It Goes On and On

So, hello internetians. Been awhile, huh? I must say, things have been happening, I just have been negligent in posting such happenings to the world. Some of it I can't speak of to much due to possible impending litigation, but I will say this: Some people deserved to be kicked right in the ear. Very hard in the ear. Moving on to less secrety topics. . .

Big T had his first Raingutter Regatta this past weekend, in the rain. The person checking in the boats remarked that he'd never seen a modified boat before. Which makes me more certain than ever that the people in this pack don't know how to properly utilize this newfangled contraption called the interwebs. We found T's design on a scout site and set out to make it, as he felt it looked, "cool". See below:

The other Wolf in his den helpfully hid his face from the image, 

but you can see the 'regular' boat in his hand.

It seemed that others had never thought to apply the 'catamaran' style to the boats that are handed out. Or it was against the rules that nobody told us about. But I'm thinking it's less the second one, because nobody but the Webelos that Big T destroyed in the races complained. And yes, I am den leader of a two scout den. We had three but one of them quit. Which really is fine, because he didn't really want to be there anyway.

Also, in the fun stuff land of information. I went to SF two weekends in a row, which is huge for me, because I really, really don't like going to the city. (Go TEXAS!!) But the first weekend we went for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and saw Randy Newman, Rosanne Cash, and my new fav band, The Avett Brothers. It was fun and horrible all at the same time. The music and the artists were great, but I felt like I was trudging through a homeless encampment most of the day. Way to many poser hippies there. Also a drunk, probably homeless guy wanted to fight me because he ran into the wagon I was pulling with our stuff in it, and I wouldn't give him a beer to apologize. Also, I didn't apologize anyway, if you don't see the giant red wagon with coolers and chairs in it, and you run into it? You deserve the little scrape on your ankle.

The second week was for Fleet Week, and this time we got to see the Blue Angels fly because the fog didn't come in and ruin everything. Of course, the kids could have not been less impressed by that, but I thought it was cool still. Everytime I saw them flying over the Golden Gate towards show center, I thought of 'The Rock' when they dropped the napalm on the island and blew up Alcatraz. Yes, I may have a bit of geek in me, but so what, that movie still kicks ass.

Anyway, things just keep on a-rollin' along. The web jobs are coming in a little more frequently now, so that's nice, always good to have a little extra cash. Even though not much of it is extra. These two kids are going through some clothes. At first I thought it was great to have their birthdays only 5 days apart, but now it's starting to hit me that they both run through their clothes at the same time due to their growth spurts being coordinated. And right now, they both need a lot of pants. Which for Big T isn't that big a deal. If they fit, he loves them. But Little E is 4, and she's a girl, and she's getting picky. I guess you gots to look good in preschool.

So that's it for now, I'll see you guys shortly after Halloween to show off the pics of Indiana Jones and Supergirl. Little E will be Supergirl.

The Perfect Space

Big T started school today, grade number two. He did great, no tears, no crazy nervous behavior. All went well. It was great. We also went to the Ports game for Scout night this past Friday and it was also great. Great being the word that I shall continue to use to describe how things were. Great.

Big T getting ready to spend the night at Banner Island Ballpark with his ever present Black Puppy. Black Puppy is the name of the dog. It's a great name, don't you think?

Our tent in the outfield. Big T picked the spot so he could watch the movie that was shown on the big screen while lying in his sleeping bag in the tent. It was a pretty great spot.

The shantytown the morning after. You'll notice some of the scouts just laid their bags on a tarp and slept under the stars. It was a beautiful night and didn't get too cold, which was great, so it probably wouldn't have been that bad without the tent.

It was a great night and the Ports destroyed the Jethawks 13-1. Unfortunately the high score and post-game fireworks meant that I didn't get the tent set up and Big T in there until almost midnight. So I didn't fall asleep until around 1am, then woke up at 6 and started driving home at 7. I've been tired since then. While we were at the game we took a little stroll around the park and Big T wanted to hit in the cages they have there. So while we were waiting in line, a foul ball landed almost exactly where our seats were. Big T's den leader, who was sitting in the row in front of us, was able to get his hand on it, but couldn't haul it in.

So all in all, if you ever get a chance to sleep out on a ball field, I'd highly recommend it. It's a great time.

Holiday Road

So that idea to have weekly blog posts has turned into a month since the last one. Pretty close, I say. The kids finished their swim lessons, and Big T has turned into quite a little fish. He's doing much better than I thought he would. Little E can also swim enough to get herself to the side of the pool if she falls in, which is the goal that I had set for them, but she doesn't have the form that her big brother does. She looks more like a poodle going along, all you can see is the top of her head and her face and it sort of bobs as she creates a typhoon just under the surface to keep herself going.

They were able to finish their lessons with enough skill that they got to swim around in Lake Tahoe and Donner a lot more than they would have otherwise. They also got to go on their first boat ride, which was a thrill for them, as that's the best part of our trips to Bass Pro Shops. Pretending to ride in the boats. Unfortunately, the hours that my brother had reserved the boat for were from 12-2 on Donner. You wouldn't think that it would rain in the end of July, but then, you haven't been on vacation with me either. I have this uncanny ability to pick days during the summer when it will rain, usually the only days during the summer when it rains. This particular trip, we picked the only 30 minutes it rained. It started just after 12 and the kids were in the boat and we had to cover them with their towels and put their goggles on, so they could see, and for 15 minutes we drove them around in the freezing, pelting rain until they'd had enough. We turned the boat back in and went back to the cabin my brothers girlfriends grandparents have, and 5 minutes after we got back there the sun came out and it was beautiful. So they missed their boat trip, but still had a good time.


We went to a Stockton Ports game not that long ago and Big T had the honor of receiving two baseballs. The first one, he just got for being adorable and a little boy with a glove at the game, as the pitching coach for the Modesto Nuts was walking his pitcher back to the dugout before the game, he took a ball out his back pocket and handed it to my son. So awesome, game hasn't started and he's already thrilled beyond words because he got a ball. Then later on in the game, while my wife was taking Little E on a walk around the park, The third baseman came over near us and caught a foul pop for the third out of the inning, looked over at Big T and gave him the ball. It's amazing really, I've been going to games for as long as I can remember and I've never got a ball. My 7-year-old son has now got 3. And 2 at one game. It's just crazy. We're heading back again next Friday for the Scout sleepover. He now attends games expecting to get a ball, I don't know what he'll do if he doesn't get one.

And last for this little post, I finished filming my starring role in the upcoming Brad Pitt film, "Moneyball". Well, more accurately, I finished filming my overnight role in the film. Okay, so really me and my cousin were unpaid extras in the stands during one of the sessions of filming the movie. But Brad Pitt was there with some of his kids, I don't know which ones. Jonah Hill was there and did a mini-routine that was pretty funny. The night we were there, 10:30 pm to 5:30 am, they were filming the scene where Scott Hatteberg hit a walk-off homer to win the 20th straight game from 2002. It was a lot of fun to see it re-enacted since I remember watching that game on TV. So now I can say I was there. According to the director, we will be CGIed so we fill the stadium. There were around 300 of us there, so in the movie I should show up 40-50 times. So make sure to go see the movie and watch for me. I'm the one in the white hat with a green bill. And the A's jacket. The other bonus for doing that is that I got free tickets to attend the A's game on my birthday, and got to see Cahill pitch his first career complete game shutout. It was a good one.

Car Trouble

We had ourselves a pretty big weekend. My mother-in-law turned 60, so I got to go hang out at my wife's sister's house. It wasn't so bad after a few Longboards. They set up the old Super8 projector and were watching old home movies, so that was awesome for me. The kids got to swim for a while in the doughboy in their backyard and play the Wii and watch Toy Story 2 and get ice cream cake, so it was a great party for them.

They have now completed one week of swim lessons and are going to be starting their second and final week of this session today. Big T may just be able to swim by Thursday, according to the teacher. Little E, probably not. But then, she's only 4 and this is her first time trying, so maybe a couple more lessons and she'll be okay. Just have to wait and see. It's frustrating for me, because I want them to be better faster, and I'll watch them in there with the teacher, and they're fooling around and being goofy, and I want them serious and focused because they're only getting 25 minutes sessions 8 times. Less than four hours of lessons to make them swim and they're not progressing at the pace that I'd like them to. I will say that Big T is much farther along than I thought he would be as he's dunking his head for a long time and really enjoys those diving rings that sit on the bottom of the pool. He loves trying to pick those up.

In other exciting news, Big T Finally lost his first tooth!! It took over seven years, but it finally happened. He was crazy excited about it and couldn't wait for the tooth fairy to come, and come the tooth fairy did. He was thrilled to find his tooth replaced by money this morning and the first thing he told me this morning was about this very magical and long awaited transformation.

Little E also picked her first peapod off her plant yesterday morning. She was also very excited about this development and can't wait for more of them to be ready to pick and eat.

In other exciting, but not nearly as welcome news, my vans transmission started to crap out on us as we were leaving for the 'local' Bass Pro Shops in Manteca. It would slam so hard from first to second that it felt like we were being rear ended. Checked everything out later that night, (we went to Bass Pro still, just took the wife's car instead of my van)  and everything was working fine. Called my mechanic this morning and discovered that this kind of thing can happen and when you turn off the vehicle and then turn it back on, it resets the computer, which is what could be causing the problem due to not reading the engine correctly and shifting when it should. So he said it was cool to drive and if it started happening again, I can simply pull over, turn the van off, turn it back on and it should work again. Of course, I'll still have to take it in to get it checked out. Which is super because I just got the A/C fixed on Friday. So back it goes!! But at least it's now and not while we're gone on vacation.

And since you're wondering, Bass Pro was fun. The kids got to make a picture frame, hang out in the boats, got new fishing poles, the shooting gallery was free. All in all, an interesting Sunday.

Bullets

Well, well, well. So, three months have passed and such wondrous things have happened. I cannot possibly keep you up on all things Wally, but bullets are always fun, right? Plus this is good typing practice. So what has happened since we last communicated?

• Little League has come and gone. There are no scores kept at the level we were at, so as such, no places or record. But all in all it was a good season. The kids got a lot better as the season went along and there were no major problems with anyone. Next year, we'll be playing almost real baseball, the kids will pitch to each other and there's a hardball involved. Should be fun.
• Little E made it through her first year of preschool and loved it. She's all excited to be starting the 4-year-old class next year. She can identify most of her letters and is attempting to write her name. She does pretty good except for the 'y'. 
• Big T survived first grade and had a great time. He won't have to go to summer school and the teacher he had was wonderful. I got to go on his field trip this year to Smith Farms and played the gut bass up on stage with the kids. It was quite an experience.
• Our kitty Kooni disappeared the day before Easter and we haven't seen her since. It was a tough thing to try to explain to the kids as they've never had to deal with real loss before this. Little E seems fine, but Big T has had a few moments of sadness with it. 
• We got a new Kitty named Zumi just last week. She's awesome and the kids love her and are helping them get over the missing Koonster. But it's an adjustment for them.
• My awesomely old laptop died on me, just crapped out with no warning. We lost all our pics from late August through Aprilish. So the lesson there? Backup, backup, backup, backup. 
• I got a new laptop and my wife got one also, as I had been hogging it due to gaining some more business with the web development stuff. It's been nice to have that little bit of extra cash now and then.
• Some of that extra cash was used to buy a new DVD player as the old one died on us. They only last a year or so for us anymore before they're no good. I don't understand it, as I bought one over 10 years ago from Good Guys when I worked at Circuit City (remember those two stores?) and it still works great.
• We have had two birthdays and the kids are now 4 and 7. Little E is already looking forward to being 5, because then she gets to go to Kindergarten.
• Big T graduated from Tiger Cubs and is now a Wolf Scout. I have somehow become one of the pack leaders and got a little certificate at the graduation ceremony.
• I played Mare Island Golf Club for the first time. The front nine are the oldest nine holes west of the Mississippi. The back nine are much, much newer.
• The air conditioning is out on the van again. Well, not actually out, as it just won't blow out of the front vents. So that will be fun to fix.
• The kids will be starting swim lessons next week. So that's something that hopefully will go very well, as we're planning to visit Tahoe in a while and I would like them to be less reliant on me and floaties in the lake.
• I have planted tomatoes, zucchini, onions, and onions this year in my quasi-garden. I got the zucchini, onions and tomatoes from my uncle, he with the amazingly large garden with enough produce to go to farmers markets with. Also he makes the kick ass salsa. They're all growing pretty well, except that i can't seem to get any strawberries off the plant, I think the bugs are getting to them first.
• My cherry tree this year was awesome. I got a lot of great bings off of it. They were delicious and sweet and the birds didn't get all of them
• They did however, get all of the other cherry that grows on that tree, the Rainiers. Those babies didn't make it far enough along before the birds ate them all. This won't happen next year, however, because Zumi will be able to protect the tree.
• They have also become obsessed with two tv shows: Phineas and Ferb, which isn't that bad, and Hot Wheels Battle Force 5, which is horrible. 
• They are starting soccer today, so that's gonna be something. I'm not looking forward to this at all, as I think they're more than coordinated enough to just play real sports.
• Also, I hit a bird yesterday with my van. I was driving along at about 50ish or so. A bird, who has the ability to fly significantly higher than 3 feet off the ground, wasn't and I smacked it with the right headlight. I don't know if the bird died or not, but I didn't see it laying along the side of the road when I passed back by 30 minutes later. But it did crap all over my headlight when I hit it. So I literally scared the crap out of that bird.
• I have set a new goal to not leave this for another three months, maybe I'll shoot for weekly and see how that goes. Set realistic goals, right?

So reading back over this, maybe i didn't need to keep updating as much, but I swear more happened, just don't remember it all now. 

Till next week, maybe.

Eye of the Tiger

I thought that I should update those who don't already know. Little E's eye is better and my wife's car is back in the shop today. Little E had another adventure the night that I last posted as she went into the emergency room due to the eye that was poked swelling up quite a bit. This worried us enough to call the advice nurse who told us to get her into the ER. So a four and a half hour trip later, she came home feeling a little better with a bottle of Tylenol with Codine, but still swollen and with instructions to get an appointment for the next day, which was Friday.

So Friday she got an appointment at 10 in the a.m. and I took another day off work to take her. Her eye seemed to be getting better and while we were getting ready to leave for the doctors I got her to open it. I'd given her some of the Tylenol earlier that morning and she must have felt well enough to finally give it a shot. That was a half-hour before her appointment. We got to the doctor and now that she could see again she was pointing out all sorts of things to me in the waiting room. Like the color of the chairs (red and green) the pictures of flowers on the wall, and the really big belly on the lady just a few seats down. I think the actual quote was, "Daddy, we're sitting on red chairs, that lady is sitting on a green chair, and she has a really big belly." I don't think the really big belly lady heard her because she didn't move, of course she did have a really big belly and it may have been to much for her to swing her head around.

The doctor said that it was probably just swollen because she had been rubbing her eye. So Little E got herself an eye patch. An eye patch to keep her from rubbing her eye. It was like when they give dogs those cones around their necks so they won't scratch or bite their stitches. Same thing. She spent the rest of that day actually watching movies and resting. And the next day she was almost completely better and now she's fine.

My wife's car was fixed from it's major problem and now has a minor problem that may or may not be related to the first problem, it's in the shop right now, and I'm waiting to hear what's wrong.


In other good news, (actual good news) Big T was offered and accepted the role of reader of the Little League Pledge on opening day for the league. He read it along with a little girl from another team and did great. I didn't know how he would do with something like that. But he was fine in front of the big crowd. I was one very proud papa, I tell you what.

Ay Carumba

So Little E was just recovering from her parachuteless skydive off the jungle gym when I went and poked her in eye with an umbrella. That's what the nurse put in the computer, 'Dad hit her in the eye with an umbrella.' Before you get all bothered about abuse and such, let me set the scene for you.

Yesterday morning about 6:45 in the a.m., it was raining pretty hard. It was one of my wife's parents days to watch the kids. I've been driving my mom's car instead of my van because my wife's car is in the shop because of a blown head gasket. So anyhoo, I've got my boy in the house and have come back out to get Little E out of the car. She says that she wants me to use the umbrella so she doesn't get as wet. So I pop it open and have it resting over us using the roof of the car and the open door to hold it. I get her out of her seat and am turning her around, so she's facing away from me, when the umbrella starts to fall. My former cat-like reflexes grab for the umbrella, but because my hands are trying to hold on to my daughter, my arm goes out and hits the umbrella in the middle of the handle and flings it upward toward her head. It hits her in the eye with one of the metal prongs (which seems like a very major design flaw) and she starts crying because it hurts.

I get her into the house and look at her eye and don't see any blood or discoloration so I think that maybe it just hit her near the eye and she'll be fine in a bit. I get my hugs and hi-fives and head out the door to go to work. About 10, I get a call from my wife who is heading over to her parents because her mom is freaking out because she can't get Little E to stop crying. I get a call 20 minutes later telling me to come and get Little E because she's just sobbing non-stop. I go get her and bring her home at around 11:15 a.m. My wife gets her a doctors appointment at 2:50 that afternoon. When we get home, she says that she wants to watch Toy Story 2, but what she really wants is to listen to it because she won't open her eyes. She falls asleep a bit after the movie starts and stays down for a good hour and a half. Once she wakes up she has a snack and lays back down and sleeps for another hour or so. In between all this whenever she has to pee, I have to carry her to the bathroom because she won't open her eyes to see where she's going.

We get to the doctors and she's not thrilled to be there, but the doctor gives her an eyedrop that numbs her eye for a while so she opens it up and the doctor sees a small scratch on her cornea. She should be better hopefully tonight or tomorrow. Overall, she's not feeling well because she's had a nasty head cold for the past few days to go along with this new injury. But I'm hopeful that she'll be fine again soon.

On a lighter note, part of my job is to type up reviews that librarians write up for books that they read. I just got another doozy and thought that I'd share it with you.

I don't know how well you can see this as I've discovered that I'm not a great photographer with my phone, but the librarian has misspelled 'intelligent'.And people wonder why our kids don't get a good education.