Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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Just like you, Daddy!

Friday, Friday; the Lord brought us another Friday.  Give thanks, plebs, give thanks.

Today, while my father-in-law and I were sitting around the house playing with Keaton, she retreated back into the hallway and, this time, didn’t come back right away like she normally does.  Usually, she’ll go back there into her bedroom or our bedroom and get some toy or doll or something before she comes right back out to the area where everyone’s hanging out.  This time, I noticed she’d been gone for a while and got up to go look after her.

When I found her, she had her shorts and underwear around her ankles and was sitting on her little potty (which we’ve moved into the tiny toilet-area in our master bathroom while we have guests) reading one of my bathroom Newsweeks.  I asked her what she was doing, and she matter-of-factly told me: “I’m making a poo-poo and a pee-pee and reading a magazine; just like you, Daddy!”

Awww… she even apes my bowel movements y’all… that’s love.

Goodnight.  Goodweekend.

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giving work the short shrift

Thursday and the sand in my vacation hourglass is running low.

Also running low, the time between my writing this and our departure in a little more than a week for our John Muir Trail “redo” hike.  I put a meeting on the group’s collective calendars for next Tuesday to do a shopping run at REI and some pre-trail pack stuffing and checking (yes, we are so bound to technology that we “calendar” our hike planning sessions).  As time gets closer, I get more and more excited… I really can’t wait to get out on the trail again.  Later next week I’ll publish our finalized itinerary with GPS links for the data-driven and curious.  But, for now, let’s do some boring blogging.

Vacation with the parents-in-law has so far been perfect.  Sharaun’s folks are low-key vacationers, not really wanting to run around and see this or do that… but rather wanting to spend time together hanging out and relaxing.  I can really identify with this kind of vacationing.  Last night (Wednesday) we had some friends over for some barbecue, drinks, and Olympic-watching socialization.  We’ve been to a couple different parks to let Keaton run around and play, made a visit to the zoo, and are planning a trip halfway up the mountain tomorrow to go swimming and picnic at a little tucked-away spot on the river.  And, even though I’m technically not on vacation today… I sure am giving work the short shrift.

Now to change the subject a bit, to the nerd-stuff…

With the advent (or rather, my recent discovery) of programs like Simplify Media, which streams your home-based music collection to your iPhone, I’ve become painfully aware that, despite previous monumental efforts on my part to clean up and standardize the MP3 tag structure of my music collection, I’ve still got a long way to go.  This becomes immediately apparent when using applications like Simplify, which rely solely on the MP3 tag data of your collection to sort and display your music.  Minor differences in band naming schemes (to capitalize the ‘I’ in Architecture in Helsinki’s name or not, for instance) presents as two different artists, as an example.

Because of this, I’ve dutifully undertaken my most monumental tag “cleanup” effort to-date: Using a combination of tagging and renaming programs to scroll through my entire library and edit things for efficiency, accuracy, and useability.  I figure that this whole remote-streaming/access to home music collections is the way of the future, so I may as well baseline now and be ready for the glory that is to come.  It’ll take time to change all those instance of “Eric Burdon and The Animals” my preferred “Eric Burdon & The Animals,” but I think it’ll be worth it.  Update: I wrote these paragraphs a couple days ago (on one of those days I didn’t end up posting), and have since finished my great tag-update.  The work didn’t end up being that bad and, even though I still have a few things to tidy, I got it done in relatively short order.

Bye guys, I’m off to dial into a meeting (told you it was some sort of quasi-vacation)…

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before i knew it

A Monday morning and I’m comfortable on the couch instead of at work.  OK, so I have me work e-mail open and I’m actually doing things I shouldn’t be… but still, I’m on the couch.  That counts, right?  It’s gonna be short today, but I just can’t let this thing go for nearly a week.  Last week was super busy again at work, and I just didn’t have time to write at night – sad but true.

Saturday Sharaun’s folks got into town, and we’ve been spending the past couple days just hanging out and settling into vacation-mode.  Yesterday after church, I ran up to Home Depot and grabbed some sprinkler parts for a little job I wanted to do in the backyard, father-in-law came along (men do trips to Home Depot like women do trips to bar bathrooms – together).  Gary (my father-in-law) helped me work the sprinklers a bit, and we both enjoyed some cold beers in the sun.  We enjoyed them so much, in fact, that before I knew it was going on 11pm and we were still sitting around the table in the backyard.  Sharaun and her mom had long gone inside and left us alone, we’d moved the beer into a tableside cooler for easier access, and the iPod was kicking the classic Motown (Gary’s favorite).

Eventually, we wobbled inside and watched a little Olympics with the womenfolk before calling it a night.  Was a good day: got the sprinklers fixed, and hung with Sharaun’s dad like we were old college buddies.  And now, I’m looking at three mostly-vacation days before I do some “working from home” vacation days (part of the many subtle shades of vacation my sawmill permits, neither really 100% disconnected – but both still very fulfilling).  Should be a good week.

See ya around.

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babydoll kidnapping

Ahhh, the sun sets on another day.

In some charade of preparedness, I’ve been taking Keaton on long wagon-pulled walks now for a few evenings running.  I know these will in no way actually prepare me for the 65mi Muir Trail hike we’re doing in just a few weeks, but, somehow, they ease my conscience at not doing anything more tangible.

Tonight all three of us walked over to the nearest home improvement warehouse store and looked at their selection of ceiling fans (I hope to have one installed in the new front room before Sharaun’s folks get here this Saturday).  After that we indulged my wife’s sweet tooth and stopped at the local McDonald’s for soft-serve cones all around.

Oh, I remember what I wanted to talk about today… Keaton has been baaaad lately!

I mean, our daughter has always been (to us, at least) a shining example of perfection.  Every once in a while she’d have a little too-tired meltdown… but, to be honest, I always thought she was pretty easy to deal with. Not so anymore friends, not so anymore.  Lately, she’s really been playing with just how much she can get away with and how far she can push.  In some ways, I find it interesting to see her flexing her control – but her methods leave a little to be desired.  She’s particularly fond of screaming, flailing, lying dead-weight on the ground ala passive resistance, the word “No,” and complete and utter disdain for, or ignoring of, our instruction – the list goes on.

All of this started as the occasional boundary-checking, but it’s gotten a little more systemic of late.  Today, Sharaun supplemented our trite and predictable nouveau-parenting technique of “timeouts” with something I dubbed babydoll-kidnapping; because, see, Keaton loves her babydolls.  She has, by my estimates, near ten of them.  In fact, let’s count them to be sure…  From memory (pretty good Dad, eh?), they are: Baby Kia, Baby Claudia, Baby Finna, Baby Finny (I think they are brother/sister), Baby Hannah, Baby Sabrina, and Muñeca (she’s from Mexico).  She usually knows where each baby is at all times, whether they are sleeping, playing, hiding, crying, need to be burped or fed or held, etc.  Today, however, they all got rounded up and put on the high shelf of our closet.  Yup, Sharaun interned them all as some measure of additional bad-behavior deterrent.

When I got home from work, the first thing Keaton did (after my required big hug and lip-kiss) was to follow me into the bedroom and point out her dolls on the shelf.  “Look Dad,” she said, “My dolls got put up.”  Using my new-grown parenting skills, I deduced that there must be some logic behind all seven dolls being put in the closet, and chose not to comment aside from a, “I see that baby…” When I got the chance to ask Sharaun what was up with the hijacked dolls, I could hear the frustration seep back into her voice: “When she misbehaves from now on we take dolls away in addition to timeouts!, ” was her simple yet authoritarian reply.  Mmmm-hmmm; sounds good.  I’m on-board by decree at this point, “OK, I’ll remember.”

Poor Keaton; dolls all up in the closet gathering dust.  I guess we’ll see if the new technique works… but I have my doubts.  I figure this is just part of the “two year old” phase and that we’ll have to simply weather the growing and stretching and rattling fetters.  For what it’s worth, she’s still my favorite thing on Earth and I can never really be all that mad at her…

Goodnight internets.

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mercedes. i have a mercedes. mercedes.

Happy Friday all.  Welcome to the entry that almost wasn’t, but came together in a rushed half hour around 10:30pm last night.  Guess sometimes it all just works out, huh?  Moving on…

Today I left work around 11:45pm to meet Sharaun and Keaton at one of the local parks.  We had lunch in the shade and then hit the playground for a while before I had to leave and rejoin the ranks of corporate zombies back at the sawmill.  I love doing this, having some time during the day to spend with Keaton is the perfect way to break the spell of to-dos and teleconferences.

During lunch there was a couple of moms sitting at a picnic table near us.  As their young’ns played some kind of stupid Pokemon or Dragonball game on the playground (“You’re an egg now!”  “No, I’m a human already – and if you look into my eyes you’ll die!”), they sat and gabbed.  Well, one of them did – the other one just listened and gave deferential harrumphs and confirming nods.

The one talking, and boy could she talk, was rambling on and on and on (and on some more) about a car accident she’d been in recently, and the harrowing events which befell her life thereafter.  The thing is, though, she somehow managed to work in the fact that her wrecked vehicle was a Mercedes SUV at every turn of the conversation.  Soon, I began to think this was no mere coincidence:

Yeah, I had to take the Mercedes to a special Mercedes body shop that the Mercedes dealer recommended, because not just any body shop can work on a Mercedes, you know.

The rental replacement SUV they gave me was some GM or Chevy thing, and when I climbed in for the first time I couldn’t believe how small it was compared to the Mercedes.  I had to call my insurance agent and ask if they had anything more truly comparable in size the the Mercedes, because my back just couldn’t handle that thing – it’s so used to the Mercedes.

The people who hit the Mercedes were Yugoslavian or Russian or something.  When they pulled over I parked the Mercedes right in front of them because I was afraid they might try to run.

On top of this, she bemoaned how the wrecked Mercedes had hampered her and her husband’s plan to buy a boat, as they now had no vehicle to tow it with (presumably, the time the Mercedes would be in the Mercedes body shop would ruin an entire Summer boating season?).  She admitted, small hints derision vocalized at the corners of her words, that they had “settled for” an old pickup that they’ll “only use to tow the boat around,” but “never to just drive.”

I felt intensely sorry for her rough life.  And, also because I am pretty sure she was only telling the story so her friend (and whomever happened to be within earshot) had no option be to be keenly aware she owned a Mercedes, a boat, and a truck specifically for the purpose of lugging around the boat.

Not that I’m not occasionally taken into a swirl of materialism and status-symbol one-upmanship myself, but I hope I never hawk my wares quite like that.  Eh, it wasn’t even that egregious an offense… just made for quick and easy writing. And, now it’s over.

‘Night.  Have a good weekend, see ya Monday.

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just another weekend

Sunday evening and I put Keaton down before 6 o’clock.

I know, seems early, but we had a napless afternoon spent swimming at Pat’s place.  No sleep combined with sun and fun make for one very tired Keaton. In fact, we were only a scant ten minutes into an episode of the Backyardigans before she curled up next to me and put her head down in my lap. Of course though, she wasn’t tired at all when you asked her. But, Dad knows best, and put her down with the sun still shining. I swear she was asleep before I could tiptoe out of the room.  And now, with Keaton down and Sharaun still out, I’m watching Roy Rogers in 1947’s Apache Rose and thinking what I’ll cook up for dinner.

Saturday Sharaun and I finally got some inspiration and painted the front room.  Since we’re using it now as our main “sitting room,” or whatever, we’ve both been anxious to make it feel a little more “liveable” (most of the house is still the same stark white that it was when we bought the place right after construction, some five years ago).  And, although we’re extremely slow to dress the place up, I think we’re making some good progress lately.  Next on the list: a ceiling fan and (hopefully) a screen door that Sharaun won’t mind (she’s 100% against them, but I love the “notion” of an open door, sor some reason – even though it’s not really open… or something).  Yeah, well, let’s see what else I’ve got.

Anyway, part of the reason behind all the freshening up is the fact that Sharaun’s folks come to visit a just a couple weeks.  And, while Sharaun has a few more inside projects lined up, I’ve got some outside ones that are calling.  My goal is to have the place looking a little more all-around nice by the time they’re here.  Their stay here usually involves a lot of kickin’ it around the house, with things like barbecues afternoons in the sprinklers.  I’m excited, becasue I get to take some time off work.  Still a ways off though, so best to not get overexicted now…

OK folks, love you.  Sorry it’s nothing grand tonight, I’ll try and do better tomorrow.  Goodnight.

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a pleasant turnaround

Friday.

There’s been a pleasant turnaround in our small household.  Keaton hasn’t thrown up all day, and I’ve been able to sit on the couch more than the toilet.  Seems that perhaps we’ve reached the calm after the (happily breif) storm, and might have just licked those nasty creatures invading our entrails.  This is good, because it means we’re still in for the camping trip this weekend.  So, that means that tomorrow we’ll steam off into the hills as soon as I give a must-do presentation at work.  I’ll phone it in, from the very same couch I’m sitting on now, more than likely.

And, before said steaming-off into said hills, I’ll need to get stuff together.  The plan is to leave as soon as possible after the single morning meeting I couldn’t get out of, hopefully sometime around 10am.  Campsites at our regular spot are extremely limited, and there’s no reservation system (it’s primitive camping, first-come, first-served), so we always worry that the place’ll be full when we get down there.  With only five spots up for grabs, and just three of those alongside the river, it’s a must that we secure “good ones.”  So, tonight, in just a scant few minutes, in fact, I’ll be pulling the car out of the garage, doing a loop in the street and backing it right back in to load it with all our gear.

And, fast-forward to nearly 11pm.  Packing is done, and Sharaun’s putting the finishing touches on what food we’ll need to bring out in the kitchen.  I’m online typing these last few sentences and trying, futilely, to upload the presentation I have to give tomorrow morning.  Something wrong with the server at work I guess, I keep getting a timeout.  Owell, I’ll try again early before I have to speak.

For now though, I bid you a goodnight.  Love you, see you Monday.