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The most interesting Warren in the world
Tag Archives: Fun
Up North
A week or so ago, we went to PA to celebrate my Grandpa’s 98th birthday. That was fun and we got into all sorts of things…
We opened some late Christmas presents
We unloaded 3 tons of wood pellets for my parents’ pellet stove
Isaac even helped
but definitely needed a break!
We climbed trees
Played some football
Had a great party with Grandpa
There were leprechauns
We hunted Easter eggs…full of money!
We verified that Isaac is growing and hide-and-seek isn’t as easy as it used to be
So, although it wasn’t nearly as green up there, spring was about to hit and we had a really great time! When we stay home, we never seem to be able to do so many things on a weekend. We needed a break after the short vacation!
You’re welcome Landau
I just thought I would take a chance to tell Landau Eugene Murphy Jr that he is welcome. You see, he had the privilege of singing with my daughter on Friday night. I suspect it is a night he will never forget.
For those of you who don’t know Landau, he is a West Virginian who recently won the tv show, “America’s Got Talent” (Seriously, click the link and watch the video!) Abigail sings with the Appalachian Children’s Chorus and they had their annual benefit concert on Friday night. This event was a pretty important one because all of the money from the event benefits both the ACC and the Children’s Home Society of West Virginia, an organization that takes care of and helps place children no longer living with their biological parents.
The Clay Center in Charleston was pretty much packed on Friday night and we were not disappointed. Landau got to sing a few songs with the ACC which was so cool. Oh yeah, he sang a lot on his own too. He’s really a great performer. He sort of became famous for his dreadlocks and his perfect crooner voice. As Howie Mandel noted, what better way to bring back Frank Sinatra than with Landau’s look. I couldn’t agree more. I think he is equally or maybe more talented singing Motown though. He has a great deep voice that is a delight to hear.
More importantly though, he is a really sweet spirit. Before winning the show, he worked as a car washer in a coal town in WV. In his spare time, even then, he worked with the Children’s Home Society to share music with the kids in their care. This concert was a perfect opportunity for him to broaden that work and bring more attention to those children.
He is funny and uses physical humor like a pro. Maybe someday he will have the opportunity to sing with Abigail again. I am pretty sure she would be delighted!
Well here it is January already
Where did December go? Wait…what? It’s the end of February? What happened to winter? Who cares?! I love a non-winter! But where did all of the time go? I have been lax in posting on here because it seems like we aren’t doing anything interesting…I guess that’s because we are so busy doing things!
Indoor soccer continues to rage so weekends are taken up with that. Work has been wild with no near hope of slowing down. I haven’t been to the place in the country for awhile…at least not to work on the house.
Ah yes, that brings me to something we did do. Isaac and I went out in the woods last weekend to do some ballistics testing…for science of course. We mainly wanted to see if gunpowder would still propel a bullet out the end of a gun. Folks, I am pleased to report that gun powder still works! In my last post, I promised that we would delve into the maths in this post.
Now I know that math freaks a lot of people out. As I do computer programming for a living, I guess I have grown accustomed to it so I often do not think of how other people think about the maths. Friends, I hope you will bear with this discussion on the topic. As part of our testing, we discovered that the gun powder worked 100% of the time. Many of the bullets obviously had anomalies though as not all of the bullets made it from the muzzle of the gun to the target as they should have. I cannot find any explanation other than bullet defects. I am going to use a technical term here but we hit the target “most” of the time. It’s hard to quantify “most” so lets’ call that the mystery of math.
Anyhow, back to ciphering…we enjoyed 100% of our time shooting 228 bullets from 3 separate firearms. The maximum number of bullets we shot in a single volley was 19. The minimum was 19 also (it is so much fun emptying a clip all at once…why would you ever shoot less than the max?!)
Dear friends, it seems that the maths aren’t too hard when it comes to target practice. I am apparently suffering from being unable to count the months. I am not sure if there is a cure…besides maybe more target shooting…
Apple of my eye
I got a camera quite awhile ago (the beginning of December) and have tinkered some with it but never bothered to read the manual. Having a full male chromosome set, that should surprise no one I suppose. I had a thing I had to do for work that required a few pictures which were turning out terribly and I was sure it was because of the settings I was using. The camera is supposedly decent (and it had better be for the price I paid) so I knew it was capable of taking ok pictures.
After I found the manual holding up the table leg in the basement craft area, I discovered that I was in fact using improper settings. I also discovered that I could take macro pictures. I also learned that many cameras have a macro setting (it’s the picture of the flower on the settings dial) that really takes nice close-up pictures. It may not be as nice as a true macro lens on a fancy camera but I was pretty happy with the discovery nonetheless!
These views don’t really do the pics justice…click on each of them for the larger view…I was sort of blown away!
An Elizabethan collar?
We are all about the fashion here, so when Isaac donned the dog collar, I knew we had an opportunity to change the fashion world forever. Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce to you the newest in preteen fashion – the Elizabethan collar! Believe it or not, this collar has been missing in our house somehow. Of course, we are also missing Isaac’s cell phone and socks…many many socks. Anyhow, Isaac found the dog collar so there is yet hope for his phone.
How, you might ask, are the pre-teens wearing these new fangled things? Behold:
This boy is so cool! He didn’t mind showing off and had a lot of fun doing it. Isaac means laughter according to the books that make up meanings for names. He really lives that part too. He’s a great kid and so clever and fun! Sometimes I wonder if he will get into the teenage angst junk and stop having fun with the family. I hope not. I know there is a certain amount of that coming but hopefully we will all get through it just fine. And heck, if he gets too big for his britches, I can always break out these pics and remind him of when he was just a pup! How much are those invisible dog fences again?
The 24th
Here it is, the day before Christmas! We trimmed our tree about a week or so ago. We have been listening to Christmas music since Thanksgiving and all of our presents were purchased online and delivered a week or more ago. So, what does that leave us to do on Christmas Eve? Clean of course! Santa won’t come to a messy house! Let’s see, we also had a big fight and we baked Noah’s Ark Christmas cookies. It’s pretty typical Christmas Eve fare for us.
Wait, what? It all sounds familiar except the Noah’s Ark cookies. Doesn’t everyone do Noah’s Ark at Christmas? Ever since we lost all of our typical Christmas cookie cutters, we have gone with Noah’s Ark. Santa really loves sugar cookies and especially if they are covered in super thick, rich sugary icing (yeah, he told me exactly how he likes them so I can relay that to Abigail, our decorator). Emily and Abigail mixed up the dough this morning while I went on an egg nog run. Emily, Abigail and I cut out and baked the cookies and Abigail has decorated them. She is such a trooper. Isaac is more of a bum but I am sure that he supported us in spirit anyhow. It’s hard to say as he is up in his bedroom trying to escape our over-the-top rendition of White Christmas.
Anyhow, it’s such a pleasant and sunny day that it is hard to get into a proper Christmas spirit in the usual way. Instead, we are doing our best to get all of our family traditions in a row so the kids will have proper discussion for their therapy sessions when they are adults. They might as well get their money’s worth, right? Merry Christmas and happy Noah’s Ark day!
Healthy Coke
So when I am feeling all romantic and stuff, I take Emily to the Club to eat…Sam’s Club that is. You see, I can buy 2 gigantic slices of pizza and two gallons of drink for something like $2.79. We usually take an after dinner stroll around the…rice and beans aisle and just generally check things out. Some stuff we just pick up regardless of whether we need it. Stuff like brown sugar, canned peaches and tube socks. Can you ever have too many tube socks? No, I think not. I just love the smell of brown sugar too. If they made brown sugar cologne, I would wear it and I don’t do cologne.
Anyhow, I have a few vices, mostly centering around sugar and sweet stuff. I like pop and sugary candy in a bad way. I guess I only drink 1 pop per day but I would live on it if I thought I could. Corn syrup sucks, I know. It’s in everything though. Heck, it’s even in new car tires. So, when we wander around in the Club, sometimes we ponder life and the future and stuff and I lament the tragedy that is corn syrup and how it is shortening my life. As we toured around one time, we noticed bottles of Coke…glass bottles. It caught my attention because I fondly remember walking after school to my Mom’s office in the court house in my hometown.
They had an ancient pop machine on the first floor that sold $.25 pop in returnable bottles and I loved drinking straight from the bottle. So, I checked out the Cokes in the Club…and then I saw the price…24 bottles for $19! Back in the courthouse, I could get those same bottles, already refrigerated for $6! Emily was quick to remind me that my pop machine memory was from 30 years ago. I guess inflation happens. Still, it seemed silly until I considered the price I pay for corn-syrup filled pops at the gas station in the morning. The bottles of Coke at the Club are the famous Mexican Cokes made with pure sugar – healthy Cokes, right?
We scooped up a case of the Healthy Cokes and Isaac and I have been having one a day for…well, the last 11 days. Yes, dear friends, there are only 2 left. It looks like it’s about time to take my lady back on another date to the Club. Only the finest for my woman!
By the way, sorry about all of the pictures…I was feeling so healthy that I just got a little carried away with the camera apps on my phone…
Product placements
My parents and brother and sister-in-law came into town this weekend to watch the kids play soccer and to help us work some on the deluxe shed. We pretty much finished up the sub-floor before the visit so my goal for this weekend was to get some walls built…and that we did!
As we always do, we loaded up the van with the generator and all of our tools, drove to our place and unload them once again (I can’t wait to be able to leave some stuff up there!) I didn’t notice it at the time but in looking over the pics, many of which my Mom took, I noticed that we were like a product placement extravaganza! See how many different brand name/logo shots you see in these pics…it is like we were setting it up!
Anyhow, my brother brought a propane framing nailer and it was amazing! I have never used such a beast before, but basically, it is a cordless nail-driving machine. With a regular hammer, it takes, I don’t know, 5 seconds to drive a nail, another few to get the next nail and set it, etc Each nail and swing of a hammer takes a lot of energy so things go slower with each nail one drives. This nailer drives maybe 5 nails a second and I never got tired. Incredible!
So, we discovered another crazy thing as we all worked away. It looks like a cow must have gotten loose in the neighborhood. The prints were from a hooved animal but they were far too big to be a deer. It looked more along the lines of what I expect an elk print would be, size-wise but I don’t think there are any elk around here.
In addition to getting a lot of work done, we got to goof around together which was nice too. We talked about a little bit of everything and nothing is better than working on a common goal! We also got to see, once again, just how beautiful our WV mountains really are. The leaves are coming along nicely and will probably be at their peak next weekend. I couldn’t take a picture that did it justice but it’s just amazing!
See all of the progress on the cabin
The only reason I go there
There are many places I go to that really only have one draw. If not for one or two things, I would never go there. I am sure we all have those sorts of places. In recent experience, two places in particular come to mind.
Walmart used to be a fun place to go and look at the latest and greatest stuff I would break and throw out in the next few months. I enjoyed looking at people and buying donuts or a bargain movie. Lately when I go, however, I feel like I am in a Mad Max movie, only with long lines and even worse personal hygiene. Walking through the parking lot really is dangerous now too. In frustration, I guess, folks whip around illegally parked cars and older folks in electric scooters and put everyone at risk. Cutting across lanes and general craziness make me hesitant to get near the place.
Sometimes, though, I have to go to Walmart. We need this or that and the only place that has it is Walmart. I have found a new stress-less way to get through. I stroll past the lines that stretch for miles, find my item and then head for the ammo counter. I own guns and like to shoot so buying ammo to plink at targets is fun anyhow. I don’t like when folks check out at specialty counters if they are not buying items from that area so I always feel obligated. Doggone it, I hate to buy ammo for my plinking habit, but in the interest of preserving check-out etiquette, I always buy a box of some ammo.
Emily needed a Valentine’s day gift last year, she got a frying pan and a box of ammo. Kids need notebook paper, they get a bonus box of ammo. I need a box of ammo, I get a bonus one to go with it! See, it’s perfect!
Ok, so the other place like the ammo counter is the ball park. Ever since my time as a little leaguer, I have hated baseball. Really, I didn’t hate baseball until the one year when a preacher in town was the coach. By association, I learned to hate baseball. So, last night, my company went to the local minor league park and we all watched a baseball game. The WV Power played some other team. “We” lost so I don’t’ even care who it was. Come to think of it, I don’t care even if “we” would have won. Anyhow, back to the story. Abigail and I went to the game and we both had the same mindset. We went to the game for the junk food…nothing else. She had a hotdog and Dippin’ Dots and I had nachos and vinegar fries…and a half-gallon of Mt Dew. When the food ran out, our patience did too. We hung around awhile but 5 innings was all we could take! The only reason I go to a baseball game is for fries with vinegar or a box of nachos. If they had an ammo counter there….
I guess everyone has places that the go to that are less than awesome. I just like to find things to make my time there bearable, if not pleasant. And with ammo or nachos as a reward, I have found much patience…