proud of him and the other boys in the troop, too.

#114 – Home repairs! Yay! - September 25, 2012

Tuesday.

The washer that came with our house (odd how common this is these days – we sold our washer and dryer with the house in Oregon, and received a set here) has an agitator.  And it worked ok on the clothes, but mostly it agitated Katrina.  So she went to Sears and picked out a new one after looking on Craigslist and finding not-very-good deals for several weeks there.  We got a call from Sears yesterday that the new washer had arrived and we could pick it up.

So Katrina listed ours on Craigslist for cheap.  See, we had trouble finding one that was a reliable front-loader for a decent price.  Sometimes they would list the washer for nearly full retail price.  The page is flooded with overpriced washers.  But she wanted ours gone, so she listed it for cheap, got a call, and the people were coming to pick it up today.

In preparation, she turned off the water to the washer and unhooked the hoses.  And then she saw water leaking, freaked out, and called me.  I had a busy day at work, but I went home for lunch.  The problem came from the valve on the hot water.  When Katrina turned it off, it started leaking.  We looked at it, turned off the cold water to and from the water softener, I stopped by Williams to get some parts, but they didn’t have anything I needed.  Then I went back to work.  After work, I went to Home Depot to get what I needed, and to Sears to pick up the new washing machine. 

The mall sits on the top of a hill.  The forest surrounds it on the North
and West.  The view grabbed me because of the sun streaming through
the clouds over the next set of hills to the North.

Back at home, Katrina went to the church for a craft night, and I started to try to fix the leak.  Home Depot doesn’t stock the exact same valve, so I couldn’t buy a replacement valve stem.  So I bought some Shark Bite fittings, and tools I needed to work with copper tubing.  And the learning began. 

I took this pic on my smart phone and took it with me to Home Depot.
It helped a lot to tell me that I was dealing with 1/2" pipe.
My main problem?  The section on the bottom (with the hose
on it) is 100% fittings.  So I couldn't cut the pipe
and put on my new fittings.  Grrrrr!

In the end, I spent over $100 in fittings and tools, 4 hours of working and driving to and from the store, and I still had a leak.  But I knew what I needed to finish the job.  I hooked up a short section of the backwash hose from the pool around the valve, so it could drain to a 5 gallon bucket and I went to sleep.

#113 – A Belated Anniversary - September 24, 2012

Monday.  Nothing special at work today. 

So today I will write about the adventure that started about a year ago and led to our family being where we are today.

On Monday, September 19, 2011, I received an email.   It was addressed to me and over a hundred of my coworkers at my previous employer.  It stated, simply, that the company was looking to reduce its ranks of management and would offer a generous voluntary separation package.  Because I had been through a few layoffs, I guessed what the package might look like. 

My first reaction was to jump at it.  I did not think the company was doing what it needed to do, and I was burned out on a project I was working on.  I had some difficult coworkers whose help I needed and who openly disliked me and sabotaged my work.  It was a difficult time.  My job was secure for a while, and I had solid management support.  The company had always been good to me, and I was grateful to it for giving me a start in my career and funding my education.  But I had provided good value to the company, and it no longer wanted my input.  I was ready to provide the next level of leadership, and the company was not willing to give me the opportunity to give them that.  I was stagnant because the company had low turnover and was no longer growing.

And yet – it was 2011.  Real positive job numbers were months away, house prices were depressed (we were about 30% underwater on our home), and I had never gotten a job I interviewed for.  It was a classic risk/reward scenario, with both sides painfully obvious to me and to Katrina.

We had been talking about me leaving the company for several years.  This opportunity gave us a deadline, and a strong reason to leave.  It was time to make a decision.  I immediately turned to my best group of people to counsel on such a decision – my MBA cohort from the University of Oregon.  I sent a note asking for advice on a good career counseling place, and I had offers to help with my resume and a few leads on career counselors in a matter of hours. 

Our friends and family didn’t know any of this yet.  But the ball had started rolling.

Katrina and I discussed this anniversary, and we're both convinced it was the best possible thing to happen to us.  It has been beneficial in a million ways.  Some painful, some wonderful, but it really has been a huge growth experience so far.  

This is Christian, ready for the Ducks game: get out the gear, lay on the couch, and go to sleep.
He was out cold before kickoff.

#112 - Mission Accomplished! - September 23, 2012

Sunday.

Hm.  Upon waking, it appeared that 4 hrs of sleep was not going to help my piano playing.  I had done several loads of laundry over the evening, and pushed another one through this morning.  I played through the primary program, and was not impressed with myself.  On the one hand, “uh-oh”.  On the other, there’s the old theater hand in me saying, “A good performance requires a terrible dress rehearsal.”

 

The kids were ready early.  Early enough that Aria was sitting on the couch, asking why I got them up so early.  It is exactly so that we are sitting on the couch wondering why we are up so early as opposed to running around trying to figure things out.  I can’t wait for Jan, and the later church schedule.  The early church schedule is nice for planning the day – you get up, get out, come home, eat lunch and you can relax.  The late church schedule is much better for late Saturday nights, or being a little unprepared for Sunday.

Anyway, the kids did a great job.  

In an effort to swell the number of kids, this ward has all kids who turned 12 this year stay in the program.  So Aria should have been up there.  But the ward didn’t recognize that.  Since Aria was 12 when we moved here, she has been in the Sunday school class for 12 years-olds, and Young Women’s.  The same thing happened to me when we moved to Canby.  I was in the wrong primary class for a year or 2 before anybody moved me.  Libby read her part on her own, which was exciting.  Christian’s talk went well, although he knew it well enough that he sped through it a bit.  And Jakers was cute.  Of course.

I played only the right hand for each song.  I had planned on doing left hand as well for a couple of them, but I wasn’t good enough at the end, and decided to go with what was comfortable.  And in many cases (The Wise Man and the Foolish man as well as Nephi’s Courage) I just made sure to get the melody plunked out.  Even the right hand harmony was too much.  I made many mistakes, but it was still my best-ever run of those songs.  And I wasn’t nervous, which was a first.  It worked well, and I suppose I won’t be fired any time soon.

Choir was a little odd, because our accompanist was out.  We worked on a song I inherited from the previous choir director, read a new piece from an old song book (1900) that I bought in Spokane last year, and sang through Some Children See Him.  It was nice.  A sister in the ward helped out on parts as much as she could at the piano, and that was great. 

We relaxed at home – leftovers for lunch, the adults napped while the kids played.  Katrina made tuna melts for dinner, and she and I and Libby talked with my mom for a long time.  It was Sunday as Sunday should be. 

I worked on blogs in the evening, and went to bed at 9.  

Libby, talking with Nana on the phone.

#106 - Rosh Hashanah - September 17, 2012

Monday.  This entry is out of order.

The kids were off school again today.  It was their first Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah.  I am slightly embarrassed to still not know what it’s about, but I’ll get it eventually.  Aria has made some good friends, it seems.  The kids were all invited to her friend’s brother’s birthday party.  Sounds weird, but that’s the gig.  Turns out that Aria’s friend has siblings almost exactly the same ages as our kids, and dad is much like me.  They’re a theater-geek family, he has an electric drum set he plays, and the parents do theater.  So he called to invite the kids to the house on the next Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur.  I am equally clueless about this one.

Aria brought up an interesting issue recently.  She came home from school Christmas music for choir.  She commented that not everyone is Christian, and this was a very Christian piece.  And I’m hopeful that this school district has a grown-up look at religious tolerance.  Because you can do things with your music program to remove much religion from it, as most music programs in Oregon have done and continue to do.  Here, I think it’s a more all-comers policy.  You may be Jewish or Muslim or Atheist.  But the piece of music is good, so we’ll sing it anyway.  And when we bring out a Jewish piece or something else, the Christians will sing it, too.  We can agree that participating in a moral life is a good thing, respect each other’s different ways of living that moral life, and come together sometimes.  In our private lives we can do things very differently, and in our public lives we meld.

 

I love this kind of cultural difference.  Looking back at our culture in Oregon, we talked a lot about tolerance and acceptance.  But the way tolerance and acceptance is shoved down the throats of unwilling citizens is different than here.  Maybe that’s a difference in the citizenry – the birthplace of FDR is a “red” county, but our property taxes are 3 times property tax in Oregon.  And the schools are massively better, the parks are better, and there are a million things to do for free or close to it.  The people here will vote “yes” on a school levy, and vote for Mitt Romney.  There’s a lot of grumbling about government, but few people are up in arms about it.

In contrast, it makes me think that liberal culture out West (that’s where you guys are, you know, “out” West) is still in its infancy.  

Kids at the bake sale fundraiser with the kid-specific cupcakes.
These were sold for $0.25 each, no auction required.  Everybody got one.

#107 - Financial Adjustments - September 18, 2012

Tuesday. (this post is out of order)

My music arrived today.  I ordered “Some Children See Him” for the ward choir about a week ago, and it arrived.  It’s not the arrangement I wanted, but it will work.  I’ll need to add/rearrange a section at the end to improve it (it goes unison on the melody with simple piano accompaniment, and I’d rather it be a capella and very harmonic).  I have the same kind of thing to do for “A Baby So Small”.  It’s a wonderful song until the last page, which is just musical filler.  So we’ll end it earlier. 

We’re starting to get a handle on our finances here, which are more different than I had expected.  We knew we’d have a food cost increase.  Mostly because Christian won’t stop growing.  But partly because almost all food is significantly more expensive here.   A can of store brand peaches in the Winco equivalent here is $1.39.  Sam’s Club is $1.25.  Wal-Mart is $0.99.  Shredded cheese is best at Sam’s club.  Spaghetti sauce I just found at a local supermarket, usually $2.39 per bottle, was on sale for $1 each this morning.  So our cost for non-sale items takes more care to control, and we have to spend time to research and go to stores that have worthwhile sales.  And we have to roll that stop into a trip we’re already making.  So it’s complicated.  And in the end, it’s still more expensive than Winco as a one-stop shop. 

Another key is gas cost.  I was burning effectively no gas in Oregon, but here I have a car commute that is 2 gallons a day at minimum.  It’s usually more like 3.5 gallons.  So we’re discussing buying a 3^rd car to reduce our total transportation cost.  Without a 3^rd driver, insurance is nearly free for the 3^rd vehicle, and the decrease in gas cost more than covers the additional car payment.  Which is weird but true. 

We have seen an increase in utilities as well.  Electricity is comparable we think (needs more analysis), water and sewer come with electricity, garbage and broadband/phone are the same.  Heat is the one big question mark.  We’ve been through 2 months using less than ¼ of our oil tank, using none for home heating. 

Thankfully, clothing cost is not that different overall.  And most of the other things we buy are either a similar price here, or similarly priced at Amazon + sales tax.  And frankly, if it’s not food, transportation, shelter, or clothing, we don’t need it anyway.

So we’re starting the rebalance – it’ll take a year before we’re fully there, but the process has started.  I’m hopeful that the situation does turn out to be better than we had in Oregon.  Initially on paper, it certainly was much better.  We’ll know for certain early in the new year, once we’ve seen the heating oil usage in December. 

Fall has arrived.  This forested area is between my
office and the customer site.  Trees are losing
leaves, and aggressively turning colors.

The other big thing today was that Aria went to call-backs for the school play, Unplugged.  She said about 50 7-8 graders auditioned, and we’re guessing another 20 or so 6^th graders.  She made the call-back list of about 20 kids.  She’s either very talented or very lucky – she’s gotten nearly everything she’s auditioned for in her young life.  This is her first dramatic audition, which is significantly newer for her than music.  She said it went well. 

And because I’m writing this out of order (on the 21^st), I’ll give you the spoiler: she got a role with a name!  She’s ecstatic.  The cast list was posted Thursday night.  She plays an adult, a Mrs Bartlett.  She has a readthrough on the 24^th, at which point she’ll have a good idea of how large of a role she got.

#111 –A day for scouting and Oregon wins! - September 22, 2012

Saturday.

Woke up not many hours after going to sleep.  Thank goodness for a good sleeping pad to make sleeping in a tent possible!

I slept until I had to wake up.  Christian and our new scout were talking in the next tent over, sunlight poured through the trees, and it was 7:30.  So I meandered over to the substantial campfire.  I don’t do well with milk, so I skipped our breakfast of Honey Nut Cheerios and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but I watched the other scouts cook up hash browns.  Then I took care of my tent and things, and sat down to finish “Darth Paper Strikes Back”, the 2^nd book in the Origami Yoda series.  I had read 90 pages yesterday, and I figured today I would finish.

We started the orienteering activity at 9.  The scouts broke into groups of 3, each had a compass.  One of the other leaders had hidden cans around the camp and marked their locations on a map.  Each can location had a letter or number on the can, and directions to follow.  The group was to mark their map with the instructions from the can to prove they were there.  Then it was off.  The groups split quickly, fanning over the campground.

I was asked to head to the water and supervise the canoes, so I took my book and headed down there.  One of the cans was on the island, so they had to use canoes to finish the course. 

At the same time, there was a daddy-daughter campout from Westchester.  We helped them get their canoes in the water as well.  By 11, the hunt was over.  Christian had decided he wanted to participate, and his group came in second by a slim margin.  The last group was 20 minutes late, and hadn’t done 30% of the course.  We ate lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches,  cleaned up the rest of the camp, and left.

Never before have we had the TV on during dinner.  This
was the exciting conclusion to OSU's beat-down of UCLA.

Aria can never stop finding ways to celebrate the O.  tonight,
she melted a ring of cheese on her baked potato.  Then
she baked a lemon cake and frosted it with green frosting.
Go Ducks!

I took a nap when we got home, then made dinner and did some laundry.  While checking the news, I saw that the Beavers were playing No 19 UCLA.  And it was on TV!  And we have cable!  So I turned on the game and we rooted for the Beavs.  They beat UCLA more than the score says, and ended up winning by a touchdown.  I posted on Tim’s Facebook page when the Beavs were 2 TDs ahead.  His response?  “Shaddap.” 

Then some more laundry and blogging, and then the Ducks took on Arizona in the PAC12 opener.  The first half was a defensive show, the score 13-0 at halftime.  Oregon broke apart Arizona’s offense in the 3^rd quarter.  Arizona threw 3 interceptions in the last 21 minutes of the game, 2 of them went for touchdowns.  In the end, Number 3 Oregon beat No 20 Arizona 49-0.

The game ended at 2am.

#110 – Patience 1, Sleep 0 - September 21, 2012

Another normal day at work today.  Did not get some analysis done that I was hoping for, but did get a few other things fixed. 

I left about 4:30, and picked up my newest boy scout.  He was a little shocked to see me, I think, and there had not been great communication between his family and me.  But he put together his stuff and we left.   We picked up Christian, loaded the car, and headed out to camp Liahona.  We set up camp, the boys cooked dinner (steaks on the fire, mashed potatoes made without a colander, canned soup, and powdered lemonade, and cinnamon apples for dessert).  It took a few hours, but was pretty good. 

Then it was time to try to sleep. 

This is my first Boy Scout campout since I was a Boy Scout – maybe 14 years old.  I didn’t camp after that because I was busy and the other boys were jerks.  And I remember staying up all night talking in my tent with John Griesen.  I don’t recall us being particularly quiet, nor do I recall anybody telling us to be quiet.  But I do recall seeing the sunlight creep into the tent and being surprised it was already daylight.  That was a very good memory.

But tonight we had 1 tent of boys where one boy was particularly sensitive, and the other boy was particularly obnoxious.  The sensitive boy screams all the time – he seems to have lost his inside voice completely – so we had a screaming 13 year-old boy.  Until midnight, when the pair of them were finally threatened enough to calm down and sleep. 

I don’t recall if this was normal when I was a kid.  I know I didn’t grind my teeth or have to build my patience back then.  I certainly did tonight.  So I’m either going to have to get tougher on the boys or learn to relax.  Either way, it’s a good adventure.

#109 – Revenge is a dish best served on a football field in South Carolina - September 20, 2012

Woke up this morning and went outside.  It was a little chilly – the first time I’ve been chilly outside here in 5 months, I think.  The summer is relentless.  Weird to have the AC not kick on much any more, enough so that the house feels a little stagnant sometimes.  And then I noticed that I could see my breath.  That has also been a while.

That cloudy fuzzy thing in the middle of the picture
 is my condensed breath.  The trees are part of our property.

I took the kids to the bus stop, and then headed in to work.  I was expecting a slow day, a day where I could spend a few hours staring at numbers and making graphs.  Instead I walked into the office, found 3 emails that required immediate attention, and that took me to lunch.  Then I had meetings from 1-2:30, then 1 hour of working on something else that came up today, and then another meeting from 4-5.

The evening was yet another packed one.  Katrina made shepherd’s pie (with fresh NY shepherds), and I worked the kids through their homework.  After dinner I filled the garbage can with sheetrock from the old pantry walls.  It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, and it filled the garbage can more quickly than I thought it would.  Then I sat down to watch the Giants. 

Please understand – I have never before in my life watch an NFL game on my TV.  Not once.  I saw a game on the hotel TV when I first got here, but I’m generally not a sports TV watcher.  One of the things I’m trying to do here (in this house) is to do more things that more people participate in.  Libby and Jakers weren’t interested in the game, but Christian was.  So he came over to the living room and watched with me for a bit.  Then he found a book on wolves and read that while the game played on.  Aria went to bed.  Katrina finished cleaning up the kitchen, and came to join me for a bit.  Christian went to bed.  Katrina went to bed.  And then the game ended.  36-7, Giants beat the Panthers, and I got to see a team I care about beat Cam Newton.  Retribution for the Ducks-Auburn national title game 2 years ago when Cam’s team beat the Ducks.  The Giants look great this year.  They dominated the Panthers from the beginning to the end.

So this fall we’ll watch some football – the Ducks are on again Saturday night on ESPN, the Giants games we’ll catch every once in a while when it works with our schedule.  And then we’ll switch to the NBA and watch some Knicks.  I don’t expect them to be great, and I’m disappointed they lost Jeremy Lin, but they’re my team, I think.  

#108 - Back on the writing horse - September 19, 2012

So I know I’m behind by about a month.  I’m back on the daily writing routine, and I’ll provide backfill days as I go.  I hope to be caught up in a few weeks here, we’ll see how fast I can actually do it.   So once again, if things seem out of order, they probably are.

Today was a fun one at work.  I have arrived at a place where I can drive interesting and different changes.  The change to our safety habits was one.  Today I sat down with my comanager and boss and we discussed changes to the data we report to our customer on a monthly basis.  The data has had its useful day, but there are other opportunities for improvement that are not highlighted by our current data set.  So I’ve started working with our analyst to build some more useful data sets, more to explore what it might tell us than to change anything up front.  It’s time for me to understand the data better so I can help to drive improvements.

This morning was one of my late work mornings, and I took the kids to the bus stop for the first time.  There were 2 other parents there, and it was nice to meet my neighbors.  The kids are fun to get ready for school.  They forget things, and they are focused on having fun as soon as they wake up.  So they need some redirection, some personal grooming advice, and then they’re ready to go.

This evening was scouts.  We had 3 different places to be: a school open house for Libby and Jake that they were not invited to (parents only), Scouts for Christian and me, and Aria was supposed to be at Camp Liahona for iceblocking.  Camp Liahona has a literally killer hill for iceblocking.  I would expect injuries to be par for the course there.

In the end, Katrina skipped the open house, Aria had a blast iceblocking, and I had a good time with my boy scouts.  We planned an upcoming camping trip.  Should be a good time.

Then home and sleep – it was a non-stop great day.

Libby is on the steps, Jakers is next.  Christian has the black hoodie over his head.

#81 - Clear water! Pool! Fire! - Aug 22, 2012

Work was better again.  I spent almost all day working on old and longer-term projects.  Weird how office work has to happen to help physical work happen in the fab.  Something as mundane as fixing a time card issue can help a worker’s productivity.  And documenting a worker’s performance can help with all sorts of things for the future. 

The day ended a little early, and as the day was perfect, I got in the pool as soon as I got home.  The kids joined me, and Katrina had ordered pizza delivered.  The salt had fixed the water softener, and the water was quite noticeably tastier.  And the dishes came out of the dishwasher completely clean.  Dad had been busy again.  He got the pressure washer working, moved the old gross fridge out of the garage and put our freezer where it belongs.  He and Katrina had worked out the final layout of the pantry we’re going to frame in the garage. 

After dinner, I lit the fire up, and consumed a large pile of cardboard and one huge box of packing paper.  Dad came out with me, and we talked about politics and history for a couple hours.  I have another session or 2 out there at the fire pit, and then that mess will be cleaned up.

I’m starting to put things on my list to do inside the house during the winter.  Not having to think about the outside in the winter will be great: do my pruning, and then nothing until Spring.  So I can do things like adding a receptacle and light switch to Aria’s extra room, cleaning and painting the interior of the garage, maybe taking care of the deck.  I can go through the boxes of junk in the basement, sort and toss things.  It will be so very nice.  

#80 - Ahh! Progress! - Aug 21, 2012

I was able to finally go through 300 emails today and get my inbox back to something reasonable.  Then I started to tackle things that had been waiting for me for a few weeks.  Taking things off my plate always feels nice.  I also was able to take care of a bunch of stuff from my personal to-do list while at work.  I finally got through to the school district office and made an appointment to register the kids for school, changed the address for some insurance, and put together the information package we need to get NY licenses.   Still missing one critical piece of information, but almost all of it is gathered and ready to go.  One of the things I was able to get to today was this outdoor cigarette butt disposal taken care of.  There was a hole in the bottom, so water drained out.  It was repaired a while ago by adding a metal bucket.  The bucket's bottom has rusted out, and the cigarette butts catch fire from time to time and smoke like crazy.  I was able to clear this up by throwing this old one away and starting the ball rolling for a different cigarette butt disposal unit to be mounted to the building.  These are the odd things that sit for months because nobody has time.  Today I had time.

Dad made more progress on the garage – the grill is done, it’s cleaner, and I picked up a hose and some salt for the water softener.

Tim was supposed to come out today and spend a few days with us, but he needed to stay in the city and try to close on an apartment.  But we had the neighbor girl over as well as the missionaries.  We put 10 people around our dining table, and it wasn’t even a special occasion.  It just happened that we had 4 guests.  But we sat comfortably, ate comfortably, and life was pleasant.  This is the kind of thing I had always wanted us to be able to do, but we just couldn’t.  For some reason, we just couldn’t.  It was easy tonight for some reason. 

And then, once again, it was time for bed.

#79 - The avalanche starts to clear - Aug 20, 2012

Last week for work I walked into a very busy work situation, with several machines that had been broken for a while.  In that case, both us and the customer put extra focus on them, and that takes time.  So last week I was able to keep afloat (barely).  A few machines came up over the weekend, and today we were down to 1 really important machine. 

With my boss, comanager, and the tech support manager out on vacation, it was my responsibility to move it forward.  So I put a lot of personal focus on it, and by the end of the day we felt like we had a much better handle on the problem.  When I left, we had some actions to take, and we were waiting for some data from the customer.

It was a long day – about 12 hours at the office, and another hour at home to finish a report and send it out.  But tomorrow is going to be much better.

When I got home, I found that dad had been busy.  The cardboard was out of the garage, and he had found and put together the pressure washer.  He had made good progress on the grill as well.  We ate dinner soon after I got home.  Katrina had made baked chicken and roasted potatoes.  Totally tasty.  We ate, and then I went to bed.  I needed to recover some sleep.

Random pic: Katrina liked this naughty knotty tree near Lake Minnewaska.