Tag: graham

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It pours

Today’s lone news was going to be about fixing the long-plugged toilet in the boys’ bathroom with my new closet auger last night, but that pales in comparison to the news from this morning and this afternoon.

Tina’s mom cut off one of her fingers in a table-saw accident. She’s scheduled for surgery on another finger tomorrow or the next day. We may drive down to NM next week to visit them and help out.

Graham was suspended from school today. He and a football teammate received a half-day suspension for fighting during recess. Details are still forthcoming, but the suspension will be served tomorrow morning.

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When the rain comes

The rain has begun. It started about a week or two ago. After it starts, you lose all track of time of when it started and when it will end. Current forecasts have it clearing up sometime in June (that’s the old joke here). Some mornings when I get up I just can’t motivate myself to get on my bike clothes and voluntarily submit to a soaking. Most mornings, though, I can.

Saturday was another day of football. I dreaded spending five hours standing around in the wind, rain and cold, but only the rain showed up for the game. I discovered that my raincoat, which leaks a great deal when I’m on my bike, doesn’t leak at all when I’m standing around watching football. Other than the rain (and clouds), it was really quite nice out. The boys got to find out all about playing football in the mud. They both did really well again and had team pictures taken after their games.

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Fall Means Football

Yesterday I finally had the chance to attend a Saturday flag football double-header starring Thomas and Graham. The action started at around 10:30 in the morning on a perfect football day: brisk and sunny with the wind blowing very hard out of the east (as is normal for our position in The Gorge). So hard, in fact, that people’s chairs were being blown over and kids were chasing their lighter stuff all morning.

Graham’s game was first and resulted in a tie. This was the first time that they didn’t lose, so there was some improvement there. These little kids don’t understand most of the rules of football and do things like run the wrong way sometimes. Still, Graham is understanding the game much better and pulled his first three flags yesterday. He also returned the first kickoff the equivalent of about 60 yards on their shortened field. He really enjoyed himself, too, which is the important thing.

Thomas had practice almost immediately following Graham’s game and then a game after practice. Thomas is the biggest kid on his team and so gets to play on the line, in the middle on both offense and defense. I think he wishes that he could get his hands on the ball every once in awhile, so I tried to emphasize the importance of his position. At one point, the two big kids on the other team (who were both bigger than him) were double-teaming him to keep him from rushing. I explained to him how important this was but I’m not sure he understood. During the latter part of the game, though, he got two flags in a row and then took one to give the other team a big loss a short time later. He was very happy about that. And his team won big with three or four touchdowns to none over a team that had beaten them the previous week.

Here’s some oddities of flag football I found interesting:

  • There are no fumbles. Once the ball hits the ground, the play is ruled dead.
  • If the flag belt falls off the ball carrier, the game turns to tag football.
  • For the younger kids, the coach joins his team in the back field to coach them up close.
  • First downs happen at stationary points arranged every 20 yards on the field.
  • Teams must declare which action they will take on fourth down. If they choose to punt, the defense is not allowed to rush the punter.
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News

Thomas became interested in something called Pictochat Animation when he found some movies on YouTube that used the technique. Soon, he started drawing his own animations, which are essentially flip book animations that use the Pictochat feature on his Nintendo DS handheld game. He’s been working on an epic inspired by Star Wars, but it’s not ready quite yet. In the meantime, he commandeered my iSight and my computer to produce this animation in iMovie.

Tomorrow Thomas has two flag football games and Graham has one. Last week Thomas was sick, so we both missed his and Graham’s first games. Tomorrow I’ll miss them again since I’m helping Uncle Buddy move into his new house. Buddy is one of the rocks we have in Portland and we’d do anything for him, so I’m not too bothered to help.

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Vital Statistics

Two more Half.com gift certificates arrived after my birthday. Here’s the rest of the stuff I bought:

Thanks a bunch to Tom & Jan and Tina, Graham & Thomas. As I mentioned earlier Half.com has become my favorite semi-annual ritual.

Bike odometer: 220 miles
Weight lost: 32 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 7.2
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Portrait: The Music of Dan Fogelberg by Dan Fogelberg, DrugMusic, Humpy’s Soul Show, It’s The Jump Off
Recent viewing: Without A Trace, Mystery of the Megavolcano, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Installed memory in Graham’s computer
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, rake, install new hard drive for Thomas, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store
Cool Link: Kittens: Pictures taken by a man in Taiwan who rescues street cats before the government collects and “disposes” of them.

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Vital Statistics

Graham got an extremely late birthday present today – I finally got around to wiring his bedroom for the internet. I did manage to get him a new computer on his birthday, but many weekends have passed since where I have promised him that I would get it installed but never found the time. He’s been understanding the whole time. Last night I told him that we could do it today if he would help and he was very excited to do it. His most important part involved traversing the crawl space from Thomas’ room (where the “hatch” is) to our room and back. There are several pipes and heating ducts in the way that make it very difficult for me to do it. When I wired Thomas’ room about five years ago, it probably took me an hour to make my way to our bedroom and back to Thomas’ room. This afternoon it took Graham about three minutes to do the same thing. Probably half of that time as me explaining to him where he needed to go. He was my Briar Rabbit today. Anyway, we got it all done and Graham is very excited to have iChat and his own computer for playing internet games.

After my first night with the CPAP, things have gone down hill. The chin restraint keeps my mouth from flying wide open, but my lips still open a tiny bit during REM sleep. This produces a hissing sound that makes Tina think that her ocean-sound alarm is going off. No, it’s just me so she rolls over and taps me on the lip so I close my mouth again. After the first morning of that (I usually go into REMs at around 4:00 am), I adjusted slightly and have since been getting the “chipmunk cheeks”. The valve (for lack of a better word) in my throat opens and air rushes into my mouth puffing up my cheeks. This wakes me enough to close the valve and go back to sleep. However, it’s not making for very good sleep and I’ve had a couple mornings where I slept past 10 hours. On Friday Tina and I saw my sleep doctor and he said to be patient with it. I go back to see him in 6 weeks and take my CPAP in for evaluation (it also records sleep data) in 4 weeks. If it’s not better by then, I’m going to insist on getting fitted for a nose-and-mouth mask.

I think I’ve noticed more motivation in myself on the weekends lately. It’s probably related to the weight loss I’ve had since Tina and I started South Beach about 6 weeks ago. But the whole sleep diagnostic experience has also made me more hopeful about my life in general, I think. I can’t tell you how great it feels to wake up after 8 hours of sleep and be completely rested. I’m looking forward to when every day is like that.

Bike odometer: n/a
Current reading: The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell by John Crawford, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Humpy’s Soul Show, The Jumpoff, Dave Allen’s Neighborhood (all available here)
Recent viewing: Pee Wee’s Playhouse, Ed vs. Spencer, Countdown
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Installed network in Graham’s room, new music for Tina
Imperative To Do: Labels for my sister’s CDs, test drive new bike seats, bank
Cool Link: Spam: An excellent gift for a 40th birthday (the variety pack would be awesome!)

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Vital Statistics

On Monday, we celebrated the holiday with a day trip into the Columbia River Gorge via the scenic Columbia River Highway. In the morning, we played 10 holes of disc golf at Dabney State Park, fulfilling a promise I made to Graham way back in July. We skipped the final 8 holes to play in the Sandy River for a few minutes before continuing on to Crown Point and then Bridal Veil Falls.

At Bridal Veil, we had a delicious picnic lunch before embarking on the 2/3-mile hike from the parking lot to the falls. Halfway down the steep, gravel-covered switchback trail, Tina fell flat on her ass and declined to continue, preferring to wait on a nearby bench for the boys and I to return. Yesterday, the doctor told her she had sprained her back and her ankle. We’ll know if she broke bones in her hand when the x-rays come back.

We endured stop-and-go traffic on Interstate 84 on the way home but that barely diminished the great day I had driving the new Scion around the twists and turns of the winding CRH. I really love driving a stick shift. Except in stop-and-go traffic. Fortunately, the range of second gear on the Scion is pretty wide so it wasn’t that bad. The source of the traffic jam turned out to be a car that had rolled off the back of a truck.

Yesterday morning, I dragged myself out of bed so I could be fitted with a CPAP machine, nasal mask and chin restraint. I was also instructed on the care and maintenance of the equipment, which is much more elaborate than I had suspected. Last night was my first night using the CPAP and it went pretty well. I think my mouth opened at about 4:00 am (Tina reported the time), but I awoke without my alarm feeling quite rested after 8 hours of sleep. I’ll let you know how future nights go.

Today was the first day of school for our boys. They were both excited and happy to return to it. Thomas is in fifth grade and Graham is in a second/third grade split class. This is Thomas’ last year at Margaret Scott. Graham’s teacher this year is one Thomas had in second grade.

Bike odometer: 118 miles
Current reading: The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell by John Crawford, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Spillane by John Zorn, Coverville
Recent viewing: Thief, Sportscenter, Pee Wee’s Playhouse
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Cleared blackberry patch on the blind side of the house (with Graham’s help)
Imperative To Do: Install network in Graham’s room, labels for my sister’s CDs, test drive new bike seats, bank
Cool Video: When Spam Attacks by my friend, Rob Marquardt

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Vital Statistics

I sold my truck on Thursday night. Tina has a friend, Robert, who has a nephew who wanted to fix it up and resell it. When he showed the conversation went like this:

He: How much are you asking?
Me: Fifty bucks.
He: Will you take forty?
Me: (rolling eyes and laughing) Yes.

I hadn’t been in the truck for quite some time so I was surprised how familiar it smelled when I sat in it the last time to start it (with a jump from the van). I suppose I’ll miss it but our last few years together were rocky. It’s probably better we go our separate ways.

According to MPG, an auto tracking program I’ve used for most of the time I had the truck, my total vehicle cost (including gas) was around $7500. I purchased it in the fall of 1995, when Tina was pregnant with Thomas. I drove it about 80,000 miles in the twelve years since. It ran better on “Plus”. It leaked a little oil and the transmission would get cranky when it was low on fluid. I bought a case of each just for the truck. The cab was always messy but it was perfectly functional and had everything I needed for truck use: tie-downs, rope, chains. It had a pretty cool cassette deck with an iPod jack that Tina got me one year at Costco. I pulled it out before selling it, but I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I had to slide the seat all the way back when I drove. The seat back wouldn’t fold forward when the seat was all the way back though. The truck came with a locking gas cap. Someone broke the key once and I had to replace it. Eventually, I replaced it again with a non-locking cap because it was such a pain in the ass to explain to the station attendants here how it worked. Nobody stole my gas after that. I’ve driven that truck to four different jobs over the years and hauled many loads of yard debris and junk. I guess I will miss it.

Bike odometer: 111 miles
Current reading: The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell by John Crawford, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Spillane by John Zorn, Grace by Jeff Buckley, One Hot Minute by Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Decemberists
Recent viewing: 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, Late Night with David Letterman
Recent playing: Zuma, poker
Recently accomplished: Sold truck, recycling, grocery shopping, sprayed the driveway weeds
Imperative To Do: Install network in Graham’s room, labels for my sister’s CDs, fix Newton server, kill and pull weeds
Cool Video: Colbert and Stewart at the Emmy Awards (“Good evening, godless Sodomites”)

 

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Vital Statistics

I rode all the way to work this morning – all 14 miles. It’s the first time in over a year and I felt pretty good. Well, except for my sore butt.

Bike odometer: 108 miles
Current reading: The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell by John Crawford, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: DrugMusic, John Prine, Taking The Long Way by Dixie Chicks, Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Running On Empty by Jackson Browne
Recent viewing: FIBA Quarterfinals, The 4400, The Colbert Report
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Finally reached beta on one project at work and GM on the other, paid bills
Imperative To Do: Install network in Graham’s room, sell truck, labels for my sister’s CDs, fix Newton server, kill and pull weeds
Cool Link: Keith Olbermann Responds To Rumsfeld (click on one of the video links to watch)

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Vital Statistics

My friend, Don Fitzgerald, helped me construct a bench on Saturday to reinforce the sagging rail on my deck. The bench turned out great and now the rail is rock-solid. Don was proud that we only had 4 scraps of wood left when we were done.

I’ve got some pictures from the sleep clinic that I’m sorting through. I’ll have those up some time this week.

Bike odometer: 82 miles
Current reading: The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: NPR Story of the Day, Science Friday
Recent viewing: Brainiac, 2006 World Series of Poker, Monk, FIBA Championships, Emmy Awards
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Finished Zuma, built a bench on our deck, deck maintenance, cleaned up the work bench in the garage, cleaned and lubed bike, paid bills, helped Thomas design a Lego steering mechanism
Imperative To Do: Install network in Graham’s room, labels for my sister’s CDs, pay bills, fix Newton server, kill and pull weeds, design a better steering mechanism
Cool Link: Why not impeachment? by Bill Maher