#196 - More miles - July 15, 2013

Cool thing from 24: 2 miles uphill, then 1 flat mile at 6mph.  I stopped running because I was bored, not because I was too tired.  This was odd.

Woke up, ran hard, took a dip in the pool.  Went to church, had a great time with my Sunday School class.  I usually present a part of my Book of Mormon story that I'm writing, but when I told the class that I had not brought a story, but that we were doing Scripture Mastery instead, they were totally excited.

It was the first week for a new girl in the class.  She was quiet, but seemed comfortable, and by the end of class, she had passed of a scripture.  We spent the discussion time talking about the baptismal covenant for the most part.  We dissected Mosiah 18:8-10 and the sacrament prayers.  And before we knew it, class was over.  We had some spiritual time, some fun time, and some learning time.  It was great.

And then we had a relaxing evening at home.  Life is good.

#195 - "What are your plans today?" "Take a nap. " - July 14, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: the campout was awesome! And then, magically, everyone disappeared.

I did not sleep well.  I never do in a tent any more, so when the sun came up, I have an excuse to get up and do something.  I set up for breakfast, and by 6:30, we had started cooking.  3 of the boys had never cooked pancakes before, so I taught them how to do it.  We had sausage and fried eggs, and the boys swam.  A couple of the boys wanted to roast marshmallows, and there were coals from the fire last night, so they restarted the fire and got it done.  It was a great time, and great to see the boys use their skills to accomplish things.  How awesome is it that these kids can now build a fire?  And I was part of teaching them how.

About 8:30, the rain came.  One boy had a birthday party to go to, another had a karate tournament, another had left about midnight because he was scared, and by 9:15, everyone was gone.  I had been able to clean up the breakfast stuff, and once they were gone, Katrina and I had a simple conversation.  She had had a friend over, and she had stayed until 4am.  I walked in, and she was on her computer.  She said, "What are your plans today?"  "Take a nap," I said.  "That sounds good.  A do-nothing day sounds nice."

And that's almost exactly what I did.  I was up puttering around until 1, took a nap, ate dinner, and slept.  It was actually a strange day.   I had expected it to be busy until 2 or so, but unexpectedly got some precious hours back.

#194 - Running uphill will kill me - July 13, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: I ran 1 mile uphill.  Oh, man!  That's work!

After my big 5-mile success yesterday, I decided to increase the incline to max and see what I could do.  So I set it to 10% grade and started running.  My initial goal was 3 miles.  As I ran, the goal shortened quite a lot.  I was only able to keep a 5 mph pace, and at 1 mile, I was done.  It is a completely different animal than the flat 5-miler, or the 4% grade 3-4 miles I had been doing.

My course in 2 weeks is nearly 20% grade for the first mile.  I realized that running uphill really does require a significantly different set of muscles and mindset.  Glad I learned this now.  I'll have to change my routine a bit to capture this.

I left work at 2pm so I could finish preparing for the camping trip tonight.  I hit Sam's Club for food, and then A&P, and then home.  I set up, and by 5:25 or so pm, I was done.  We had 1 scout arrive, and the others eventually showed up, the latest around 8:30.  The new boys showed me their packed backpacks, and we took walks with them.  One of them brought his brand new pack, and it wasn't really designed for him.  This met 1 requirement for Tenderfoot.  Then we got them to start the fire, they all used an ax, picked a spot to camp (they chose the meadow), cooked dinner, and then they swam until 11pm.

It was a blast.  I was busy moving from 1 activity to the next, making sure the boys all got to complete the requirements they needed, and keeping the flow going.

Dinner was late, so we swam in the dark.
We had 7 boys (and sometimes me) shouting in the pool until 11pm.

Jake couldn't wait to swim until his dinner was done.  The
rest of us swam after we finished dinner at 9:30.

#193 - I run 5 miles - July 12, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: I ran 5 mile straight for the first time in my life.

I'm gearing up for the 3.5 mile mud run in a few weeks, and my training thought has been that if I can run further than the course, then she shorter run with obstacles will be more enjoyable.  So I've been consistently extending my runs (4 miles on Monday), keeping the incline high on the treadmill to make them more difficult, and trying to beat my old times.  Today I went for the whole canoodle, shebang, whatever you call it: I set the treadmill on the 5 mile course and let it fly.  The machine said it was nearly a 52-minute course.

I mostly left the incline alone (it goes from 0.5% to 4%), but kept the speed consistently higher.  My initial goal was to do 5 10-minute miles.  By midway, I wanted to be 1 minute total under that mark.  Once I achieved that at the 2.5-mile mark, I wanted to shave another minute off by the 4-mile mark.  I got that as well.  Then I wanted to shave 1 more minute off by the 5-mile mark.  As the last minute started, I realilzed I wasn't going to make it.  So I upped the speed to 7 mph.  A quick evaluation told me that I was still borderline, so I upped it to 8 mph for the last little bit, and came in just under 47 minutes.

This whole running thing is growing on me.  It's much more intense than biking, so I need a shorter workout for the same "holy cow I'm tired and that was awesome" feeling.  It also does work your core, since you have to stand up.  My back is stronger, and all my upper body muscles seem to be a little tighter, and little better fit together than before.  Like when you build a Lego spaceship and you play with it and the pieces fit, but they're loose.  And then you tighten it up and it's no longer as delicate as it once was.

The big customer meeting went well, and now I just have to figure out what I'm doing for the campout tomorrow.  I think I'll have 4 men and 6 boys to feed for 2 meals.  How can I make this work?

#192 - Playing Sit - July 11, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: I played Sit with my Boy Scouts, and the quiet kid won.

Sit is a simple game - there is one (usually) wallball or soft volleyball, and a group of people.  Every person puts his toe in the circle in the middle of a basketball court. Someone tosses the ball up, and the game begins.  If you have the ball, you are supposed to throw it at someone.  If it hits the person and falls to the ground, the person sits.  If the person catches it, you sit.  You can only throw at people on your half of the basketball court and you can not cross the midcourt line with the ball.  If you are sitting and you recover the ball, you can stand and run.  The last man standing wins that round.

I came to scouts prepared to teach the boys about preparing wood for a fire.  But I also realized that we had a campout planned, so after some discussion it become clear that everyone preferred to play sit tonight and do the fire starting thing on the campout.

So we played.  I like to play games with the boys.  They're 11, so I'm bigger and faster and stronger than they are.  And I won a couple times.   But 2 other boys also won, and I spent plenty of time on the floor.  What was the best part about it was that the quietest boy in the patrol won the last game.  I reached out my hand to shake his, and he gave me the ball.  After which I shook his hand.

Home life these days is really simple.  Nobody complains about the food we're eating, nobody hogs the kids' laptop, there's room on the trampoline for everyone, and there is no super-bossy kid around.  There is quiet space for everyone.  Having 2 boys is infinitely simpler than the 2-gender, twice-as-many situation we usually have.  Not that the girls are trouble, but it is fascinating to see the power dynamics change with them gone and the boys able to do what they want.

#191 - An extra day (kinda) off work - July 10, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: my comanager gave me the day off.

This is an odd thing, considering that I went to the office at 5am anyway, and left at 4pm.  My work responsibilities are higher on Mon-Tue-Wed then Thu-Fri, and his are higher Wed-Thu-Fri and lesser Mon-Tue.  Except when one of us is on vacation.  In that case, we cover for each other.

I was on vacation on Monday, and responsibilities were due to shift on Wednesday anyway, so he kept the helm for an extra day.  That let me spend nearly my whole day on Tuesday to prepare a presentation for the customer that was due on Thursday.  It was a significant stress relief.

This qualifies as a "cool thing" because my comanager and I get along really well.  We're not friends outside of work, but we're very much in sync at work, to a degree that is very uncommon, I think.  We're hitting on all cylinders now.  It's really fun to collaborate and move the operation forward.  I think for a while that he felt I was pushing and that I was stepping on his toes.  At some point, maybe he realized that I just wanted to make the operation better.  And since then, life has been better.

Also, on Tuesday, I started to keep a log of activities.  Each significant thing I do during my day, I write down in a notebook.  At the end of the day, I mark each task as a new action required for me, a regular task, or a one-off task.  We'll see what patterns show up, and how my time gets split.

After work, I met my brother for a training run.  We met at his place, and drove to a trail by the river to run.  It ended up as a 5K run, and we ran nearly all of it at a 12-minute pace.  He told me some news about a family member that I didn't know, and we commiserated a bit.  It was a good, meaningful time for me.

#190 - A major pool fix! - July 9, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: Had to make a pool repair.  Did it, it works, and I solved another problem at the same time.  Every time I'm successful as a handyman, I feel better about myself.

We slept, I think, this morning.  I'm writing this a week later, so the details are a little fuzzy.  I got up earlier because I had gone to bed about 9pm, and woke up ready for the day just after dawn.  I blogged a little, played some video games, and asked the boys about their experience camping.

Christian provided a little extra detail to the trouble they had with their camp site.  You see, the site they had reserved (and paid for) was under water in a once-a-decade flood.  The campground called, as they were driving, to tell them that their reservation was cancelled.  He begged for another side, they said ok.  So they got to the campground, got their alternate site, and when they got there, the neighbor told them they couldn't camp there.  The details aren't worth writing.  In the end, the neighbors weren't happy, but they set up camp anyway.

My brother did not have a sleeping bag.  My kids did not have raincoats or any rain gear.  No one had packed lighters or a way to start a fire.  The storm that hit us at 2am Sunday morning hit them at 6am Sunday morning.  They had taken a swim at the beach.  The sand was under water, the drinking faucets were a foot above the water.  And there was water pressure.  So Jake is swimming to the water faucet, turns it on and remarks, "Look!  I'm filling the lake!"

In any case, the van needed unpacked, etc, so I took care of most of that, ran a bit, and then I went out to take care of the pool, and when I turned on the filter, the valve for the water slide supply popped off.  All I could do was turn off the filter and go looking for supplies.  So that's what I did.  I went to Williams Lumber first, and they didn't have what I needed.  So I went to the pool supply store.  They did not have everything I needed, and wanted WAY too much for what they did have that I needed.  And their customer service for some reason was terrible today.  So I left what I was going to buy on the counter and left the store.

Home Depot to the rescue!  I ended up making what I needed with irrigation supply parts, and went home.  Over the next 2 hours, I built the unit and let it cure.  The chunk I removed had 2 broken valves and a leaky and deteriorating pipe section.  After I installed the new pipes and ran them for a leak check (no leaks!) I used my new and spiffy working valves to try to get the pool slide water supply going.  I turned the entire pool supply (the jets) to go to the slide instead, and the slide had no flow.  So I walked over there and heard a lot of noise underground on the other side of the pool fence.  I turned off the pump, walked around, and there was a barbed pipe section that was undone.  I check the connection at the base of the slide ladder, and it was also disconnected.  Once they were hooked up, I ran the pump, and the slide has pressure! Complete success.

This was a big deal for several reasons.  The first is that I used that PVC glue myself for the first time.  I had been around my dad a lot when he used it, but I had never used it myself.  I read the directions 3 times, and found it was pretty darned easy.  So that was really cool.  I had also noticed that when filtering the pool (or even running it on recirculate) that I lost a lot of water.  So we've probably filled the pool from our well completely a time or two this summer.  Turns out that the slide water supply was where the water was going.  It's near the edge of our property, the ground slopes down, and it's under a huge pile of leaves, so I had never noticed it being wet.  I also modified the piping configuration so I can winterize more easily this year.

Fixed a whole bunch of problems, didn't spend too much money, and now I only have 1 more pool problem to fix: a hole in the skimmer return.  In the meantime, the skimmer is turned off.  But I need to start digging to fix the problem, because it is annoying and I think the repair will be cheap.

#189 - We see a Great Lake - July 8, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: Lake Ontario as as big as an ocean.  Wow.

The rain hit us at about 2am, pounding on the roof of the tent.  I listened to it for a few minutes, and got ready to get up and put a tarp over the tent.  I had brought one just for this eventuality. Katrina told me to not bother, the tent had dealt with this kind of rain all week at girls' camp, and it would be fine.  So I laid there.  I slept okay, and when the sun came up, I got up and dressed.  I cleaned up camp as much as I could with Katrina sleeping.

Our agenda today was simply to get home by 4pm.  We had the missionaries coming over for dinner, and needed time to make food.  Anything else along the way would be gravy.  I had packed the van, with the exception of the beds and tent, by 6 or so, and read a little in a book called "Quiet".  I may have mentioned it before, but it's excellent.

Katrina got up, and while she was gone to take care of her morning stuff, I packed up the beds and tent, and we got rolling.  I had found a route home that took us along lake Ontario for 60 miles or so, and this proved to be the only cool thing about our trip home.  We stopped at Krull County Park in Olcott for breakfast.  Simple - we had my leftover blueberries to share, bananas, and bagels with strawberry cream cheese.  And we watched the ducks and the fish in Lake Ontario as we ate.

Katrina, on our bench overlooking Lake Ontario.

My brother had texted me, as well.  They had been rained out, and were packing up and coming home.  They would be at our house in the afternoon.

I knew the Great Lakes were huge, but I had not expected them to feel that expansive.  Putting on my historical hat, early explorers must have been shocked by it when they found it.  It looks like an ocean, but we couldn't see evidence of tides or waves, and the water is fresh.  I suppose they would have quickly deduced a huge inland lake.  Still, the thought of being on the middle of the lake and losing the horizon on all sides of the boat kinda shocks my sense.

The route took us through the outskirts of Rochester (birthplace of Kodak cameras), and then through Syracuse, and then we headed SE on rte 17 to Middletown.  We had selected this route because it cut diagonal through the state and was not an Interstate.  Therefore, I assumed, more scenic than the I-87, I-90 route we had taken to get to Niagara.  It was not in any way better.  It cost us more than an hour of extra time, was not any more scenic (there is a 30-ft wall of trees on both sides of the road almost the whole way, and it doesn't stop in cute little towns), and put us right in the middle of a "severe weather warning" are for lightning, which also slowed us down.

We got home around 3:30, did the prisoner exchange with my brother, and I put together curry.  Katrina put the rice in.  And then it was just us again.  The missionaries showed up, we had a nice time, and then we slept.  We were all exhausted.

Is that a theme for us?  Maybe so.  I'm not sure it's a bad thing, as long the exhaustion is caused by goodness.  This certainly was.

#188 - Niagara Falls! - July 7, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: drinking water from Niagara Falls as it as falling.  Yeah, you can do that.

The morning came soon enough, the muggy start to another hot day.  I got up, took a shower, and read for a few minutes before starting breakfast.  We had baked some potatoes at home and refrigerated them.  This morning I cut some bacon and onions and fried them together.  When that was about done, Katrina got up, added the pre-cooked potatoes, salt and pepper, and cooked some fried eggs to go with it.  She was the potato ninja.

Once again, we appreciated the simplicity of camping with 2 adults.  There was no whining, no fighting, nobody playing with things they weren't supposed to.  Just 2 people cooking breakfast together, our neighbors just waking up, and the birds providing most of the morning soundscape.

We left after a little cleanup and went straight to Niagara Falls State Park.  The parking lot was not even half full, the day was getting started, and when I went to buy tickets for the Cave of the Winds thing (not a tour, not a ride, what is it?), the guy said we should do it first because the lines get terrible later in the day.  So we did.  We went in to get our special sandals and then got in line for the elevator.  It took us about half an hour to get down there; not bad, considering that lines yesterday stretched to 3 hours and they had to stop selling tickets.

Katrina at Cave of the Winds.
The waterfall at the back is Bridal Veil.

The Cave of the Winds consists of an elevator ride from the top of Bridal Veil falls (this is the small falls that is part of American Falls) to the bottom of the falls.  Once there, you are given a yellow poncho to wear.  And then you walk along a short path to a series of wooden platforms built right at the base of the falls.  You can look right up at the people at the top of the falls, feel the water rush around your feet, and at the top, on the Hurricane Deck, you can shower in the water from the falls.  This is where I got my drink.  Katrina thought I was crazy.  I thought she was crazy for missing such an opportunity.  This was seriously awesome.  We did not have the hoods up on our ponchos.  Instead, we tied the neck really tight.  It worked pretty well.  We both got our shirts wet, but that's kindof the point, right?  There is no tour guide, and there is no time limit.  When you think you're done, you leave.

We went back up the elevator, strolled along the pedestrian bridge from Goat Island (the big island there) over to the mainland, and got in line for the Maid of the Mist.  We had arrived at the part around 10:30, and finished Cave of the Winds around noon.  The line for Maid of the Mist was not short, but once again, we had no one complaining of tired legs or a desperate need for ice cream or pretzels.  It's noon on a hot day, and you know you're committing to a 2-hour gig as you step into line.  So lunch will be late.  Big deal.

Me, my wrinkles, and Horseshoe Falls on the
Maid of the Mist boat.

The Maid of the Mist has been running for 130 years.  It's a 2-deck boat, so if you want to not get so wet, you can avoid the spray.  The boat travels from a dock at the base of the falls to right under the middle of Horseshoe Falls (the big one).  This is the very same boat and service that is featured on Superman 2, where Lois Lane falls into the Niagara River and Superman rescues her.  It is truly impressive.

Most of the time, Katrina and I are underimpressed by things such as this.  The Grand Canyon?  We got there, stood near the edge, said to each other, "That's a really big canyon."  And we left.  We spent maybe 5 minutes there.  She was pregnant at the time, so hiking wasn't an option, but it was not the "wow, we have to experience more of this" experience that we were expecting.  Niagara Falls was different, and I don't know why.  Really beautiful, impressive, and several fun and easy ways to experience the falls.  Definitely worth the time and effort to go there.

At the Erie Canal.

After Maid of the Mist, we had decided to go to the Lockport Cave.  Just after the Erie Canal was finished, there was an excess of water in the little town of Lockport. A guy named Birdsill Holly (who invented the fire hydrant, among many other things) build a factory there, and asked a company to blast a cave through the rock beside the canal.  The canal water would flow through the cave and turn a turbine which would turn a drive shaft and provide direct mechanical power for the factory.

That white thing in the middle is
a natural Gypsum deposit

The Lockport Cave, original timber supports.

This worked so well that 2 other factories were built using the same water supply.  It worked flawlessly for nearly 100 years, until the last factory went bankrupt, and electricity became easier to use than the water from the canal.  So the tour starts on the Erie Canal (which you can traverse in private boats for cheap), and then goes through this cave.  Totally cool.  There are stalactites growing from the ceiling, and natural supplies of gypsum are plentiful in the cave.  It was a nice 65 degrees in there, and we learned a bunch about the process of blasting in an era before big machinery or worker safety laws.

While waiting for the tour to start, we ate lunch at a pizza joint, and then browsed through an antique store.  We walked out with much more than we had bargained for.

Katrina shared blueberries = sad face.

The tour finished at 5:30, and we made a grocery run to Aldi to get dinner and the veggies we needed to feed the missionaries the next day.  Then we went back to camp.  I wrapped my frozen flounder fillets with pepper, parmesan, and bacon, surrounded by tin foil, and baked it over the fire.  Katrina breaded hers and pan-fried it.  We had fresh blueberries and bananas, and sat for a while talking by the fire.

And then we headed to bed.  A truly perfect day.

Below, some more cool pics from the day that I can't spend the time to write about.

From the observation deck at the top of that black tower-thing.

Our tour guide at Lockport, Daniel.

#187 - The bucket list shrinks - July 6, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: goodness, how can I count?  We went to the Hill Cumorah, The Sacred Grove, Niagara Falls, and slept in a tent for the first time in 10 years (?).  Awesome day.

We got up at 4, and left the house by 6.  The boys had just woken up, and my brother was going to come by later to pick them up.  So we drove away, stopped by the grocery store to get ice and a couple small items, and we drove.  And drove.  It's a 5 or so hour drive from our house to Palmyra, NY.  It also just happens to be about 10 minutes off I-90, which was the road we were going to take from Albany to Niagara Falls.

The woods on the back side of the top of the Hill Cumorah

Katrina ate some cheese curls, and eventually I got hungry and we stopped at Dunkin for a couple breakfast sandwiches for me.  And then on we went.  We got lunch at Subway and kept driving.  At about 11:30, we arrived at what was obviously the site of the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  The set was mostly constructed, and we walked around.  We went into the visitor center there, and asked the senior missionary if "the" Hill Cumorah was nearby.  She said we were standing on it.

There are many things that are oddly significant to Mormons.  The Hill Cumorah is one of them.  The entire premise of the Latter-Day Saint faith hinges on one idea: if Joseph Smith was a prophet, like Moses, then what we believe is true.  If he was not, then it is not.  If Joseph was not a prophet, then the Book of Mormon is a fabrication, there was not any modern revelation, and the whole structure of priesthood authority falls apart.  The church is still a good social organization, but lacks any unique religious significance except as a very large hoax.

The reconstructed Smith log home

So there is that.  It was a hot afternoon, so we drove to the top of the hill (there's a statue of Moroni there, of course), took a few pictures, and drove to Joseph Smith's boyhood home.  The log cabin home is reconstructed, but the frame home on the old Smith farm (the church bought it 100 years ago) is still standing, and has been restored.  We walked around the barn, the cooper's shed (they made barrels there, who knew?).  And then we walked into the Sacred Grove.

Wooden rakes and shovel in the threshing barn

It was a surreal experience.  You get a very strong feeling that the Smiths led a very simple life.  They farmed, they made barrels to earn the cash they needed to buy other necessities, and that was it.  Life did not include vacations or electronics or college or cars or blog posts.  You worked only to for food, clothing, and shelter.  And on an 80-acre farm, you could provide almost all of that yourself.  In such a simple life, what thing would a young man be missing?  Maybe only God and girls, I suppose.

We sat on a bench and stared into the woods there, and contemplated the idea that a 14 year-old could want just to know about God to feel his life was complete.  And it turned into something so unexpected.  How wonderful.

The Sacred Grove.  Maybe it was this tree's grandmother
under which Joseph prayed.

We left the site around 1 and continued on our way to Niagara Falls.  We found the camp site no problem, did the basic camp set up (there wasn't much for just the 2 of us for 2 nights), took a nap, and left for an evening at the falls.  We found parking (free if you are camping at a state park) at Niagara Falls State Park, which was super convenient.  We walked around a bit - we saw Horseshoe Falls, the people doing the Cave of the Winds thing, the American Falls, and when the sun was about to set, we went to the Top of the Falls restaurant.  Dinner was nice - a fruit and cheese platter for an appetizer, Fish and Chips for Katrina, and a Horseshoe burger for me.  The food was decent. It took 2 hours for us to be served and finish our food.  Seriously.  We left just before the fireworks started.  We went down to the Bridal Veil Falls to watch.

The fireworks were cool, and we had a great spot to watch them.  When they were over, we went to our car and left the parking lot.  Which was easy.  We did not travel the 0.25 mile off the island for another hour, however.  We got to the car about 10:10, and arrived at the tent at midnight.

Horseshoe Falls.  You can reach out and touch the water, it's so close.

The setting sun was right behind this tower restaurant.
Beautiful lighting, couldn't resist.

At American Falls (Bridal Veil Falls) looking down 150 ft to a rock slide.

Fireworks, shot from the Canadian side, made for excellent viewing.

A lovely day, and a good night for sleeping.

#186 - Goodbye, girls! - July 5, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: I said goodbye to my girls.  And saw the Uni-ball in person.  And a Mercury capsule.  And the Lego Store at Rockefeller Center.

This morning started early, again.  My 4th 4am wake up in a row.  We rousted the kids, realized I had made an arithmetic error the night before, and left the house at 4:30 to drive to LaGuardia.  We got there at 5:40, enough time, but not much extra.  The girls and I got out of the car, Katrina switched seats, and as I'm closing the door to the van, we figure out that we should meet at the Hall of Science in Queens at 9:30, in the parking lot.  As she drove away, Jake asked her, "Why did you forget dad, mom?"

As we walk into the terminal, we have 70 minutes before the plane is due to depart.  Aria has a rollaround suitcase, so does Libby.  They also both have backpacks/handbags that are HUGE and STUFFED to the gills.There is no line at the ticket counter, so we walk up, and as I'm standing there, trying to figure out what to do, the ticket agent asks, "Can I help you?"  I stumble through that I'm sending my girls off today.

Libby obliges with a silly pic before they get on the plane.
Aria is too grown up.

What ensues is half an hour (I kid you not) of the ticket agent not knowing what to do, printing documents and ripping them up, and not speaking to me.  I just stood patiently as the minutes ticked by.  Eventually, we had a packet with bright red stripes on it with their boarding passes and ID, and they had hospital-style wristbands.  As we left the counter, Aria turned to me with a huge grin and said, "I feel so grown up now!"  And then she giggled.  I didn't blame her.  I would have done the same thing.

We walked to security, waited in a the short line, and finally got to the gate with 20 minutes to spare.  We walked up to the gate agent and asked about the flight.  They took the boarding passes, reassigned the girls (they were in an exit row, which doesn't work for kids), and they walked right into the plane after I gave them a hug.

I waited until the plane got in the air, and then I left the gate, possibly the only non-employee in the nearly empty airport without a piece of luggage.  I waited for the bus to take me to the Hall of Science, but once I figured out that Google Maps did not have the holiday bus schedule loaded, I checked it out by walking, and found it was 3 miles.  So I walked.

I'll spare all the details.  Suffice it to say that Flushing Meadows is beautiful, and once I met up with Katrina and the kids again, I had walked 5 miles on a lovely hot summer morning.  We spent 2 very leisurely hours at the Hall of Science, and then rode the train to Rockefeller Center.  The boys had a blast at the Lego Store and spent much of their hard-earned allowance.  We headed back to Queens to pick up the car and drove home.  We got back around 4.  Awesome day.  No more girls in the house for a few weeks, and having an easy and awesome time with my boys.

The Uni-Globe at the site of the 1964 World's Fair.
This is not near the UN, that's a different one.

At Flushing Meadows, between Citi Field (where the Mets
play baseball) and the US Tennis Center.

In the New York Hall of Science.

Testing reaction times.  Dad wins most of the heats.
Christian wins a couple, too.

Waiting for the train to take us to the Lego Store.

Jake ponders his future.  "Will I buy this set?
Or that one?"

#185 - Final prep - July 4, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: Finished my work stuff and put my auto-reply on for the second time in 2 weeks.

Another good day at work - the kind of day where you finish the things-that-must-be-done-now and realize that you have 5 hours left to do what you dang well please.  So I got some other things done and left about 4pm.  The evening was spent in full-on vacation prep mode.  I had not been able to do any vacation prep for the girls, the boys, or Katrina and me, so it was time to prioritize.  Over the next 2 days, our family would do the following things:
1) We would send Aria and Liberty on an airplane by themselves for the first time.  They will be gone for 6 weeks.
2) The 4 remaining members of the family would spend most of the day in the City - the science museum and the Lego store were primary targets
3) Katrina and I would leave for a weekend of camping at Niagara Falls early Friday morning
4) My brother would come and pick up the boys for a weekend of camping at Lake Sacandaga

Each of these things required a different kind of packing, and a different drop-dead hour.  The first deadline was for the girls.  I printed their flight itineraries, got their passport cards, confirmed they were packed, took care of medical permissions and HSA cards for all the kids, Katrina checked in with grandmothers, and that was about all I could do.  I had already worked up a packing list for the boys with my brother, and Katrina and I had been sharing a Google Doc with vacation info for our trip.

So I slept.  Yet another 4am day awaits.  Vacation day #1.  Relaxation is not on the list.

#184 - A happy coup is achieved - July 3, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: the meetings with the executives mentioned yesterday went as well as possible.  Better than I've seen it done before.

After the long day the day before, I was on overdrive to push through yesterday.  We worked on our presentation material, showed our updated data that told a completely different story than the scuttlebutt did. We went through it in a premeeting with the execs, and they agreed.  We went through the material they wanted to show the team, they made the changes to it that we requested, and then we had a meeting with 50 people, and it went smoothly.  This was the rare case with 5 levels of management in a single room, all agreed on the good performance of the bottom level, with the praise flowing solidly in one direction.

This morning, I had a couple members of my team remark on how good that meeting was.  I was grateful.  It was worth the time and effort we had put into it.

I got home just after 7, said a little more than "hello" to the family, and then I had to sleep.  Another 5am day looms.

#183 - Glad that day is over...breathe...do it again tomorrow - July 2, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24 hrs: I got up and went to work.  My workdays often start at 5am, and yesterday was one of them.  Then there were meetings and a business dinner, and I got home after a day with no breaks at 9pm.  Today is another 5am start, with an expected 7pm finish.

The start of the day was normal/nice - my first day back from a week of vacation.  I had caught up on email on Saturday and there were few lingering issues.  I was able to get through them in good time.  I am so grateful that my team at work is solid.  There was stuff to do, but nothing to fix.  I love being able to walk away and know that our house will be in order when I get back.  Also very nice to see that my team can deal with another manager without trouble.

So by mid-morning I was at work on some presentation materials.  There had been an incident while I was out, but it was not caused by us.  Nevertheless, it generated a ton of email traffic and meetings and a visit from some executive management to our site this week.

One of the benefits of having your "stuff" stogether at work is that when an executive gets the impression from someone that things are not going well in the area you are responsible for, you can compile a bunch of data on things you're working on, and show them very clearly that they're wrong.  So that is what we (my comanager, manager, and I) worked on today.  

And then we had dinner at a local grill.  It's a good time.  I'm still new here, and I don't know the old faces and names that have come and gone, and I have no experience with alcohol, and I'm not a natural conversation leader in groups, so I'm effectively left out of 80% of the conversation at these dinners.  But the people are nice, the food was good, and I needed to do it.  It was nice to walk in the door, say hello to the family (literally, "hello, I'm going to bed") and go to sleep.  I was drained.

Then I had to sleep.