Nathan finds photobooth.
I left Nathan alone with my Macbook. He discovered the cool little app called Photobooth. This is the resulting library:
August 11, 2007
June 27, 2007
Lunch hour..
My wife called me home for lunch so I could chase a marmot out of the engine compartment of our minivan. We managed to chase it out of our car, but didn't catch it, so it will likely be back.
Interesting buzzing in the sky.
We where playing outside last night, and the last flying B-24 flew over our house several times.
3 vintage bombers where in town as part of a national tour.
Andee and I created a small patio in the middle of our yard, to prevent my new outdoor fireplace from scorching our yard.
June 20, 2007
Somebody turned ..... 35
One of my fun habits of late is asking, "Don't worry, I am not a girl" questions.
I stopped drinking Dr. Pepper. Now once a week I go around and ask a random co-worker, "Do I look like I have lost any weight?" They get this confused look on their face, not knowing the politically correct way to answer. After an awkward four or five seconds, I re-assure them "Don't worry I am not a girl, you can tell me the truth."
Today I asked my one of my co-workers how old he thought I was. He was only off by 20%... I guess my "wisdom" is really effecting my co-worker's image of me... ;-)
June 16, 2007
No more Kindergarten
Julia is no longer a Kindergartener.
She is not happy about not being able to got to school for a few months.
May 11, 2007
Game, "Oh, I was confused"
I invented a new game for the car. As we drive around town.
Daddy: "Look over there, I see a Jet airplane"
Kids: "Where???"
Daddy: "Oh, wait, I was confused, that is a bird."
Daddy: "Look, A snake!"
Kids: "Where??"
Daddy: "Oh, wait, I was confused, that was a highway stripe!"
Pretty soon the kids get confused too, and start seeing dinosaurs and fire engines.
Mommy gets annoyed.
April 24, 2007
One Day weekend
I had to work Saturday.. Only got one day off this weekend..
Andee and I went to the Selah concert in Spokane. We have enjoyed their music for 5 or 6 years now, so it was good to see them in person.
It is really neat to worship with an assortment of people who you have never met.
Keith Cooper was with them, and he made some music that I didn't know was possible with a Guitar... Pretty blown away by it actually. I made my first iTunes purchase..
April 19, 2007
Events
Julia lost her first tooth. The tooth fairy left her some money, and she gave it to Nathan for his 4th birthday.
I changed the starter in my 93 Buick Regal Grand Sport. It was not too fun, but I saved 150 bucks and it only took by 3 hours. My arms hurt, and my fingernails are dirty.
Tonight we are having a birthday party for Nathan. He is turning 4. His party is at the Bounce and Jump place. They have about 10 bouncy castles.
March 11, 2007
Josh, the movie hacker...
This movie was created with 95% pure macBook components. The only component used in production was my bluetooth headset, which I used to add the narration. The movie was taken with the built in iSight camera, and edited with the iMovie software.
The kids have been taking some martial arts classes. Nathan has extraordinary body awareness, and taught himself to do cartwheels. He figured out that the cartwheel was ideal for navigating the hula hoop obstacle. I am quite surprised. I think his athleticism comes from his mama, and his cleverness comes from me. He is not quite 4
Update, I jumped the gun on posting the youtube embed.. Hopefully it will be processed soon, keep trying back.
February 5, 2007
Potty training.
Nathan appears to be potty trained. At his age (almost 4) it was pretty easy... It cost me 3 M&M's per peepee and 6 M&M's per poopoo.. The key phrase that sealed the deal is "You get to pick them out"
Once he agreed to the deal, he has only had one accident, and went poopoo for the first time without any encouragement or fanfare at all..
On a side note, the flu is rampaging through our family. I am the only one who has not had the full onslaught. I still feel a bit buggy, so it may come at any time. Nathan puked all over the Walmart today. Good times...
January 25, 2007
Remodeling - Installing Laminate Floor
We did a little remodeling job last weekend. We have a family room that has been used quite hard by our children. the carpet was stained with 3 or 4 years worth of apple juice and the like.
We recently refinanced our house, and for the first time in a long time we are not absolutely broke. We spend the majority of our time in the room, so I figured that would be the room we should improve.
We shopped around for quite a while, and finally settled on some laminate flooring at the Habitat for Humanity Surplus store. That store is quite neat, as it has a lot of new and used home improvement stuff at very reasonable prices. They happened to have 300 sq feet of flooring, and our room is 300 square feet minus a few here and there for a tile floor and stairs. The price was pretty low, but probably not unbeatable.
Friday, Andee and I moved the furniture out of that room. Saturday morning, we tore out the carpet and removed all of the moldings. Destruction always seems to be a quick job for one reason or another. Within an hour or two, we had a bare concrete floor and an empty room to work with.
My Dad and my friend Dean came over and worked all weekend to help me get the job done. For the most part, Dean and I did the repetitions and tedious parts and Dad did the math intensive cutting parts.
Our flooring was the tongue and groove glue together kind. Each piece would have it's tongue coated with a elmer's like glue, and they you would tap the tongue into the groove of the neighboring boards until the glue seeped out the seams.
It goes together pretty quickly once you get going. There where two agrevating things that we encountered during our project. The first was gaps between the planks. I think that most of these where caused by irregularies in the surface of our floor. Some may have also been caused by irregular boards, but I am not sure. For a long time we tried pounding these cracks out of the floor. This didn't work. Often our pounding would twist the boards that we where sliding our board into, and we would wind up chasing the cracks around. Other times we could get rid of most of the crack but the outside edges wouldn't be flush, so we would have the same problem when we installed the next row. Finally we figured out that it was best to let the cracks fall where they are, and to focus on keeping the outside edges flush with one another.
The second issue that was annoying was needing too short of a board at the very end. Usually yous stagger the seams a little bit, using a full length board in one row, a 1/3 length board in the next row, and a 2/3 length board in the next, then starting the pattern again. On one of our rows, we found that the 2/3 length board, plus 4 full length board left about 2 inches worth that needed to be filled at the end. We had to learn to pre-measure and make sure that that didn't happen again whenever the room changed shape.
After the floor was together we found that the crack filler stuff works quite well at hiding the imperfections.
We spent all day Saturday, and all of Sunday afternoon on the project, and it was pretty well complete by 6PM.
Another thing to keep in mind when shopping for laminate flooring, the moldings and trim are probably the most expensive part. Be sure to keep this in mind when you are estimating your costs.
The floor looks nice, and I believe it will be a lot more resistant to staining!
January 2, 2007
Geneology Research
Ancestry.com gave me a 3 day free trial to their website, which I must say is quite cool. In 3 days, I was able to get a massive list of possible relatives to research. Here is my rough draft family tree. (Must set up account to view)
The research is pretty easy to do on the ancestry.com site. They have a lot of family trees that you can copy to guide you. These are assembled by other users, and are not trustworthy, but can get you started. With a paid subscription, you can click on a name in your family tree, and see census records, military records, immigration records and media records that are possible matches for that person. Most of these records have scanned documents, so with one click, you can view the actual hand written census sheet that your relative is listed on.
I have been able to track my Patriarchal name back to a man name Charles Reilly who was born in 1807 in Ireland. When he moved to the United States, he began spelling his name Reighley, just like I do. He got married in Fredrick Maryland to Caroline Cronise. One of the history books indicated that a Charles Reighley pastored a church there for a couple of "troubled years" in 1832, but I am not positive that this was the same guy, as I do see other Charles Reighley's that have lived in that area.
In the late 1830's he moved to Michigan, I believe he was an army chaplain, and definately pastored an Episcopal church there. He had 6 kids with his first wife, including my great-great grandfather, James Braiden Reighley.
It appears that he moved to the Mississippi in the late 1850's and his wife passed away there, and he remarried. His second wife was a school teacher, Heloise DeMailly, and they had a daughter. There appears to be quite a collection of information on Ms De Mailly's life in the Ker Family papers, Archived at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It looks like they have portraits of Heloise DeMailly Reighley, Marie Reighley Watkins, as well as a portrait of Mrs. Watkins with her infant son. They also have several letters written from Miss De Mailly to one of her pupils, Mary Ker. If I am ever in that neighborhood, I will have to check it out.
Rev Reighley passed away in 1862. The folks in the forums seem to think he died in DC, but I haven't seen any documentation.
Anyway, it must have been interesting being a Irish born Yankee living in Mississippi in 1858-1862. I am sure there is a story there, but it is fairly unlikely that we will hear it. At least two of his sons, Charles Jr. and James Braiden, where in the Union army. Charles Jr, died of his war wounds. I suspect that Charles Sr. may have been an Union army chaplain during the civil war. Don't know for sure though. I will keep digging.
It is amazing how many people's legacy boils down to born on , died on, son of, husband of, father of.... I am going to research several other relatives and see if I can gather much of their story.
If anyone finds this post via a search engine, and has more information on these folks, I would love to hear about them. Please leave a comment or drop me an email!
October 6, 2006
My neighborhood history
Here is a short documentary about the history of Felts Field, Nathan's favorite hang out.
Spokane used to be quite the hopping place!
October 5, 2006
Chess...
I have been teaching Julia chess.. I have also been helping out at her school when they play chess. Chess is a great game for kids.
It teaches them to analyze their environment and react accordingly.
It teaches them that their actions have consequences.
It teaches them to plan ahead.
It teaches them that people think in different ways.
It teaches them that there is more than one way to achieve a goal.
It teaches them to focus on the task at hand.
It teaches them to keep trying even when things are not looking great.
It teaches them that you can learn a lot from losing.
It teaches you that no matter how good you think you are, you can be humbled quite quickly.
It teaches them that sometimes you have to sacrifice something of value in order to reach your goal.
It teaches sometimes there are intagibles that are more valuable than tangibles.
It teaches that one bad move can ruin your entire plan.
The cool thing is that while they do all of this learning in a low stakes game, these lessons translate nicely into pretty much every decision making process that they go through in life.
Julia learned pretty quickly at the age of 5 1/2.. I have read that that is an ideal time to get them started. I have also found that her experience playing chess makes it easier to discuss her decision making in the real world.
September 23, 2006
Playin' Stay at home daddy.
Andee has been out of town for the last 5 days attending the big MOPS convention in Nashville.. So I took the week off, and have been playing stay at home daddy.
The kids are getting tired of bacon and eggs for breakfast and Homestyle bakes for dinner, but other than that all has been well.
Went to Valleyfest today. It was pretty fun, but the STA shuttle service stunk and we probably wasted more than an hour waiting to get there and back. Julia caught a fish, and gave it to the Union Gospel Mission.
Idaho is down 17-0 to Oregon State so far.. It isn't halftime yet.
Got wrapped up in a interesting discussion on the Monday Morning Insight blog the other day. It always troubles me how good Christians can assume the worst about each other without investigation.
Started teaching some chess to Julia's classmates. That is interesting. I taught Julia a few weeks ago, and she loves it. She is learning fast.. May give me a run for my money in another few years. I played quite a bit in Junior High and High School, and really liked it. I was good, but not anywhere near unbeatable.
Got stung by a yellowjacket yesterday. We where at Felts field, and I put Nathan on my shoulders to see an airplane lift off. I tried to secure him by grabbing onto his feet, but apparently he had a bee on his shoe.. Ouch!
Found a private pilot's video course at my public library. It is quite good, but also quite boring.
Andee should be back tomorrow night after dark...
August 28, 2006
Nothing to report
I have been too busy doing the routine summer stuff to stop and say much on the blog lately. Andee and the kids went to Oregon for a week they got back a week ago Saturday. My sleep has been kinda messed up ever since. When the family is not around, there is no real pressure to sleep at a reasonable time, and as such, often I didn't get enough sleep. Oddly enough, it is actually a bit difficult for me to sleep when it is quiet. I am not too used to that.
I kept very busy. Went out to dinner with somebody or had a meeting almost every night. Kept me out of trouble.
The family has been back for a week now. They have been running pretty much non-stop getting the final playdates of the summer in before school starts. Julia had her orientation day at her new school. Nathan has his sometime next week. We spent an afternoon at some friend's lake cabin, and had a great time.
BSF starts the Monday after labor day. I can't wait. Romans this year.
August 11, 2006
The foolishness of marriage?
One of the local newspaper blogs, Huckleberries online posed the question "What's Wrong With Saving It For Marriage?" Apparently a couple saved their first kiss for marriage, and that had caught a lot of interest by the audience.
Predictably some of the comments where fairly negative on the idea:
"Foolish""Test Drive!
Test Drive!
Test Drive!""that which is worth waiting for is probably cool to get really early too"
"I never buy a pair of shoes without trying them on first."
"Would you buy a car without test driving it first to see how it handles?"
My comment was "If you need a test drive, you are testifying to your spouse from the beginning that your love is conditional."
Coincidentally, I last night, I was listening to a Mars Hill sermon where Pastor Mark Driscoll suggested three criteria for selecting a wife. Is she breathing? Does she love Jesus? Will she put up with me?
I wonder if much of our crisis in marriage isn't caused by overexposure to romantic story lines in media? If we marry a girl because she meets 20 or 30 items on our criteria list, isn't our love pretty conditional? Is it really love at all? Or are we just entering a contract in order to gain something that we want?
The culture that we live in most likely sees unconditional love as foolishness. After all a husband's love for his wife is supposed to be a picture of Christ's love for his church. (Ephesians 5:25) If the message of the cross is seen as foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18), should a biblical marriage be seen any differently?
So, what do you think? Is unconditional love foolish?
July 24, 2006
I can't sleep...
Today I was bringing the laundry upstairs from our laundry room. (We had a good week's worth down there) On one of my trips, I heard Nathan say somthing from his bedroom. He had gone to bed about 20 minutes earlier. After I had finished my laundry hauling chore, I went to close the door to our stairs. I was kinda surprized to find Nathan soundly sleeping on the floor in the hallway right behind the door that I had propped open.
I picked the boy up to take him back into his room. His eyes shook open.. "Daddy, I can't sleep" he said.
July 18, 2006
Philippians 4
Andee and I finished our study of Philippians last week. That last chapter is something else! I think that there are at least 3 passages worth memorizing.
Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:8
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -think about such things.
And Philippians 4:11-13
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
As is often the case when I study the Bible, Our pastor used that last passage in his message on Sunday.
We started in on Romans today.
June 27, 2006
The anatomy of a busy weekend
So this was by far the busiest weekend I have had in a very long time. Friday we had a Barbeque at my parents house. About 35 friends and relatives dropped by. During the barbeque, I made 2 trips to the airport to pick up even more people.
Saturday we spend much of the moring cleaning. I mowed the lawn, and we Organized all of our outdoor stuff.
Saturday evening, My sister had a wedding reception, and we attended that from 7 until midnight.
Sunday morning, we went to Church, then came home and got all set up for a Barbque of our own. We didn't have Birthday parties for our kids in March and April, so they got a combined Birthday party in June. We had about 35 people ages 2 months to 70 years. It was quite a bit of fun.
Andee and I are both quite tired.
June 20, 2006
We are cutting Eunice
Yesterday, my wife was gone, and he kids where playing in the house..
Suddenly there was an eery silence.
A few minutes later, Nathan came in and announced, "We are cutting Eunice"..
(Eunice is my Daughter's stuffed Unicorn.)
I went into Julia's room and sure enough, Eunice had quite a noticable haircut.
It is funny how attached parents are to their kids favorite toys. I was a bit upset. Julia was quite happy with the new look. She actually did a pretty good job... Her bed is still covered in loose unicorn hairs. Eunice is quite well loved, and her mane was pretty matted and tangled. Julia fixed her!
Anyway, I took the sissors away and asked her have her mommy help her next time.
When Andee got home I told her about it, and she had the same reaction I did. She wanted to be upset, but it is her unicorn.
June 12, 2006
Still away.
We have been traveling over the last week or so. We took our kids to Oregon to stay with their Grandma, and Andee and I left for Hawaii, where my Sister is getting married today.
Hawaii has been pretty fun. We are staying on the North Shore of Oahu. It is fairly rural here, aside from the houses right on the beach, and the surfing traffic.
We went hiking one afternoon last week. Seemed like a pretty darn cool place for me. A trail leads up from the airstrip that is used mostly for skydiving and Glider operations. up the cliff to a geocache that I was after. The airfield was a old military base, and the trail had a warning sign that I found quite interesting. "Active Military Training Area, Please remain on the trail" I did. ;-)
We where driving through a park yesterday, and I said to my wife, "Hey, look at those chicks." She was kinda startled that I would talk like that, but looked at the Bikini wearing surfer girls walking along side the road tring to figure out what I thought was so interesting. "No", I had to explain, "There is a hen, and 6 little chicks eating in the parking lot."
May 30, 2006
Dulldrums...
Sorry I haven't written much. Kinda been coasting for the last week or so. We have a big vacation coming up, and I have been spending most of my energy counting down the days until we leave.
I fixed our van. It has been running rough for the last month or so. The check engine light has turned on periodically. Ran down to the local auto parts store and borrowed their code scanner, and it indicated our Oxygen sensor was going bad. Had to break out my ramps and my sled to get find it, but changing it wasn't much more difficult than swapping out a spark plug.
Nathan went to the parts store with me. He likes to charm the clerks. Especially the female ones. He usually opens up with "I got a scooter for my Birthday" His birthday was in April. If you are ever looking for a good present for a 3 year old, a three wheeled scooter has Nathan's strong endorsement.
On a related topic, Nathan's favorite word right now is "Actually". Big sophisticated word for a 3 year old.
I have been hooked on "Deadly Catch" on Discovery Channel. It seems to be all that is on anymore. It is rather slow, and pretty much all the same, but it still keeps you hooked. Kinda reminds me of watching the America's cup sailboat races. Except for bigger waves, More ice, and slightly rougher crew. Lets call it extremely blue collar America's cup.
I have slept 3 hours out of the last 40. My sense of humor gets a bit distorted at this stage of sleep deprivation. Sorry if I am totally goofy.
May 22, 2006
Ways to embarrass your parents and other odds and ends.
It has been a fairly uneventful week. Nathan (3) is growing up. Earlier this week he was in our bed at 6 AM, and he started talking in his sleep. He was pretty loud. "I need some more money!" He dosed off for a while. "Guys, can I please have some money?" he asked again a few minutes later. Since he said please, I slipped a quarter into his clinched hand. Andee and I where chuckling at him. He seemed to be sound asleep. "Guys, why you laughing?" he yelled, agitated. That didn't help his cause much.
Sunday we went to see the African Children's Choir at a Life Center. Our kids where pretty restless, and distracting. The Life Center is a church that we used to attend before our current church was planted. They recently built a very large and modern facility. The auditorium is a huge square room with the stage in the corner. We sat down toward the very front, at the outer edge next to the aisle that is against the wall. Because the corner of the building has a bit of an addition on it to house the stage, there where two structural columns on the wall, just across the aisle from where we where sitting. During the 30 minutes we waited for the performance to start, we allowed the kids to play in the aisle. Nathan, who isn't remotely interested in potty training yet, discovered these two pillars, and pretended that the little cubby was a urinal. He didn't remove his diaper or anything, just assumed the position.
Two weeks left before vacation!
I mowed the lawn today. It was getting pretty bad, but I was much better off than Jess was.
I got my PlasmaCAM demo DVD in the mail Friday. I keep trying to show it off to folks, but nobody is nerdy enough to truly enjoy it. I bet that machine could pay for itself pretty quickly, If I happen across a few thousand dollars, perhaps I can start my own metal cutting business.
Tomorrow is my last day of BSF for the year. I am going to try to go all of the way through Philippians and Romans over the summer.
Well, that is enough gibberish for one night.
May 8, 2006
linkfest addendum
This weekend I did not go to our local General Aviation airport for the first time in a long time. Usually I take my kids over there 3 or 4 times a week. It is cheap fun.
I also didn't run in Bloomsday. I never have even though I have lived in Spokane for almost all of my life. In my defense, I did work at a water station a few times.
Weekend Linkfest
We had a very busy weekend. I hadn't slept much last week, so Friday I went to bed at 7AM and got up at 4PM. I took Nathan up to his Grandparents where he spent the night for the first time ever. It went quite well. I came home, went to bed at 11PM and got up at 6:30AM.
Saturday we went to the DNA of Relationships Seminar which was pretty good. Gary was a bit jet-lagged, so his delivery wasn't perfect, but his content was quite powerful and inspirational. Greg and Michael where quite entertaining and informative. Many of the concepts where similar to teaching that I had heard at other seminars, but it is always good to bring those ideas back to the forefront. Seminar speakers usually have to bring some interesting and humorous stories with them in order to keep the audience interested. The more of these stories you hear, the more you will be reminded of these concepts by other events in your life.
The event was at Real Life Ministries in Post Falls Idaho. Last I heard, they where one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Their building is scary big. I know several people who go there, and I listened to their radio broadcast for a year or so, and I am convinced that they are growing for the right reasons. They do not avoid the tough topics, or sugar coat anything. They teach the Gospel in a very straightforward and deliberate manner. They work very hard at caring for their people and getting people involved in ministry. I have also attended a baptism there, and they do a very good job of making sure that everyone in the building understands exactly what it represents. Their attendance has grown from 50 people to over 5000, and They are only 8 years old.
We had dinner with some Friends at the White House Grill. It was pretty extraordinary food. Inexpensive as well. Hope you like Garlic! Also better have reservations.
Today we started the day going to church. Liferoads is starting a 4 week series on the heart of David. I am pretty sure that it is going to be a great study! We are having a huge neighborhood outreach/church cleanup project next weekend. The weekend after that the African Children's Choir is coming to Spokane.
This evening we had our Financial Peace class. I would recommend that everyone take this class or another class like it. If you try to pick it up on your own, you are likely to get it totally wrong. Nearly everyone in our culture has it wrong. We still have a lot of work to do, but at least there is a plan.
Sundays are always pretty tough for me. I get up at 7 and go to bed at 7 or 8. Rarely do I get any sleep.
April 20, 2006
Never. Ever. Ever
Andee and I saw this on TV the other day, and where a little surprized.
NBC.com > Never Ever Ever...
Good moral advice for once from the TV networks... Too bad it was a joke.
Three!
Today is Nathan's birthday!
He is 3!
Happy Birthday Nathan!
March 29, 2006
Nerd in Training
Julia and I watched the Nova episode on the DARPA challenge yesteryday. She seemed to really enjoy it. Which made me pretty happy. Another few years, and I can teach her to program Basic Stamps.
For those who don't know, the DARPA challenge was a contest to create vehicles that where capable of driving themselves over long distances through desert terrain. 5 vehicles managed to navigate a 120 miles course through the desert within 10 hours without human input. Last year's challenge was substantially less successful with all of then teams failing to finish.
Julia's analysis: "This is like The March of the Penguins
March 23, 2006
Reading with your kids.
Because I have owned my own business for quite a while, and have ordered packaging supplies before, sometimes I get some pretty unusual catalogs in the mail.
Most of these find quickly find the way into the trash, but today I found new use for one.
I read my Global industries catalog with Nathan, my 3 year old today. He loved it! They sell forklifts, carts, ladders, Material handling equipment, office furniture, packaging supplies and a random assortment of other things a 3 year old would have no need for.
It is funny how insightful he was, For example, as we flipped through the pages, he pointed out the Doctor's
Chair I don't think I would have thought of that. He sure was right though. That was a doctor's chair.
I remember when I was a kid spending hours going through the Sears and Penny's catalogs. It was lots of fun. I wonder if my kid's inherited the same curiosity, or if this is a universal thing?
March 15, 2006
Two more days of diapers!
Nathan is still in diapers.. For the last year or so I have occasionally tried to talk him into meeting Mr. Potty, but he has always said "No" and acted really uncomfortable.
Last week I asked him if he was ready to go potty on the potty, and he said "In a while"
A few days later, I rephrased my request as a a more close ended question. "When do you want to start going potty on the potty?" His reply: "Saturday"
Only 2 more poopy diapers to change if we are lucky! I think he is old enough that it should be fairly easy.
March 12, 2006
Nathan is home.
Nathan got home yesterday, and is doing well. He was pretty much ready to go since Thursday morning, so it was a pretty big relief.
We quickly noticed that both children had grown accustomed to the 24 hour attention from an adult. Yesterday was not too fun in a discipline regard. They are starting to enjoy each other more today. Today I took the kids to the park, and then we went to the airport and watched airplanes take off and land. I saw a pretty little Kitfox take off. I saw that airplane at the airport a few weeks ago, but my kid's didn't have enough patience to see it fly that day. Today I was ready to go way before Nathan was, and Julia agreed that he could watch 3 more airplanes. I was going to allow one more, but let Julia be extra generous to her brother.
Anyway, Nathan is back up and around. We are keeping him out of the way of other kids for a few days so that he doesn't get sick again. I asked the doctor, and she said it was okay to treat him like he was well.
March 8, 2006
Nathan is sick
Nathan is a bit sick today. He has been kinda down for the last week. Today Andee took him to the doctor and the doctor determined that he had the start of pnemonia. As soon as he got home the doctor called back and asked that we could bring him back to check his O2 saturation....
Anyway, his O2 saturation was too low, so he is spending the night at the hospital. Hopefully he will be better soon. He is being a really good sport.
March 3, 2006
Happy Birthday Julia
My Daughter Julia turns 5 today!
Julia was born way too early, and got to live in the NICU for the first 6 weeks after she was born. She is big, Strong, Smart, and enjoying Disneyland with her Grammee today.
March 2, 2006
Because I know that Andee Reads this...
See, I am not the only one!
Via - Involutionary Madness
Update on the lonely house
I ate Potatoes O'Brien for dinner. I think I might be allergic to Tabasco sauce, as I the roof of my mouth break out in bumps after eating them. I doubt I am allergic to potatoes, but weirder things have happened.
I slept from about 8-4:30.. Wow! That was nice. Andee says that the van is running badly. That is not good news. I don't think Dodge makes good transmissions.
Been hacking on the blog a little bit. Added the annoying flickr photo stream in the left column. Let me know what you think. Also set it up so that I can schedule posts. Moveable type has the functionality built in, but you have to set up a Cron job on your server to trigger the updates periodically.
Played with the Google videos quite a bit. Aside from the graininess it seems to work fairly well.. That may be a useful feature for the church website too.
February 28, 2006
Batch'n it...
Wife and kids made it to Portland okay. I slept for 6 hours today, and feel somewhat better...
Got the oil change off of my To-Do check list. I had never changed the oil on this car before. I tried a year or two ago, then changed my mind and decided to have a pro do it. The oil filter on a 93 Buick Regal Gransport is kinda wedged in between the axel, the engine, and the automatic tranny, so it is a real engineering feat to get in there. To make things worse, the easiest way to reach it, leaves your body laying directly below it, so you get an oil shower if you succeed in removing it. After some contemplation I found an awkward contortion that allowed me to reach the filter and lay clear of the fallout. I am not sure you could get an oil filter wrench in there if you wanted to, Luckily mine came off with a firm grip and a prayer. I did get a black dot on my Boomsday voluneer shirt, but I have never loved this one too much anyway.. I will get a new model in May.
I failed to eat. I started to make ramen noodles but wound up aborting the attempt after noticing that all that was left of my water was calcium deposits... Believe it or not, I got sucked into watching CSPAN which is usually highly discouraged under my wife's rules. (My wife doesn't enjoy being bored as much as I do)
February 15, 2006
Fun games..
Here is another game I play with my kids...
I smell the left foot. " Wow, That smells like a rose garden!:
I spell the right food. "Eek, that smells like burning tires:
I smell the left foot. "That smells like fresh baked bread"
I smell the right foot. "That smells like fermenting patatos:
Repeat until your brain freezes up.. This a good practice for your own creativity.
February 1, 2006
They giveth, they taketh away
I am cheap, and only pay for limited cable. This gets me channels 1-30. Basically the televised channels, Discovery channel, Regional news channel, Cspan, and public access TV.
The filters are not perfect, so I also get channel 31, and some in the 60-70 range (Bravo, E! and a few others that are rarely worth watching)
When we first signed up, channel 31 was ESPN.. About a year ago, Comcast moved ESPN to channel 33, and put Outdoor life on 31. Bullriding was fun to watch for a few weeks..
December 29th, Comcast moved ESPN to channel 11. This made me quite happy. I don't think my wife was too thrilled.
Today, A cable guy rang our doorbell and said he had to do some work on the pole out back.. When I woke up. Channel 11 was gone.. They sent a guy out and up a 20 foot ladder just to take away ESPN. All of the rest of my channels still work. I wish I could see the cost benefit analysis on that project.
January 25, 2006
Josh the Inventor.
For the last couple of years I have been fantasizing about a super bowl delicacy that I have never seen before.
A sweet cornbread waffle topped with Chili, Sour Cream and Cheese.
I have been afraid to try it.
Today I was feeling fearless, so I poured the cornbread batter into the waffle iron and ....
It worked!
The waffles where a little bit limper than regular waffles, but I think they are going to be okay, Nathan (almost 3) gave them the big thumbs up. He ate my waffle plain, but he refused to eat his own waffle that was smothered in syrup. (Mommy cut it wrong)
Hmmm.. How am I going to make this work with my diet??? Glad I get a free day every week!
January 19, 2006
Becoming less fat.
Andee and I are starting our weight loss regimen. We lost about 25 lbs each last year on the Body for Life program. Unfortunately we have kinda strayed over the last 6 months, and have stopped losing weight. Andee is motivated to lose more wieght before we go to Hawaii in June.
I really like the Body for Life program. It makes a lot of sense. Basically you eat 6 times a day, eating small portions of carbohydrates and protiens with each meal. They encourage you to eat lowfat foods, mostly because fat has a lot of calories. I like that you have to focus on eating. On other programs I have felt like the focus was on not eating. I eat all of the time, and the foods that I eat are useful to my body, so my body doesn't really crave much.
The Body for Life program also encourages you to excercise vigorously, doing both wieght training and cardio.
I would like to lose another 40 - 50 lbs.. We will see what happens. I don't care about the numbers so much as I care about looking and feeling a bit better.
January 13, 2006
To Spank or not to Spank??
Nothing seems to spark a debate on the web like a discussion of spanking.
I believe most people's problems are rooted in the fact that they do things that they know they shouldn't do, and fail to do things that they should do. Basically, they are disobedient. Most of my problems are rooted in my disobedience to my beliefs. I spend money frivolously, then I am broke. I procrastinate, then I am stressed. I neglect my wife, and then she is upset with me.
As such, I think that the most important lesson we need to teach our children is the value of obedience. If we have to use spanking to teach them that, I am not opposed to the concept. This concept of sticking to their principles is important enough that we need to use any available method to get through to our children.
Modeling obedience is much more important than enforcing it. If we discipline in anger, we are disobedient. If we fail to disciple, when discipline is necessary, we are disobedient. If we are disobedient to our beliefs, our children will likely follow our example. We may be able to bully them into compliance, but their heart will still be angry with us. We are hypocrites, telling them to be obedient, while we follow our own passion of the moment.
We need to do the right thing because it is the right thing. If we are doing the right thing in order to avoid the consequences, then we only do the right thing when the consequences exceed our tolerance for risk. Parents will not always be there to increase the consequences.
Introducing spanking into our relationship with the children raises the stakes. It deepens their understanding of obedience, but it also amplifies their understanding of our hypocrisy. If they see us lose our self control, they are not going to believe it is normal to control themselves.
I think we need to have a discipline plan, and stick with it in order to be truly effective.
The best way to have disciplined kids is to have disciplined adults. If you are undisciplined, then there are probably issues within yourself that need to be addressed in order to be the most effective parent you can be.
November 10, 2005
Nighttime Routine
Usually I put my son to bed each night. He tends to stay in bed and fuss less when Daddy puts him to bed. Tonight, I put him in bed, sang a song to him, prayed for him, and I could tell that he was still too awake for me to walk away.
So I talked to him a bit. Nathan, did you have fun today?
"Yuh" he said.
Nathan is 2. He tends to speak in 4 or 5 word sentences, with a lot of space between each word. His pronunciation is good enough that his parents can usually understand him, but I think most everyone else would be puzzled.
I asked "Did you have fun at your BSF class?"
"Yuh" he said again, with a bit more enthusiasm.
"What did you learn?"
When he gets excited, he tends to be less deliberate about his pronunciation, and it is much more difficult to understand him. He also tends to leave out the pauses between words.
"Ammals, uh budda ludda. wane kudder wud. labba lea fug. rumma sla fund." He got more and more exited. I had absolutely no idea what he was saying, but I listened quietly as if I understood. "wan died fasa. Mout ain wad." he continued unintelligibly.
Then, as clear as can be he said "God gave rainbow"
He, my wife, and my daughter are all studying the same verses each week, so I know that he totally gets it. Genesis 9:1-17
October 25, 2005
Cheap entertianment becomes very expensive
For the last several months, I have been taking my kids to the local general aviation airport to watch airplanes, takeoff, land, and to watch folks stop for their $100 dollar burgers. The kids love heckling the pilots who walk by with complements. "I like your blue airplane" and the like. It was cheap entertianment at it's best.
A few weeks ago, I started to become interested in flying. Now they have a Sport pilot certification that allows you to fly small airplanes with a lot less time investment than it takes to get a private pilot's license.
Even at half price, though, flying is a very expensive hobby.