Tag: thomas

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Vital Statistics

Lower deck finished

Bike miles in 2022: 0

Aches & pains: sciatica, right shoulder, left knee

Current reading: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

Recent listening: Talking Heads, Making Sense with Sam Harris, Very Bad Wizards

Recent viewing: Air Disasters, Call the Midwife, Seinfeld, Five Days at Memorial, The Patient

Recent playing: Wordle, Quordle, Duotrigirdle

Recent events: Columbia River Gorge adventure, annual birthday party, first public performance, Thomas visited, new glasses (goggles)

Visited family in Iowa, Graham & Kate got engaged, several family members got Covid

Recently accomplished: Finished replacing lower deck, fixed ice maker, cleaned shed roof, carpet cleaning

Imperative To Do: Fix the Spector, fall lawn care, clean the gutters, paint touch-ups

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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: n/a

Aches & pains: right shoulder

Current reading: Getting Things Done

Recent listening: Kendrick Lamar, NWA, Childish Gambino, Reel Big Fish, Bill Frisell, Oasis, Greta Van Fleet, Led Zeppelin, Genesis

Recent viewing: Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Safe, The Pixar Story, Cooked, White Right: Meeting the Enemy, The Ritual, Disenchantment, BoJack Horseman, SNL, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Goldbergs

Recent playing: Bloons 6

Recent events: Presidents weekend in San Francisco with Thomas, PDX Jazz festival, snow in Portland

Recently accomplished: House cleaning, bought robot vacuum, filing reorganization, turned compost, bought dress shirt

Imperative To Do: Ride bike again, read more, exercise, file 2018 taxes, find wedding rings, FSA documentation

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Vital Statistics

Aches & pains: jaw muscle (healing after mouth infection)

Current reading: The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons

Recent listening: Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Townes Van Zandt, Blaze Foley, Shadows in the Night by Dylan, The Magnolia Electric Co., re: Bach by Lara St. John, Hozier, Little Big Music, Gris-Gris by Dr. John, AM by Arctic Monkeys

Recent viewing: The Tonight Show, Grimm, Parks & Recreation, SNL40, The Daily Show, Scandal, Resurrection, Inside Amy Schumer, Duct Tape Messiah, The Nightly Show, Marco Polo, 30 Days, The Bletchley Circle, QI

Recent playing: Kingdom Rush Frontiers

Recently accomplished: Cleaned laser printer kopen, started van, paid bills, server maintenance, spam cleanup

Imperative To Do: Contact Social Security, turn compost, fix blog CSS, send bike to Thomas

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Page 2: In Which I Explain My Life To The Class of 1985

I’ve been in Portland since 1990 after a short detour to San Diego after graduating from Wartburg. I met and married my wife, Tina, in 1992. We have two awesome boys who dictate how we spend most of our time. Both are very active in Boy Scout Troop 820 (troop820.org) and both play the double bass in the school orchestra after converting from the cello.

Graham is a nerd of the first order and thinks I’m the coolest nerd on the planet. He loves to play video games on our Xbox and Wii but is enthusiastic in almost everything he does — even when I enlist his help in yard chores. Since he was a baby we have known that he is strong-willed and joyous. He’s also very intelligent and somewhat arrogant about that fact, regarding it as a fact of life that he’s smarter than everyone else. I’m trying to work that out of him.

Thomas is more reserved than Graham and less likely to risk looking uncool. A year ago I helped him buy his first electric bass. Since then he has learned to play all of his favorite sons and a few “classics” that I asked him to learn. He can also has pick up Tina or my guitar and play them much better than either of us. In many ways he’s very much like I was at that age: long hair, quiet except with friends, stubborn and often inconsiderate. He’s also very smart but not always willing to work hard for great grades.

Continue reading “Page 2: In Which I Explain My Life To The Class of 1985”

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The moon is in a phase and I guess that I am too

Last night Graham and Thomas had their final orchestra concert of the year. In anticipation of the event, several months ago I invited my mother to visit us at this time so that she could attend. Graham’s fourth grade orchestra was the first to play and they did a very nice job of showing how much they had improved during the year. After they took their bow, they all started off stage to make room for the fifth grade orchestra. As Graham stood near the edge of the stage waiting for the rest of the kids to move, he chatted and laughed with his nearby friends. I looked away for a second to talk to Tina and then we heard a crash in front of the stage followed by a gasp from the audience. Somebody fell. Tina asked, “Who fell?” Scanning the group near the commotion, I realized Graham was no longer on stage. “It’s Graham!” I told her as she stood and then rushed down the stairs to the stage.

Continue reading “The moon is in a phase and I guess that I am too”

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She scratches a letter into a wall made of stone

The boys have been on Spring Break since the middle of the week before last. Thomas had a tremendous amount of homework for his reading class that he needed to catch up on. Some of that was from the week he missed while out sick but most of it was not. He’s supposed to read for 20 minutes a night and then spend 10 minutes filling out a little form about what he read. He has to do those six times a week and was behind seven weeks for a total of 42 reading logs. Because of that, he was also a bit behind in math and social studies. Thus, Thomas has spent most of his spring break doing homework.

I picked up Halo 2 from Half.com for $10 a couple of weeks ago. Since then the boys and I have been enjoying it tremendously. After Graham finished it, he asked me for my Halo 1 disc for Mac which he finished a few days later. Nothing brings a family together quite like killing aliens.

As a reward for finishing all his homework, we took Thomas to Best Buy last night and bought Halo 3 for him. Tonight he’s celebrating with his friends Ziad and Gabe by playing Rock Band and Halo 3 on our Xbox. They are quite raucous but they will hopefully quiet down as the night progresses.

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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 2523
Van odometer: 154556
Aches & pains: miniature frost bite on my elbow (turned black), back in spasm for 3 days
Current reading: My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk, Cross-platform GUI Programming with wxWidgets
Recent listening: Coverville, Live from Austin, TX by Neko Case, The 99 Most Essential Beethoven Masterpieces, Weird Al Yankovic, Final Boss by MC Frontalot
Recent viewing: The Thing, The Tick, Numbers, Coraline, The Daily Show, Battlestar Galactica, This Week with George Stephanopolous, Meet the Press, Firefly, Welcome to Macintosh, Fringe, Confessions of a Superhero, Lost (Season 1)
Recent playing: Chain Factor, Galcon
Recently accomplished: Can recycling for Scouts, Coldplay tickets for Thomas, found outlet for Boy Scout can recycling, yard debris, Valentine’s Day plans, volunteered to be Troop 820 Treasurer, visited Evergreen Aerospace Museum
Imperative To Do: Freecycle, get rid of MacRenewal Macs, recover network functionality on old Tivo. Read their multimeter reviews for more information.