Today is Isaac’s birthday. I know all parents say this, but holy cow, wasn’t he just born yesterday?! He is growing into a wonderful young man and I am so very proud of how he is learning to carry himself, how he treats others (well, everyone but his sister) and how he sees the joy in life.
I can’t be happier to call Isaac my son! His start was terribly rough and I never dreamed how he could go from that beginning to the wonderful kid he is today. Happy birthday Isaac. I love you!
A few weeks ago, right before Thanksgiving, we had a paper airplane flying contest from the roof of our building. We have done this a few years now and I, of course, aways win. Well, I won this year anyhow! That may seem like a small feat (considering how awesome I am) but this year’s competition was stiff.
You see, it’s all about the rules. Here are the rules:
<crickets chirping>
Simple, see? It’s all about the rules. I had several entries (which is well within the rules…see above). One guy shot his plane from a paintball gun (and though appearing impressive, it can only be described as fail). One guy threw a box top as far as he could. Several folks had “engineered” planes and several had old fashioned detention-earning planes.
We set up a windsock so that participants could properly prepare for field conditions. Let me tell you, atop our building, it was windy! Anyhow, as usual, several planes ended up in the nearby trees while others crashed immediately into the building. Like a rocket, my plane (well, one of the four) just eased out of the gate and cruised onto an impressive victory…it was effortless!
So, I also produced some prizes for various categories as well. Windshield washer fluid went to the plane that cleaned up (except I could not give the prize to myself). The…uh…plane with the most fail got milkduds. The plane that opened up a can of whooping on others got matching pair of can openers. Not only do the planes make for a lot of fun, I also get to heap on a huge pile of trash-talk. Just as a precaution, I always stand back plenty far from the edge. I’d hate to think my fellow fliers might want to test the effects of gravity on the mouthy one of the bunch…
Dogs are easy, right. Every kid ought to have a dog so they can grow up properly. I had to be a good dad and get the kids a dog, right? Oh, we got a dog alright. It’s been a long time since I had a dog. When I was a kid, we had a couple of animals but my responsibilities related to the animals were minimal…I was a kid. Even, as an adult, I foolishly believed that my responsibilities from when I had dogs as a kid were the real extent of pet ownership. I have since then been properly educated…
Over the summer, I dug postholes all about my yard to put up a fence to allow Ginny to have space to play and do what dogs do (which I have since found out is poop). It was a big effort as I hand dug the holes and mixed concrete to hold the posts. It looks great and seems to finally have been made Ginny-proof. I next had to build Ginny a proper dog house. I had all sorts of lumber scraps and stuff laying around so Ginny has a first-class house that didn’t really cost me anything.
I have not weighed the house but I suspect it weighs as much as my car. Emily and I put insulation in the walls and ceiling and installed white siding so it will be the same color as our house. Ginny doesn’t like to stay inside all day so I figured I needed to give her a heat source in order to be safe this winter. We installed an outdoor light in the ceiling of her house and it keeps the space pretty nice for her. I measured the outside temperature at 29 the other day. Inside, after letting the bulb warm the space, the floor of her house was 44 and the ceiling area was much warmer.
Of course, for the light to work, I needed an outlet on the outside of the house. The one and only outlet was on the other side of the house so I had to drill a hole in my brick and run power from the laundry room through the wall. Without considering dog logic, I simply plugged an extension cord into the new plug and ran it to the light fixture in the ceiling of the doghouse. The first day we left her alone with her new place, she decided to take a bite out of the pretty orange cord running into her house. She got a jolt out of it I am sure. It wasn’t enough to hurt her badly…she only had a small spot on her lip. I wasn’t prepared to sacrifice another cord to see whether she learned her lesson though.
Being one to over-engineer whenever possible, I built an armoured cable to power her light. I haven’t seen evidence of her trying her luck on the new cord, but I am pretty sure it is bite-proof and will keep her safe and warm.
I don’t know about you, but this whole dog ownership thing seems pretty easy, right?
I got up at 4:3o am this morning. I don’t tend to do that often, but I had a ticket for Denver, CO. I travel out of state only a few times per year, so it’s a treat to see what’s going on elsewhere. I’ve never been to Denver so I was pretty excited but it is December and all…and I heard that Denver gets snow now and then. I left Charleston in the dark where it was 25 degrees max and the snow was blowing. Denver must be a real mess, if Charleston is so bad, right?
We finally made it into Denver (and I get the iron keister award I think) and I had to shed my heavy coat. Yeah, in WV it was cold and windy and snowy and in Denver it was 55 and sunny. Surely the end of the world is near…
The training starts tomorrow morning so I had a little time to spend roaming around the city. Denver has some really cool architecture and museums. I really wanted to stand on the steps of the state capitol so I could say I was exactly one mile above sea level. Let me tell you friends, it is every bit as exciting as it sounds…
After the capitol, I headed to the Denver Art Museum (it’s full of DAM art as they say). Anyhow, I walked up to the entry of the DAM which is a super cool building, by the way. Of course, the door showed that the place was closed on Mondays. Ugh. Foiled. Why on Earth would they close it on Mondays? Didn’t they know I was coming? Even when they are open, their hours stink so I guess they will have to go on without being able to say that I visited.
Well, since Denver is on Mountain time, and since I rarely see 4:30 am, I am sort of glad that the city closes early. So, what did I miss?
I was once a little kid. I had hopes. I had dreams. Well, I guess I still do. Anyhow, yesterday was my birthday and my wife, being a kind and benevolent wife, sought to fulfill one of my childhood dreams. I have wanted a pair of cowboy boots since I was in the 2nd grade. I loved the pointy toes and the fancy stitching and I especially liked boots made out of exotic and wild creatures. Boots were never terribly practical though, not being a cowboy.
Just so you don’t think I was deprived as a child, I’ll tell you another childhood dream that was fulfilled…I wanted calf-high green gumboots and by golly, I had green gumboots as a kid. I wore them all day, every day in school. But still, I longed for cowboy boots.
Fast forward 30-some years and we were driving around in Ripley, WV. We saw a sign that said something like, “Warren, buy cowboy boots here”…something like that. So, on one trip, Emily took me there to get me some boots for my birthday. I searched and searched and found that they basically had size 8 boots…that’s about it…only size 8. I wear size 10. I thought my dreams were about to be crushed as we stumbled out into the parking lot. I gazed across the valley and to what did my wondering eyes appear but a Tractor Supply store with a sign for John Deere.
Oh, I danced a little bit on the inside (as I never dance on the outside…not in public anyhow) and I skipped down the hill and across the highway to TSC. Well, not really, but in my bliss, I sort of forget the actual driving part. I walked in the and the only thing I saw was the boot section…they had sizes other than size 8! Emily claims I was as bad as shopping with a woman which is really pretty funny when you consider it. I tried on many boots and finally decided on a pair.
And just when I thought my life was complete, I spotted a Carhartt jacket on sale. Could my life get any better? I think not!
Ah, the old black and white got me again. It rained just under 2 inches in the last 24 hours. Sometime last night, the weather further delighted us with a dusting of snow…it’s the first sticking snow we’ve had this year around the house. I hate snow…have I ever said that before? Well, I do.
Of course, since we got Ginny, she likes to be outside as much as she can. Two inches of rain plus bare ground = muddy dog so we have been trying to keep her inside as much as possible. Until I can potty train her though, I will have to keep on going out when nature calls. Well, nature or the clatter of stray cats that congregate on our patio called a lot last night. She had to go out last night several times as Mother Nature delighted us. Did I ever tell you I hate snow? Well, I do.
Early in the evening, I took Ginny out with fully intact feet. Isaac and I went to taekwondo last night and did our thing, however. We practice kicks and forms and the usual stuff at TKD. At the end though, we get to “free fight”. As I have said before, it feels like a special sort of crazy to enjoy fighting and watching my kid fight, but it really is thrilling. Anyhow, we were free fighting and having a good time doing it. I usually have to fight black belts as they are mostly adults and despite my beginner status, by size alone it would not be fair to pair me with anyone under 16 or so. I think most of the black belts like it though, because I am able to really fight with them which gives them some semblance of a challenge.
Some friends of mine have mentioned that they could never do TKD because they felt like they would just get mad and go to town. I am certain that if one got out of control during TKD, the black belts would end it very quickly. They are good folks and are very skilled. All that is to say, they like to spar and get a workout and they like control.
So, I was fighting my favorite guy to fight last night and he told me to feel free to really go for it…so I did. I did a series of kicks, the last of which was aimed at his head. For that one, I had no intent of making contact (as that would probably end my evening), but he had to throw the block as if I were. TKD is done barefoot so his block + my bare foot swinging (at near light speed) ended in my having a black toe this morning. Have I mentioned I hate snow? Well, I do. I also hate black toes. Black and white are kicking my butt today!
So it’s been 24 days since I started to make the change…from handsome clean-shaven upstanding citizen Warren to bearded, Jacob the werewolf-like (def Team Jacob in our house), Adonis Warren. I can’t say that I really like the beard in most ways. It itches and tickles my nose (if I were actually ticklish, but that’s soft) and catches food that I’d rather see fall to the floor. It’s also 7 hairs grayer than it was last year. I guess I do enjoy the fact that my morning preparation time has gone from 9 minutes to 7 though. I am pretty sure that Emily brushes her teeth longer than it takes me to go from bed to out the door.
Some people just look better with a beard and some look better without. I can’t decide which way I look more awesome. I do know that when I am wrestling the kids, the beard is a great advantage though. If the kids have me pinned down, I can always drag this beard across their skin and they leap back as if a big hairy rat brushed against them. It’s a great weapon. Seph is drawn to the beard too. You may remember that Seph is the little orange kitten I found moments after being born. I hand-nursed him back to health and now he is a regular (though not normal) cat. But, you see, he never had a proper mom experience. He was never properly weaned or any of that. He still has issues with wanting to nurse on things…my beard included! Yeah, I am not too much into that. I’ll tell you though, it’s a sure way to make sure I wake up and get straight out of bed!
Well, regardless of how the Warrenizing of the beard goes, the most fun part comes when it is time to shave it all off…in sections. Of course, I’ll have pictures of the event proving I have no dignity whatsoever! Happy Thanksgiving!
Well, maybe it wasn’t quite the end of the world but sometime last night, my web server crashed. The whole computer didn’t die, just the actual program that is the web server. Did you know that’s how the web works? Individual machines run programs that receive requests for certain web pages. The web server program finds those pages and pushes the information back to the requester. My web server machine resides in my office at work. It’s pretty cool to manage my own system in a lot of ways…but not always.
Anyhow, my web server machine was fine but the program stopped for some reason. It’s not supposed to do that. It rarely does that. I was bummed that hundreds of spammers could not assault my machine all night long as I slept. I hate to let those folks down, but alas, software is fickle.
Well friends, the web server is back up and running so let’s hope the spammers can catch up to meet their quotas!
About a year ago I first disclosed my wife’s CDO (that’s OCD only in alphabetic order as it should be). She’s funny about a lot of things including the slots on the screws for switch covers. I think I bring something to the OCD table too though. I must have an even number of eggs in the egg carton and they must be distributed in a symmetric pattern in the carton.
Most mornings I cook eggs for Emily and Abigail. They usually each eat 2 eggs which works in nicely with my OCD needs. Sometimes, however, Emily will have used an odd number of eggs in something she cooks. On those days, Emily and Abigail split 5 eggs instead of 4. An odd number will not abide in my house!
It’s a little crazy but on odd eggs days, I will stop what I am doing and cook something to make it work. I cannot sleep until it is made right. Does anyone else share my egg issues? Do you have anything even remotely similar about which you obsess?
I got a wild hair on Sunday and decided to bake. It’s not often when I feel a deep need to bake, but it happened this weekend. I searched through stacks and stacks of newspaper clippings and cookbooks and websites…well, not really. I pretty much had a hankering for whoopee pies, an old favorite my Mom used to make. I am pretty sure Emily was taking a nap and the kids were doing…whatever it is that my kids do when their Dad is baking.
I cracked my Mom’s homemade cookbook and started adding ingredients. About half way through adding stuff into the mixing bowl, I discovered that I was actually making a peanut butter ball-whoopee pie hybrid. Being a food pacifist, I decided to press on man, you know, live and let live man…it’s all groovy man.
I just added a bunch more stuff to the bowl and pressed on through. Did you know that flour and cocoa and a Kitchen-Aid mixer can rocket clear to the ceiling? Anyhow, I got stuff all mixed up and baked and then Isaac and I shared the remains of the icing on the mixer and the bowl and the ceiling.
I was pretty so-so on them when they were warm but the next morning, yesterday morning, I ate more than one for breakfast. Now that, my friends is when they are good…and good for you too!
In case you feel a need to journey with me on my quest for health-less-ness, here’s the recipe:
Pies
1 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 cup sour milk plus 2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups flour
Mix together then add 1 cup of hot water. Daub big goopy spoonfuls onto a slightly greased baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes in a 400 deg oven.
Icing
2 egg whites – whipped (and beaten…and taunted)
2 Tbsp vanilla
4 Tbsp flour
4 Tbsp milk
1 cup powdered sugar
Mix and add 1 more cup powdered sugar and 3/4 cup shortening. Once the pies are cool, spread the icing between like sized pies and hide from your children! Oh yeah, cats seem to like them too…