A spoonful weighs a ton

Why Zombies?

2011-10-31T20:09:00.000-07:00

It was pointed out on a program I was listening to that zombies are quickly becoming the scary icon of our time. They asked why and I wanted to answer, but of course radio is a 1-way medium so I couldn't. Instead I have a blog, so we'll take a break from the brew blog for something else for a minute. So why zombies? I think the bottom line is that they're safe.

We live in a word of intense motivations, whether religious, political, or financial. We see bad guys in the news every day, killing for power, exploiting for personal gain, or just so desperate/psychotic/greedy they turned to crime to get by. Around the world there are people who believe so deeply in their version of Truth and Right and Wrong and Justice that they feel justified committing all sorts of atrocities. These things are truly scary. But at the same time, there's a part of us that sympathizes, if only in a tiny way. Terrorists are evil, but what would you do if your homeland had been seized by outside forces? Religious extremists are nuts, but what is there that you believe that you would fight for? None of this is to say that there isn't plenty of truly mindless violence on the planet, but there's more grey area in the things we consider evil than we would like to admit.

But zombies are safe. They don't need a motivation, they're dead. They don't have a political agenda, they're driven only by a survival instinct. There's no question of "what would I do in that person's situation?" because the answer is always the same...I'd be a dead shambling zombie. Unlike bad people in the real world there's no moral ambiguity whatsoever in killing a zombie. Their moral compass and free will died the 1st time around, so slaughter away. If you survive the pang of guilt you might have felt with die quickly. It's escapism at its finest.

Yes, but Tebow doesn't brew.

2011-10-23T21:56:00.000-07:00

The Broncos pulled off a win today. Tebow is now the starter and there's been a lot of talk of the Magic and Intangibles he brings to the offense. For 3.5 quarters this was not visible at all. He sucked, the team sucked, nothing worked at all until the end of the 4th quarter when they got a touchdown, retrieved an on-side kick, got another touchdown, got a 2-point conversion to tie, then hit a field goal in OT for the win. So yeah, crazy ending to a crap game. Tebow Time has been declared loudly from every source that declares such things. All because our 1-4 team pulled out an improbable OT win against 1 of only 3 teams in the nation with a worse record going into the game. Oooooo.

During the Packer game and into the evening it was brewtime! #17- Liquid Cheer was brewed and the wort smells amazing. The last 15 minutes of the boil include vanilla bean, cinnamon sticks, fresh ground nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and orange zest. It's definitely not an every-day beer, but oh-so-perfect for the holidays. The original gravity was at 1.066 when it went in the carboy. The spice mixture was added to #15- American Pie and we'll bottle that next weekend. We also managed to bottle #16- The Great Pumpkin before our Sunday evening TV watching commenced. We're now out of bottles. I think I'm going to have to build some new shelves or something...we're also running out of room to store things. 1st world problems. *sigh*

Fermentables ferment

2011-10-18T18:35:00.000-07:00

Sitting in Dulles, on the way back from Auburn, ME. Boarding soon...just enough time for an update!

#13- Strawberry Fields is now bottled. We tried some as we were bottling and...we'll see. I think this is going to be a case where we set it aside and open one up every now and then. It had a very alcoholy aftertaste, which covered up the berry and basil flavors. Often (I'm told) with high alcohol contents the aftertaste mellows over time, so there's definitely some waiting to do before it's ready to introduce to the public.
#15- American Pie continues to ferment. We're giving it time. I made the rum concoction last weekend and it made the whole house smell amazing. It's sitting on top of the fridge right now, sealed tightly of course, and I'll add it next weekend.
#16- Name TBD was moved to secondary fermentation last weekend. There was a huge amount of crud caked to the bottom of the carboy and it took awhile to clean out, but it seems to be developing well. The pumpkin and spice flavors were perhaps more muted that expected, but it did have a definite Thanksgiving vibe. It's all a learning process, so we can always tweak next time if we need to!

And that's it for now. I think a batch of Liquid Cheer needs to be next. It's our spiced holiday brew we made last year when we were very new at this and it was a huge hit. The 2012 edition should be delicious as well!

Repurposing begins now!

2011-10-02T17:19:00.000-07:00

Hi blog!
I think 6 months is long enough. It's a fresh start, for realsies this time. I think this is going to become my brewing blog. We're brewing more regularly and getting to where we're experimenting, and everybody says to keep a notebook or some such. My handwriting sucks and I type faster, so I'll blog it instead! If the ins and outs of home brewing bore you...sorry! There will probably be other posts as well, but obviously I haven't been updating much lately so this will get me back in front of the keyboard.

So we currently have fermenting:
#13- Strawberry Fields. A conversation at Hailey's work combined with a memory of a strawberry basil drink from her past inspired this concoction. This is a basic porter recipe, with basil and strawberries. We used probably 1/4+ cup basil...everything we could get off the plant without making it look sad. It soaked in vodka for 10 min or so to sterilize and then went into the primary. (On a friend's request we used a bucket for the primary for ease of cleaning. Good idea!) For the strawberries we got a big bag of frozen strawberries at Costco and threw 3 lbs into a food processor, then they went right in as well. The whole thing fermented 4 weeks in the primary, then last weekend I moved it to the small carboy for secondary. The plan is to bottle next weekend.

#15- American Pie.* Our 2nd attempt at a hard cider. The 1st attempt was a smashing success, so we're going to repeat it. The 1st time around we were under time pressure to have it ready for a party and it didn't get to ferment long enough. As a result it was delicious, but very low in actual alcohol content. This time we're going to give it time. The idea is simple: 5 gallons of store-bought apple cider. 1 gallon is boiled with a pound of brown sugar to sterilize, then mixed back in. Yeast pitched, then the whole thing ferments (we're giving it a month or so this time). We'll do a secondary fermentation, at which time we add a "rum tea" we'll cook up about a week in advance. Last time this was about 1.5 - 2 cups of rum boiled with vanilla, cinnamon sticks, and allspice. We let this work it's way through the wort for another week, then bottle. The result last time tasted very much like apple pie...we just want a slightly "harder" cider this time around.

And then today we added #16- an as-yet-unnamed Pumpkin Ale. We followed the recipe straight from the book on this one. Holiday beers can be tricky I'm told, with over- and under-spicing causing problems, and the book with the recipe hasn't led us wrong yet so why mess with it? 8 lbs of real pumpkin, roasted for 2 hours with pumpkin pie spices sprinkled on top, then added to the boil right along with the hops and more spices (cinnamon sticks, allspice, and whole nutmeg). It's in the primary and after a couple hours there's already a 2" layer of sediment on the bottom of the carboy. It tastes fantastic!

Next up: bottling #13, then the 2011 installment of Liquid Cheer.

*Where's #14 you ask? It was a 3rd batch of Zombie Cow, our Milk Stout recipe we love. It's a fast recipe...only 1 week in the primary, then into bottles, so it's already in the fridge to drink. Mmmmm.

Hereafter

2011-05-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

Can't sleep. We just watched Hereafter...definitely one of those movies designed to make you think. Spoilers follow if you don't know the general gist of the movie.

One of the main characters is a kid, maybe 9 or 10 years old, who loses his twin brother in an accident. He becomes convinced after his brother's death that if he can just talk to him one more time he'll feel better. I remember that feeling. Rebecca died when I was about that age. She was 6 months old. I spent many years coming to terms with the fact that the time we had with her when she was alive was all I was going to get. There's no going back, no redoing things, no final conversation once someone is gone. The experience is over and all you have left are the memories, whether good, bad, regretful, joyful...some endings are final. The choices you make day to day have to be the choices you would be comfortable with if your loved one died tomorrow.

Another thing on my mind triggered by movie-watching...if you know where things end, you can use that to make the present a better place. As the Flaming Lips say "Realize the sun doesn't go down / it's just an illusion caused be the world / spinning round." Life is cyclical. Some cycles last a lifetime and end when you pass the world on to your kids. Others last only a day, starting over when you wake up tomorrow. Embrace where you've been, and use it to inform where you're going, but don't dwell on something which has ended. You've moved on to a new cycle. Who knows how long this one will last? "Realize that life goes fast / It's hard to make the good things last."

Random thoughts on Bin Laden's Death

2011-05-01T22:21:00.001-07:00

Do Sasha and Malia have to go to school tomorrow? "Please excuse my daughters from class today. Their father was up late announcing the death of an international terrorist and they didn't get to bed until late in the evening."

One of the clues that led to the identification of this "palace" as Osama's hiding place was that it was a million+ dollar home with 12 foot high walls and no internet or phone lines. Welcome to the 21st century...NOT being connected is more suspicious than being online. In Pakistan.

Obama is a badass. He completely put his presidency on the line with this. Authorizing ground forces to go into a friendly country (even with Pakistan's permission) could have destroyed his administration if things had gone wrong. I'm reminded of the pirate situation awhile back, when he authorized the assassination of the hostage-taking pirates halfway around the world and then gave a press conference where he said "Yes, I authorized that. Buh-bye now." I don't recall in my lifetime a president using our military so effectively and nonchalantly efficiently. He trusts what they can do and really only acknowledges his position in passing when he talks about what they did. I continue to be impressed. Maybe he's not the perfect walking-on-water president we might like, but he's damn good. Easily the best of my adult life.

Grey's Anatomy tackles Clinical Trials?!

2011-02-08T18:27:00.001-08:00

I came in here to vent. Hailey is watching last week's episode of Grey's Anatomy in the living room and I was having a hard time biting my tongue any more, so here I rant.

Normally Grey's is an OK show. Not what I'd choose to watch in my own time, but an acceptable "sure dear, we can watch that" sort of show. This season the Patrick Dempsey doctor guy is doing a Clinical Trial looking at an Alzheimer's medication. Great! Public exposure for clinical research is a great thing. We currently have several clinical trials for Alzheimer's meds, so I spend a good portion of every work week in this world. But boo to this episode.

So they have a guy on the table and it's time to "Randomize" the patient. This involves opening an envelope which says "He gets Placebo," pulling out a syringe labeled "Saline" and administering the treatment. Um, no? Why isn't this double blind? Why does the injecting and evaluating physician know what the treatment is? Oh, right, because later it's dramatic if a grieving wife can plead with the assistant to swap the medication if her husband is assigned to the placebo group. No. Just No. Randomization. Blinded trials. Important, no?

They spend a bit of time on the placebo effect, also good if not totally twisted. Dr. Dempsey (I don't know the character's name, whatever) even goes so far as to tell his helper dude that he should be encouraging! He should be more positive about the trial because that will lead to better outcomes if the caregiver thinks it will work! Helper dude is trying to give a realistic assessment of the potential benefit of this new med and he's shut down and told to be more positive! Um, ethics much? You don't enroll someone in a trial with unreasonable expectations.

A more minor quibble is that they don't talk at all about how the endpoints will be measured. Sure they're surgeons, but the amount of cognitive testing that goes into efficacy assessments in real life is totally ignored. I guess that's not good TV.

Grrr.

Stuff to do, stuff to do...

2011-01-27T21:28:00.000-08:00

Now that I live with Hailey I have a whole new house to subject to my home-improving ways. Of course we're working on paying for a wedding too, so the funds are maybe not what they could be, but there's always stuff to do.

Saturday I need to fix the drywall in the office. My dog, in his persistent gigantitude, kind of fell through the wall when trying to bolt out the door to explore a noise in the kitchen on Christmas. Oops. He's really just trying to help me learn a new skill, I'm sure of it. (Another new skill learned due to Obi's direction...how to apologize to my fiance for a nipped finger due to over-exuberant treat-taking...)

After that I get to build shelves in the guest bedroom, then...we'll see. Hardwood floors are somewhere in the future, but then so's a honeymoon. Hmmm...

The engagement story

2011-01-13T20:49:00.000-08:00

Hailey has gotten to tell this story many times, so I thought I'd share my version for posterity.

We've been talking about marriage for awhile. We'd been looking at rings together and then Hailey had the audacity to guess, to my face, the date on which I was going to propose. I had a choice at that point: I could just suck it up and acknowledge that she tends to be right about most things (which would also make the whole proposal entirely predictable) or I could move the date. Pushing it back just seemed cruel (to both of us), so I had to move it forward.

The plan all along was pretty normal: dinner at the sushi restaurant where we had our 1st date, with a proposal half a block away under a tree where we chatted for an hour on that same date. Then a friend of a friend had a spectacular idea; why not do all that and then *NOT* propose! Do the date, go through the whole thing...but then don't do it until breakfast the next morning to retain the surprise factor.

This seemed like a brilliant idea the more I thought about it. Not only because I might achieve some element of surprise, but because breakfast is completely Hailey's thing. Since dating she has introduced me to all of the most delicious brunch places in Denver and I've eaten more breakfasts in the last 7 months than in the prior 5 years combined, thanks to her influence. We'd already discussed having brunch food for our wedding reception, so asking her to marry me over breakfast seemed like the perfect thing.

So last Friday the plan was set in motion. I watched Katie until 5:15 as usual, then stopped to get a dozen roses on the way back to Hailey's. I got back to her place with the roses (and a snowman cookie jar that was a post-Xmas gift), we went out to Sushi Hai in Highlands, walked by the tree where I was going to ask, and came home. We watched some Netflixed Dexter and then went to bed.

This is where I had not thought my plan through. It turns out that building up expectation and then not following through provokes some anxiety. Also, oddly enough, planning on proposing 1st thing in the morning when you wake up does not make for a restful slumber. As a result Hailey and I got almost no sleep Friday night. By 5:30 AM Hailey was ready to give up on sleep and I was ready to get up and get breakfast made so that I could finally give her the ring I'd purchased the weekend before.

And that's what happened. We got up, I made breakfast, and once she was through eating I asked her to marry me. She said yes, there were tears...and then the phone calls started. First her mom, then East Coast friends (it was early!), then everyone else. I think Hailey spent 75% of Saturday on the phone, and about 80% of the day staring at her ring. I guess that means I did good :-)

Wedding planning has now started officially...the contract for the reception location was signed today and I think we've found a location for the ceremony as well. It's still a long way off, but it's nice to be this excited and hopeful about the future.

Engaged!

2011-01-11T20:44:00.000-08:00

What to say here...I'm happy. Hailey is awesome and I asked her to marry me on Saturday. She said yes, which wasn't too suspenseful since we'd been ring shopping and such.

Logistically...I'm moving in and we're going to actually tie the knot on 3/17/12. It's St. Patrick's Day, which makes for a fun anniversary, and it's coincidentally the birthday of one William Patrick Corgan who keeps showing up at significant points in my life.

Between now and the big day there's a lot of planning to be done, a lot of living to do, a lot of happiness ahead. I'm doing this one right...I've managed to land a great girl, we're going to do this right and start our life together the old fashioned way (aside from the whole "yeah, we're living together now" thing...)

H.E.Y.

2011-01-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

This is an idea that's been kicking around in my head for awhile.

Every religion has a version of "The Golden Rule." There's a nice compilation of passages illustrating this here. For further advice on how to behave, some turn to the WWJD sort of idea. Spinoffs include Batman, Chuck Norris, Pacman...and many more. There's this underlying idea that we need to ask ourselves what someone else would do in a similar situation.

What if we flipped it? Instead of playing the hypothetical "what if that person was in my situation," why not "what if everyone else in the world were in my situation?" What if everyone on the planet behaved *just like me*? It seems this would be a quick shortcut to a better planet. What if everyone lived within their means? What if everyone spent too much? What if everyone was dedicated to being a good spouse and parent? What if everyone was a backstabbing bastard? What if everyone dropped out of high school, pursued an education, failed to pick up after their dog, or treated the waitress with respect? How would the world look if you extrapolated your actions?

The planet should try this. I should write a self-help book. I'd call it "HEY! (Hold on...Extrapolate Yourself)" Or maybe this should be an Ignite topic. Hmmmm...

It's.....Alive!! (?)

2011-01-02T21:03:00.001-08:00

Hi blog. I'm sorry I've neglected you.

Obi has officially moved in with Hailey. Being indoors with my dad's allergies doesn't work as well when the house is closed up for the winter, and Obi seems to enjoy the company of Roxy and the cats, so he has moved. My computer has also wandered to Hailey's...her brother needed a computer, so she loaned him her laptop and I filled the gap with my computer (leaving only 5 computers at my parent's house).

My (our) new hobby is brewing our own beer. Turns out it's pretty simple and quite fun. We've had 4 excellent batches so far, with a 5th currently sitting the carboy working on the secondary fermentation. So far we've done a chocolate honey porter (K1ng St Porter), a hefeweizen (Home Front Hefeweizen- brewed while Hailey was in Germany), and 2 batches of a spiced Christmasy beer (Liquid Cheer). The new batch is a Java Stout we're calling Daydrinker. It will be ready to bottle in a week, and we'll put some in the new Tap-A-Draft system I got for Xmas :-D

What else...still gainfully employed, still love what I do, looking forward to a year full of happinesses yet to be discovered. 2010 taught me a lot about myself, and a fair amount about other people. 2011 is going to be that much better because of where I've been and what I'm moving towards.

This bagel was made in New York City!

2010-10-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Posting from NYC. Currently waiting for Jennifer & Paul to get here from Rhode Island to hang out for the day, so I'm sitting in a bagel shop on Broadway killing time while Hailey is out at brunch with an old friend.

Once again this blog has been neglected in favor of things that involve not being at the computer as much. I'm reminded of what Lewis Black said: "If you're twittering about it, you're not actually doing it." The Doing of Things continues to fill my life.

So I'm in NYC, saw the Gorillaz show (amazing), did lunch in Google HQ with Hailey's friend Suzanne (neat!), Brooklyn brunch and Botanical Gardens with my sister and Matthew yesterday (quite nice), and wandered the city with Hailey (adjectival modification would seem inadequate). We're staying in a hostel (Hostel Fresh) which requires a post all its own. Hope I don't forget to do that.

Off to explore more now. Jennifer & Paul will be here in 30 min, then meeting up with Hailey again in a couple hours. Life is good :-D

Goings on

2010-08-05T21:14:00.001-07:00

Wow, I've skipped 2 entire months this year. Is the blog dying? I don't know. It's odd that just a few posts ago I was still (legally) married. Craziness.

Now there's Hailey. The crypticness from the last update has a name and she is...we'll say awesome and leave it at that. We'll see where this goes, but we've already made plans for the holidays...I'm meeting her parents over Thanksgiving. In related news I am no longer looking for a house. See, that's what happens when I never update. Of course to update I need to be in front of a computer that's not at work and that hasn't happened much lately either.

Obi lives with me at my parents' house pretty much permanently now. He's getting walked daily, something Steph and the kids didn't have time for, and pretty happy about it. He's still sitting at 110 lbs, but hopefully getting in shape. He still looks big next to Hailey's 80 lb doggy Roxy. Almost 200 lbs of dog (plus 2 cats) is a lot for one house, but we manage when Obi's over there! Obi is learning about cats and so far he's really just curious. His body awareness is an issue when he steps on a cat tail, but we'll work on that. In the meantime he is serving as a goodwill ambassador for dogginess and I think he's convinced my parents that they need one when we move out.

Additional fun stuff in the future...The Smashing Pumpkins Sept 18, Muse Oct 2, then Gorillaz at Madison Square Garden Oct 8. Oh hell yeah.

Got my A machines on the table, got my B machines in the drawer

2010-06-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

^^I have no idea what those lyrics mean, but "A/B machines" by Sleigh Bells is a catchy, ear-wormy song.

So BONNAROO!!! I went. I saw. It rawked. I returned. I can't possibly blog the entire experience, but I'll say it was just what I needed at this point in my life. I basically disappeared in a crowd of 80,000 and wandered anonymously for 4 days with no cares in the world. There was excellent music everywhere, thousands of super friendly people to chat with when I felt like it, and yummy food (I satisfied a falafel craving and tried fried alligator tail, cuz why not?) The Lips were great of course, Jay-Z was better than any rapper I've seen live *and* I got into the pit for his performance. I was about 30 feet away and loved every minute of it. I ran across a lot of other bands I'll need to check out on Pandora too.

The vacation was awesome, marred only by my car being driven into another car on the interstate outside of St. Louis while I was sleeping in the backseat. It will get fixed though and nobody was hurt.

In home-front news, I went house hunting yesterday with my realtor and may have found a house to buy. I need to crunch some numbers, but I think I'll make an offer and see what the universe has in mind for me. It's a nice, newly updated place off I-70 & Chambers...nice and close to work and perfect for what I need at the moment. Yesterday was great for other reasons as well, but it would be premature to get into it here. Cryptic, eh?

Off to budget now. What can I afford? Hmmmmm

30's the new 20

2010-06-01T19:56:00.001-07:00

Jay-Z says so and I'm going to believe him.

The fun parts of my birthday-
-Went to Dave & Buster's last Saturday with some fun folks and had a good time with pool, skee ball, air hockey, and assorted gaming.
-Now have more gray hairs than I care to count on the sides of my head.
-Spent the evening at an Urgent Care to be told that yes, the aching of my foot for the last 10 days does in fact indicate a hairline fracture in my left 5th proximal metatarsal. Then they didn't have a post-op shoe at the clinic I went to, so I got to drive 90 min to Longmont and back to get the right thing to keep my foot from flexing too much. Recovery shouldn't be too bad, but this does set back training for the half-marathon I was planning to run in August. Drat.

In other news, I leave for a trip to Boston early (6:30 a.m. flight) tomorrow, get back Friday, then leave for Bonnaroo on the 8th. I need the break, and it's going to be amazing.

Chutes & Ladders

2010-04-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

At some point everybody has played Chutes & Ladders, right?

3 years ago I ran up a really big ladder and went straight to the end of the board. In a year I jumped from single young guy living with my brother to married home-owning step-father of 2. I got close to the end of the game, close to where I wanted to spend the rest of my life...as a husband and father, living out my days with my family. I had everything I wanted, and somehow I'd skipped most of the journey most people have to go through to get there. I watched other people come up the board behind me. While I was sitting near the coast-to-the-finish line, friends were getting married, getting pregnant, having their own kids, and coming ever closer to where I had found myself. While I was getting comfortable, Steph was apparently deciding that marriage wasn't the right thing for her. She says now that she's just not meant to be married, so I found myself sliding down a chute I had hoped to avoid.

The interesting thing is that I'm back at the start, but now I've had a taste of what I've always felt I wanted in my life. I've been a dad and a husband and I did a damn good job at both, thank you very much. (Most days Steph would agree that I was a good husband, if she's not mad at me for something else. She's never blamed me for the marriage falling apart.) I'm behind where my friends are now. They're married with kids and houses and I'm living with my parents, trying to pay off debt from the marriage/divorce before I set out on my own again. I know I can get back to where I was. Obviously there are casting changes that needed to be made in the Saga of My Life, but I'll end up where I want to be. It's just going to take more rolls of the dice to get there.

Moving truck, WTF*?

2010-03-29T21:50:00.000-07:00

Moving Saturday was successful, as most moves are. My things are no longer in my former home and are now split between self-storage and my temporary digs at my parents' place. I'm a bit more established here now- I have my TV and PS3 in my room, and an actual dresser! It's the little things, but seeing as I need to pay off some things before moving on it's good to have some stuff here that makes it more comfortable.

So Saturday started out entertaining. I had reserved a Budget truck from a location right next to a Public Storage facility (which has a big sign on the side advertising TRUCK RENTAL). It seemed convenient and Tim and I got there right at 9, as scheduled. The place didn't open until 10. Weird. Checked my phone and the address listed was not that of the storage facility. Hmmmmm. Remapped and drove towards the correct address...a block away. That's when we spotted the Budget Truck Rental sign up on a pole. Aha! 45 seconds later we're sitting in the parking lot of an obviously closed shop. Huh. Checked the email confirmation again and called the listed number. The girl helpfully told me they were located "at I-70 and Harlan." OK, we're there. More specific? "Oh, we're in the Phillips 66." That's the gas station across the street, directly in between the Budget Truck Rental-labeled place and the "TRUCK RENTAL"-advertising place. Crack much? Turns out they'd picked up the franchise when the other places had quit doing it and the other signs just hadn't come down yet. The truck was rented with one last snag- no ramp on 10' budget trucks. Grrrr. But we made it work.

The rest of the move went about as expected. Steph and the kids helped haul stuff up from the basement and I'm almost completely out, except for the dining room table Steph's "storing" until I get my new place and a bookshelf we ran out of room for. Sunday on my 1st day officially out of the house Mr. K asked me to come over and play Risk with him. So I spent all day in the old house anyway, playing with the kids and taking Obi for a walk. Funny how these things work.

*WTF was defined in a video game I played recently as "Where To Find," meaning you clicked the WTF link to get to the help section. I'm going with that. The title of the post certainly does not rhyme.

Time to move

2010-03-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, I wrote this. Tomorrow I officially move all of my stuff out of that house. Yuck.

In other news...I'm going to Boston in a few weeks for a meeting. I've been there exactly once before, when I took a train from Denver to Boston w/ my family (mom, dad, and Tim) then drove to my sister's graduation from the College of the Atlantic in Maine. The train ride was long and exhausting. It also happened to be on my 19th birthday and my brother brought my present along, giving me Garbage Version 2.0 somewhere between here and there. It was my 1st non-radio exposure to Garbage and Tim was right...it's an excellent CD. (This was a year after I failed to be given The Smashing Pumpkins' Adore for my 18th bday *ahem* but that's another story.) My only memory of Boston itself is getting there after a hellaciously long train ride, getting in a rental car, and driving out of the city with no food. I remember thinking I had never felt so hungry in my life, being exhausted from the train ride, and desperately, frantically wanting something to eat. Funny the things that stick.

This time is a meeting though, and it couldn't come at a better time. Jennifer and Paul are in Rhode Island just an hour away, so I'm going to spend the weekend with them after the meeting is over on Friday. The divorce will be final on April 22 and I'll get to spend the weekend before that with friends I haven't seen in awhile. That'll be good.

In other other news...awhile back I created a hotmail account for the sole purpose of craigslisting. (I bought my PS3 on craigslist, not a prostitute, for those keeping score at home...) My gmail uses my actual name, so I made up a throwaway hotmail account that I programmed into my iPhone as an alternate means of anonymous communication. In the last few weeks the spambots have discovered me. How the hell does that happen? I've sent maybe 4 emails from that address, all to actual people, and I'm getting spam. Grrrr. I'd forgotten how much I love the gmail spam filters.

Perspective

2010-03-23T19:12:00.001-07:00

I've been a responsible adult way too long...my ebay account is 11 years old.

Funeral time

2010-03-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

Just over a week ago my great-grandma passed away. Mom-mo Lynn, as we called her, was 96 and had what Eddie Izzard refers to as the Life Force: "I'm a Gran, I live forever!" It was a bit sudden, since we hadn't known she was sick at all, and we weren't really prepared for it.

Once details emerged, we found out she *had* been sick, but my Aunt hadn't deemed it necessary to tell anyone else. She'd been in the hospital, had apparently been diagnosed with esophageal cancer days earlier, and didn't have much chance of making it. At the end though she died at home, in her own bed, and never stopped selling Avon. She had a good run and was an awesome little old lady. She'll be missed.

Of course with death comes a funeral and we got back last night from attending. My mom's whole family was together for the 1st time in ages...we figured 10 years or so. Tod, Alex, and Amber (Tod's fiance) flew to Denver from Seattle, and my sister flew in from NY so we could all caravan from Denver to Hutchinson. Terri's family all made the trip down from KC too so I saw all of my cousins. They've all grown up over the last 10 years! Weird.

The drive across Kansas hasn't changed a bit in all the years I've been doing it. Hays is still there in the middle of it, and visiting is always a tad surreal. I've definitely made the transition to city dweller and the small towns just seem so...small I guess is the word for it :-P

Laundry now. Work has been insane lately and I guess I have to be ready for it tomorrow. Bah.

Bonnaroo 2010- an early post

2010-03-01T20:55:00.001-08:00

I'm going to Bonnaroo June 10-14. My time off was approved today and I should be able to buy my ticket this weekend.

I'm really going for one reason: The Flaming Lips are going to be there, performing Dark Side of the Moon with Stardeath and White Dwarf. It's going to be just like after my last major breakup...when Sarah ended it in August of 2006 I went to Las Angeles to spend New Year's Eve with the Lips and Gnarles Barkley. That was an excellent experience and I think another such trip is in order. The divorce will be final by then and I'll be turning 30 just before Bonnaroo...it seems like a perfect opportunity for a getaway. Also Jay-Z, Norah Jones, and a whole bunch of other fun people are playing. So if anyone reading this wants to head to Tennessee in June, let me know! I'm going, even if I'm alone out there, but it would be fun to travel with others. :-)

OK, back to Fallout 3. Where's vault 112 anyway?

Mitch

2010-02-21T21:07:00.000-08:00

Ancient history in Anthognaland...

Growing up back in Kansas, my best friend in the world was Mitch. From kindergarten to 8th grade we were best friends. Our moms were friends, our brothers were friends, and Mitch and I were inseparable. Then one day in 8th Grade it ended. Mitch turned against me. It wasn't just that we stopped hanging out or talking...he turned all of our mutual friends against me. Unfortunately that was almost everybody I knew, so for the 2nd half of 8th grade I had almost no friends. After that I hung out mostly with my sister and her friends until we moved to Colorado between Freshman and Sophomore years of high school.

My mom asked Mitch's mom once what had happened. The response? "He knows what he did." Except that I didn't. I wracked my brain trying to figure out what I'd done that was so egregious that my best friend would turn on me like that. I could never figure it out and it was one of the big unanswered questions of my life...until recently.

When things with Steph started sliding I thought I'd see if I could figure out where I'd gone wrong in prior relationships. I know what happened with Sarah and almost every significant romantic relationship, but Mitch had always been a mystery. I've had very few meaningful friendships with guys in my life, and I think a lot of that had to do with Mitch. I figured 16 years was long enough to wonder what happened, and thanks to Facebook I was able to ask. The response was amazing: HE DOESN'T KNOW.

He doesn't remember anything specific that killed our friendship, just that we grew apart. All these years I've been sure that it was some action on my part that messed things up. Granted Mitch's mom pretty much came out and said that, so of course that's what I thought. Turns out it was just a natural progression of life. Some relationships last, others reach a natural conclusion. The trick is all in how you handle it. Do you wage a scorched-earth campaign to convince others that the person is somehow flawed? Or do you just accept that it's over and move on as gracefully as possible so that the other person can do that same? Mitch chose badly in my opinion. I hope to do better.

San Francisco!

2010-01-31T18:30:00.000-08:00

Yep, another work trip. This time to California, where I got to stay at The Palace Hotel. Nice place, but my room smelled like decades of cigarette smoke that will never quite dissapate. I can't complain too much though.

Travel was amusing again, watching people in the airport and such. There was a page for "Mrs. Osama," who must have a hard time flying, the group of blondes headed to a wedding in San Francisco (overheard: "You two are like, Barack Obama and, like, his vice president"...because we don't know his name?), and my favorite, the increasingly urgent overhead paging for people who aren't where they're supposed to be. You can tell the people doing the paging get annoyed when they're holding a plane for 1 straggler who wandered into a gift shop or the bathroom and forgot that they were supposed to be on a plane. I can't say I blame them. Just once though I'd like them to get on the intercom and say what's really going through their heads:

"Mr. Doe, Mr. John Doe, please report to gate A28 for boarding."
"Mr. Doe, Mr. John Doe, your flight is ready to leave and we're all wondering what's keeping you. Please get to gate A28 if you would like to come along."
"Mr. Doe, Mr. John Doe, your wife told you not to eat burritos the night before a flight. Don't you wish you'd taken the pepto she offered you on the way out the door?"
"Hey, Mr. John Doe, screw this, we're out of here. And when you come up here all pissed that we didn't wait for you, I'm going to laugh in your face and revoke your frequent flier status. Neener neener."

But that won't happen.

Divorce

2010-01-18T22:31:00.000-08:00

It's over. The marriage I fought hard for, the family I poured my heart into, the kids I loved as by own, the wife I adored and loved with every ounce of my existence...they're leaving my life.

I wish I could say what happened, but I'm still not sure where this went wrong. The bottom line is that at some point Stephanie decided she wasn't happy. She's not willing to work on figuring out why or making it better, so after 6 months of a downhill slide we're getting a divorce. I've already moved out of the house and tonight started the paperwork to make it official.

I felt I should say something here, since this blog was started in response to the wonderful new relationship I'd discovered. Now that it's ending the blog will continue. This space will not become negative and I will not stoop to attacks on Stephanie. Yes, there is anger, sadness, heartbreak, confusion, and everything else you would expect in a divorce, but I will not speak of it beyond this post. This is not the place for that. This is my blog, and I choose happiness. For the members of Steph's family who read this, thank you for including me in your family for a brief just-over-2-years. Feel free to visit the blog if you feel like it. I'll be moving on with my life the best that I can. I tried, I did my best, and in the end it just didn't work out. What more can I ask of myself?

Why does nothing ever turn out like it should?
Well, what the heck, I went and did my best
And, by God, I really tasted something swell
And for a moment, why, I even touched the sky
And at least I left some stories they can tell, I did

The Vegas post

2009-12-16T21:23:00.000-08:00

Preface...this was a work trip. This wasn't a wild-n-crazy trip to Vegas, so I won't go into too much detail, but a few fun things need to be shared.

A sign in New York New York proclaimed that a bar had "24 Kinds Of Beer!" Um, ok? I don't know if that's a lot in other parts of the world, but I could find probably a dozen bars within a few miles of me that could meet or exceed this number. I think maybe we just like more variety in Colorado.

Another funny/sad moment was the woman I got stuck behind waiting for an escalator. She was probably in her 50s, overweight, and wearing crocs. Her husband was your typical overweight midwesterner cowboy wannabe (or maybe actually-was. Not sure.) He hopped on the escalator and was halfway down before he turned around and realized that his wife was desperately trying to overcome her fear of the moving steps to board the escalator herself. She barked at him for getting so far ahead, he looked ashamed, then she stumbled on and rode successfully to the bottom. (It's those damn crocs I tell ya. They seem to mess with balance/walking ability.

Then there was the off-duty Elvis I passed on the strip. I walked by him in the morning as he was headed in to work. From the neck down was totally casual, guy going to work- jeans, well-worn concert t-shirt, black workboots- but his head was ELVIS 100%. The hair, the sunglasses, the expression...it was quite the juxtaposition.

Just some moments from Vegas. I went with $11 in my pocket and came home with $100, so that counts as a good trip!

Mishmash of things

2009-12-12T19:10:00.000-08:00

Today's blog...just some things I found interesting amusing...

On 30 Rock Thursday night, a few of the guys made up a religion (verdukianism). Kenneth and Tracy discuss religion when Kenneth buys them a bunch of pizza:

Kenneth: Tonight is the verdukian holiday of mouth pleasures. Misters Rossitano, Spurlock, and Lutz must have free sausage pizza followed by some gentle flossing performed by a blonde virgin.
Tracy: Your generosity is being taken advantage of!
K: What do you mean?
T: Verdukianism. It's fake. Those dudes made it up because they didn't want to do secret santa.
K: But they had all these rules and rituals
T: That's what religion is K-fed. Just a bunch of made up rules that manipulate people. Why don't Catholics eat meat on Fridays? I'll tell you why; because the Pope owns Long John Silvers.
K: Wait a minute, are you saying that other religions are made up by man too?
T: Oh Ken, we may have fallen into the intellectual deep end here, and if you try to grab onto me we'll both drown.
K: What if there's no God?
T: OK, time to go
K: *falls over*

Also from NBC Thursday night (This from Community, which is a spectacular show)
"To me religion is like Paul Rudd; I see the appeal and I would never take it away from anyone, but I would also never stand in line for it."

And then there's this from a song on the radio:
"I'm trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful"
What the hell is that? The lyric is said/rapped in a way that suggests it is actually supposed to be flattering to the girl he's singing about. Apparently the vocabulary is so stunted that he can't do it. His mom is ashamed I'm sure. It bothers me.

Then something else on the radio...a commercial for one of the male enhancement things says that it's "the breakthrough pharmaceutical companies don't want you to know about!" I find that weird. I know the pharmas have a bad name and all, but the people I've met who work for them really just want what's best for people. It's a race for sure to create the newest and best therapy with the fewest side effects, but nobody I've met in the research world would ever consider withholding/hiding a therapy that had been proven in any scientifically valid way. That's my experience. Maybe I'm biased since it's what I do for a living, but the idea that things are being withheld in a selfish quest for your money is a tab paranoid, IMHO.

Enough for today. Soon...Vegas trip!

Turkey lurkey dee (2009)

2009-11-27T07:23:00.000-08:00

For Thanksgiving 2009 we decided to do things a bit differently. Steph and I took our family (just us, the kids, and Obi) and got out of Dodge, heading to Colorado Springs for a day of relaxation at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort. I'd found the place online on Wednesday so it was somewhat last-minute, but it worked out great! We got there with a bit of time before our buffet reservations, hit the outdoor pool and hot tub for a bit (with Obi in tow and Steph not able to join us in the water due to the cast and all) and then went for the big T-day buffet. It was great; turkey, taters, ham, bacon, salmon, trout, stuffing, salads, cheeses, soups, fruits, and plenty of dessert options. For our little family it wasn't any more expensive than if we'd thrown our own dinner, and there were tons of options with NO DISHES!! Good time. Then there was time for a bike/scooter ride, another pool (indoor this time), relaxation in the room, and pool (the kind with a table and a cue ball) in the hotel bar area to close out the night.

So Thanksgiving itself was great. I'm thankful for my family. My wife rocks, the kids are awesome, and my dog kicks ass. What more could a guy want in his life, really?

Today Steph had to head back to Denver to work, so the kids and Obi and I split off for our own quality time together. We swam some more and then hit the Cave of the Winds for a tour. Obi couldn't go on the tour obviously, but the kids and I had fun. Driving back to Denver with a 105 lb (yes, he's gained weight...) dog in the passenger seat of an Accord is a bit precarious, but it was another great day.

I'll end with a final thought...if a turkey has been bred and raised to be slaughtered, isn't pardoning it a bit anti-climactic? Does a presidentially-pardoned turkey become entitled to healthcare and hospice in its later years? And how hypocritical/cruel is it to pardon one turkey and then eat another? "You're off the hook Courage*, but by the way I'm EATING YOUR BROTHER THIS EVENING!!! Now go back to your pen and think about that." That turkey will have issues for the rest of its life.

Happy Thanksgiving!

*The name of Obama's pardoned turkey

Headache

2009-11-13T15:57:00.000-08:00

First a fun thing from work today. We have to re-certify that we know how to ship hazardous materials safely, since we deal with biological samples and dry ice and such, which are carefully controlled. Not to the level of explosives or anything, but we have to train anyway so we don't have blood leaking onto the package from your grandma or anything. In addition to the usual training there's a new required DOT training for hazardous materials. It was humorous in weird ways. Right off the bat they mentioned 9/11 and showed pictures from the WTC, and then admitted that it had nothing to do with the transportation of hazardous materials, and what we were about to learn wouldn't have made a bit of difference in that situation. They tied it in with "We need to be vigilant!" but mostly I think somebody wanted to show 9/11 footage. Boo!

So the post I started out to write...last Sunday the Bean woke up miserable. her head hurt badly, so Steph gave her Tylenol, which she immediately threw up. She brightened a bit in the late morning, so we thought we would go skating w/ Tim and Erin, but after a trial trip out of the house (to Target) she said she wanted to go home and lay on the couch instead. This is so not normal for her. After a day of lying around she wanted a nap (also weird), slept for 2 hours, and woke up still miserable and in tears because she hurt so bad. Steph called the pediatrician who directed her to the ER, fearing meningitis. Luckily that didn't check out, so they diagnosed the Bean with her 1st migraine. Seriously. At 5 years old. I guess that's somewhat normal though for people who have migraines; most can trace their 1st back to when they were 5 or 6. It sucks to see though. After a few hours at the ER sucking on popsicles and watching The Princess Bride the Bean felt better and thought Children's was a pretty cool place to hang out. She even got a free hand-knit blanket from Project Linus. So all ended well I guess, but I hope that doesn't happen often.

One final observation- in the bathroom at my work there's a sign asking people not to throw Feminine Products in the toilets. If our toilet paper is embossed with flowers, isn't it a "feminine product" by definition?

2009-11-07T22:50:00.001-08:00

A preview just quoted Larry King's feelings on a movie. Would you see anything on the basis of Larry King's opinion? Why not "Gee, your grandpa liked it! Go see it!"

New banana fritos

2009-11-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

One thing about taking a banana in your lunch...you can't leave it in there for long. I made this mistake last week and my yummy chili cheese Frito's took on the distinct banana flavor, with a hint of chili. Not so yummy.

In other news, thanks to the benevolence of friends and a nice iTunes gift card, I'm wallowing in newly acquired music for the 1st time in awhile. I have the new Muse, Flaming Lips, Jay-Z, and the Ben Folds I didn't buy last year. Good times. I've also hit the app store and have actual apps that I paid money for now! Free versions of games are fun, but some things needed to be explored further.

Life continues to be busy. Steph has been out of town a lot to meetings and such lately and I've had a lot of downtime to go wild with no wife or kids in the house. It turns out that "going wild" means working a few hours for a school board campaign and being productive later into the night. When everybody is home I have to disappear to the basement after everyone is sleeping...when it's just me I can mop at 11:30 and nobody cares! I can also take Obi for walks at midnight, which is just gorgeous under a Colorado Fall full moon. Speaking of which fall is typically crazy weather wise. A week ago we had 2 feet of snow, every school in town shut down, my office closed, and the roads were a disaster. Fast forward to today and it was 75, sunny, and I was plenty warm running in shorts and a t-shirt. I love Colorado.

H1N-da house

2009-10-09T23:06:00.000-07:00

We officially have sickness in the house.

Wednesday morning Mr. K woke up feeling pukey and not wanting to go to school. His temp was 100.8, so we figured staying home was a good idea. Steph took the morning off, since I had patients, and we swapped at lunchtime so we could share the sick time at home. The pediatrician had a slot for us at 2:45, so we came home and hung out for a bit, Mr. K feeling and appreciating the effects of Motrin. At 2:15 we left the house for the doctor. Mr. K's temp just before getting in the car was 102.3 Huh. Going up.

By the time we got to the doctor, he had taken a serious turn for the worse. Another dose of Motrin was due, and he was looking miserable. We were waiting on dosing again so the doctor could see the full-blown illness. That may have been a mistake. His temp was at 102.8 when we first went to the exam room. Motrin was administered and he was swabbed for the flu culture. After 30 min or so his temp was at 103.6. By this time he was more miserable than I have ever seen a kid. Freezing cold, wanting to nap, every muscle in his body aching...not a happy camper. The M.A. had given him a popsicle and put some wet paper towels on his head to cool him off, but when his temp kept rising she sprung into action. She peeled his socks off, ran them under cold water, and put them back on his feet. Um...ok...

After about an hour at the office, the fever was up to 104.4. Mr. K's face was turning all sorts of weird shades of not-healthy and the doctor was starting to look concerned that the temperature kept rising. Being miserable, Mr. K asked the doctor if he could take off his wet socks, since they were uncomfortable. She looked confused as she asked how his socks had gotten wet. She looked more confused when I told her that her M.A. had thought it was a good idea.

Long story a bit shorter, after some Tylenol kicked in, the fever started to drop. The flu test actually came back negative, but the doc was honest about the false-negative rate of such things, especially in the early stages of a flu. (Also the M.A. had swabbed just the tip of the nostril, and a correct nasopharyngeal swab goes a lot farther back.) Basically H1N1 has been going around here and he's smack in the middle of the high-risk category, being an 8-year-old public school kid with asthma, so they weren't about to write it off on the basis of a negative flu test. We went home with the somewhat doctor-approved idea that it was H1N1 and a prescription for Tamiflu. Tamiflu turns out to be wonderful; the fever broke Thursday and Mr. K is totally better today (Friday).

So that's one down. Steph went to bed feeling miserable tonight with a temp of 99 or so. *fingers crossed*

It's a birthday!!

2009-10-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

Today The Bean turned 5. Given that I met her the day she turned 2.5, I have now officially known her for half of her life. It seems like only yesterday. She's getting big way too fast and I'm not ready for it. It's probably better for her that way, because she can still get away with some things she's a little too old for sometimes. But whatever. She's an awesome kid and I'm really just glad to be in her life.

She's totally a girl. She got 2 Toys R Us gift cards today, so we headed in expecting a long afternoon at the store. Instead she picked 3 things she just had to have in 10 min and we were out the door. Just like her mom; knows what she wants, knows how to get it. Granted Steph, as a grown adult-type woman, can take much longer shopping, but The Bean definitely has the love for the sport at an early age. Happy birthday Bean!

So speaking of sports...I only watched about 3 min total of the Broncos game today, because there were more important things going on w/ the birthday and all, but damn Broncos! 4-0?! Who knew? Throw in that the Sooners have 2 losses and my perceptions of this football season are totally out of whack. This is why we love football though, eh? (From ESPN: "The Broncos have allowed an NFL-low 26 points this season. In the final three games of the 14-year Mike Shanahan head coaching era, Denver allowed 112 points." Nice.)

In other news, the video camera function of my iPhone 3Gs has been getting a workout lately. (Videos are being uploaded here: http://www.youtube.com/user/w0nderm0nkey) I find my love for my iPhone hindered only by my non-skinny fingers. Typing can be tough, but other than that I'm in love. So much so that I find I'm hurt and betrayed when I hear John Krasinski's* voice on the Blackberry commercials. I feel he should know better.

Speaking of celebrity endorsements, I'm thoroughly confused by Evander Holyfield's Taco Bell commercial. Basically he's a big dude, orders 2 $1.99 burritos, and is told by the counter girl that even someone of his size only needs 1. So...what? Taco Bell is asking you to order less food. They're essentially calling you fat if eat 2 of their 1/2 lb burritos in one sitting. Does this make sense in any way? "Come to Taco Bell, but don't order too much, or we'll mock you to your face!" Huh?

*Jim from The Office

Spacing?

2009-09-28T08:40:00.001-07:00

Thank you for participating in my little experiment oh blog. That last post sat in my outbox for days before it finally went through. Now I'm just curious what the deal is with the spacing. Mr. K had a playdate with 2 friends Saturday. He's been begging me to have friends over for weeks and there was finally a chance since my hike Saturday was called due to mud and muckiness on the mountains. I was bummed not to go, but instead I had a memorable day at home with the kids. That's not a bad trade off!

Trial run

2009-09-28T08:30:00.001-07:00

Now that I have a real phone I thought I should set up mobile posting. This is more satisfying than updating a facebook status. But...does it work? Let's find out.

2009-09-28T07:09:00.001-07:00

Test post via text message. The one I sent 3 days ago disappeared. Hmmmm

Been awhile

2009-09-14T21:58:00.001-07:00

Much has happened since the last post that shall not be blogged. Some things I will share:

This comic at xkcd made me laugh mightily. I hope you, theoretical reader, have some idea what this refers to...

Last weekend I had the opportunity to witness Roller Derby firsthand. It was highly entertaining, if an overwhelming beatdown...1 match of the double-header ended 127 to 14 or something ridiculous like that. The other was almost as bad, but we left prior to the 2nd half of that one. We got to see lots of skating, shoving, pushing, falls, and 1 super nasty ankle break involving a limb rotated in entirely the wrong direction. Despite that I think the kids would get a kick out of the experience and I think I'll take them when the big tournament is in town the weekend of Oct 2-4.

Speaking of questionable appendages, Steph's toe continues to give her troubles. It's been more than a year since she was hospitalized for the toenail infection at the end of chemo and it has never been quite right. A podiatrist did what he could to fix it, but the post-surgical recovery has been iffy. We only hope it turns out ok.

I was supposed to have a meeting in Chicago on Thursday but that isn't happening. Poo. I've only traveled to 1 meeting this year and that doesn't help my frequent flier miles darnit!

Flaming Lips in District 9

2009-08-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

Unrelated concepts, yes. I saw District 9 this evening and can report that it is every bit as spectacular and intense as advertised. It's a movie with so many things going on and metaphors and social commentary and seamless special effects and "reality"-style camera work that it's hard to take in all at once. I suspect I'll see it again someday. Go see it though.

Tomorrow night is the Lips show at Red Rocks. Should be a great show as always. I'm excited. Once again the "no confetti" rule will be ignored in spectacular fashion and Wayne will talk a bit too much between songs. We know what to expect though! They may bring the UFO along...last show they told us they'd had it confiscated due to radioactivity issues w/ some of the pieces, but would bring it next time. I wonder if they remember promising us that.

The Broncos are down 27-13 currently and seem to have no viable QB. This might be a long season.

Path obstructed

2009-07-31T19:37:00.000-07:00

The dog park has remained closed since the last post, until 2 days ago. Then it's been rainy and gross so we haven't gone, until today. I got off work and there were storms in the distance so Obi and I headed to the park for some quick excercise hoping to beat the rain. We got to the bridge going to the back of the park and hit this:

It was so close to open! There was still room to run a bit so Obi came home less frustrated than last time. Not quite his usual level of freedom though.

A plague of plague

2009-07-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

Our dog park has the plague.

We love our dog park. It's the "Westminster Hills Open Space and city dog park," 3000+ acres of off-leash doggy-running happiness that Obi visits 3-7 times a week. Either Steph or I usually run the 4-mile round trip trail to Mower Reservoir and back while Obi runs along chasing prairie dogs, rabbits, and the occasional coyote. Yesterday the Bean and I went with Obi near sunset for a quick visit and the entrance was blocked. The sign on the barrier said that they'd tested the fleas in the park after an unusual number of prairie dogs started dying off and the results had been positive for The Plague. I tried to explain to the Bean and Obi why we were skipping the visit to the park due to a scourge of the 1340's, but the Bean was just annoyed and Obi was really upset when we drove away without his usual exercise. I'm hoping he didn't stick his nose down the wrong prairie dog hole when we went running Wednesday morning...

Kitchen counters- picture heavy happiness!

2009-07-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

As mentioned here previously, I have been replacing the counters in our kitchen. Since we moved in they have been the one thing on the main floor of our house that looked like they didn't fit with the obvious care taken to make the rest look nice. The existing counters were the cheap functional stuff found in every college apartment in the country; off-white, easily stained, easily ripped out and replaced before the next tenant moved in, if necessary. Not counters for a home, IMHO. Consequently we have very few pictures with the old countertops visible. This was taken the 1st day we looked at the house...that's the realtor in the picture:
We did get 1 shot prior to me tearing everything apart. The picture doesn't at all show the stains and scratches that covered these counters. This is just before everything came out:
So first I had to remove the old counters and rebuild from the cabinets up. This required a .75" layer of plywood sealed against moisture, followed by a .5" layer of Hardibacker cement board. (Throw on a .25" layer of thinset w/ a .25" tile and you've got a tiny bit of extra counter height. This will cause problems later of course) Here's me working on...something. I was in and out of the house on a bright sunny day, hence the shirtlessness. Avert your eyes if this scares you.Now one thing I did in the bathroom that I thought served me very well was laying out the tiles prior to putting down the thinset. My handy tiling book doesn't say to do this, assuming that everyone will cut as they go, but I like a visual and measurements without the pressure of thinset wanting to dry on me. When working with multiple intersecting grout lines there's a lot of minor adjustment as well, which is complicated if the tile is sitting in a bed of cement. Here's what that looks like (the tiles against the wall aren't cut to size yet obviously):
Getting closer, this is the view after the thinset was down, prior to grouting and sink replacement. If you look closely, the lines between tiles are deeper than they should be, due to the conspicuous lack of grout. Also you can see the symmetry of the counter- originally I'd laid this out as 2 12" tiles towards the front of the counter with a 7" tile at the back, as evident in the above pic, but when I laid it out I decided to move the smaller tile to the center. I think it looks nice that way.Then Steph said "Let there be Grout!" And there was grout. And it was good. Steph is a lot faster at grouting than I am. This is the final finished countertop. Due to a miscalculation on my part (and an astute observation by Steph involving an edge that was done weirdly when the prior counters were installed) I ended up short 4 pieces of bullnose and had to order more and wait for a week to get it, so the final finished product took a bit longer than hoped. But here it is! :
The tile is as textured as it looks. It's full-body porcelain (the color goes all the way through the tile) so it's pretty much never going to chip or crack and if it does (i.e. somebody launches a cannonball at it or misses when tossing a bowling call across my kitchen) you shouldn't be able to see the chip. This next is the edge that I stressed about, since there was such a small tile at the end. The bullnose at the front of the pic was tricky as well, since I had a 36" deep counter and "12 inch" tiles tend to be more like 11 3/4". My bullnose didn't quite fit, so I ended up cutting down 2 pieces and making a slightly more complicated end. I've been told it looks good by the only people that matter in such things, so I'm happy with it!
And now the sink. The light is a bit funny in this pic (the sink is black and all one color, not grey), but we are very happy with how this looks in the new countertop. There's a slight flaw in the tile work around the sink, but my in-laws tell me I'm being too picky, so I won't even say what it is :-) I will say though that Russ had to help me re-work some plumbing- the slightly higher counter meant the pipes didn't quite line up, and I moved the whole sink back maybe 1/2" somehow. Not a big deal, but there's a giant vent pipe under the sink that was positioned so that it was pressing against the underside of the telescoping faucet, pinching the telescoping mechanism. We cut the pipe off and dropped it about 1.5" lower and everything is fine now.
A couple more angles, just because. This is the corner by the dishwasher. Everything started with the tile at the corner of the angle-cut bullnose. If that hadn't been straight none of this would have worked.
And the other pieces of the counter, behind the sink by the stove. The left edge here by the hall is what threw me- the old counters had a non-rounded edge there , so I had a non-bullnose edge planned, which wouldn't have matched the rest of the kitchen. Adding bullnose to that edge makes complete sense visually and practically, it just screwed up my math. Better right than fast though, eh?
So those are the counters for now! We will be doing a border of some sort everywhere the counter meets a wall, to break up the corners a bit and cover some flaws in the drywall. The old counters had been caulked in place and had been there awhile, so the wall is a bit of a different texture 4" up all the way around and it needs covered. We'll also do a backsplash around the stove, but we want to take our time with that and come up with something we'll really like. For now the counters are done and I'm quite happy with my 2nd major commission of DIY.

Special thanks to The Home Depot for existing and Jim at A World of Tile in Westminster for patience, helpfulness, and taking my money :-)

Red Rocks, 04Jul2009

2009-07-04T22:57:00.000-07:00

Every year Blues Traveler plays a 4th of July show at Red Rocks. I've always thought that sounded kind of cool. The kids are in Illinois with their biological father, so tracking down a firework display wasn't as necessary. On top of that Lewis Black was opening for Blues Traveler and since he's about my favorite (living) comedian Steph and I decided to go.

The show started at 6, which is seriously early for a concert, so they had an extra opening comedian. He was some local guy and pretty bleh, but Lewis Black was hysterical. Better than when we saw him on his own at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House awhile back. Then an opening band, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, who were really really good. By the time the main even rolled around it was dark and the clouds had blown over without soaking us. (Whew!) Between bands we sought a seat higher in the amphitheater where we could see the city over the top of the stage.

I'd heard that this is a cool show to see, with the fireworks and all, but it really has to be experienced. From the top half of Red Rocks the entire Denver metro area is spread out in front of you. So there we were, live music going strong, stars out over our heads, my arms around my lovely wife, with 20+ fireworks displays erupting in the distance. I'd say if there is a heaven it has to be something like that.

Bed now. There's a lot more going on this weekend, but it's late. Kitchen counter pics forthcoming!

Michael Jackson has died

2009-06-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

I won't comment on MJ dying, but since the FCC has declared that all broadcasts must contain a mention of his death I don't want to risk the fine.

I only have 90 minutes left in the month and this is only the 2nd post of June. Oh how I slack. We went on vacation though, so I'm allowed. June 7-14 we were at the Barcelo Tropical in Riviera Maya. Good times and good relaxation. (Pics are on Steph's phone and haven't been retrieved yet.) On Friday night just before we left Steph's driver's side rear window was smashed in a robbery attempt in Cherry Creek, so we started off the vacation somewhat poorly. (They took her loose change and that's it.) Fortunately our luck changed when we left for Mexico.

We got to the airport early enough for breakfast, so we sat and ordered food off the kids' menu so they'd be full and Steph and I picked off theirs. 10 min after the food had come out the manager walked out with another identical order...oops. He was shocked to see empty plates already at the table, but kindly left us the extra food for free. The flight to Mexico was uneventful, as was the transfer to the hotel*, and then we checked in. Steph asked nicely if we could have a room close-ish to the pool and they obliged, putting us in a suite for no extra charge instead of a regular room like we'd booked. Sweet. This came with a bottle of champagne and a fruit plate. Alrighty!

So we headed to the beach. On the way down the stairs we passed an older couple who told us they were leaving in the morning and had left an inner tube and an air mattress by a tree if we wanted to snag them. More free stuff! So we grabbed the air mattress, then went for a walk on the beach. As we were walking and enjoying the sand a little girl and her mom walked up with a bag full of sand toys. They were leaving in the morning as well, and would we like a bunch of sand toys for the week? Sure, thanks!

That was all day 1. The rest of the trip was great, with less overtly free stuff. It was all-inclusive, so everything felt free. The kids had a blast and The Bean took huge leaps with her swimming. She didn't like to let go of mom either, which put the kibosh on the plan that the kids go to the Kids Club a couple hours a day so Steph and I could relax a bit. Oh well. I have to remember that even though I got into this for Steph the kids are #1 for her, which is as it should be.

We're getting our alone time now though. The kids are with their dad in Illinois for 12 days and we're celebrating by re-doing the kitchen countertops. More on that later, when pics are available...

*We're never taking an Apple Vacations transfer again. We waited an hour for "2 more people!" who had been on our flight and must have gotten distracted by the line of time share salesmen offering "Free Rides" to the hotels in exchange for 4 hours of your vacation time later in the week. There's nothing more frustrating than getting off a plane and sitting on a bus for an hour waiting to get to the beach because the driver won't just LEAVE. This has happened every time we've booked the transfers through Apple Vacations.

29?

2009-06-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

According to the calendar I have aged another year. 365 days until I'm 30. That's bizarre.

I guess I knew I was growing older last week. We saw the NIN/JA (Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addiction) tour on 5/26 and it occurred to me that I'm just not the target demographic anymore for much of NIN's music. Don't get me wrong...they're great live. But a gorgeous teen-angsty post-breakup ballad like "Something I Can Never Have*" doesn't have quite the same emotional punch when you're standing next to someone you're madly in love with. Songs about bleakness and the world falling apart don't quite fit a happy life full of joy and contentment. It's a small trade-off, but I definitely recognized that my life has moved on past some of the music I enjoy very much.

In another sign of aging, I'm quite happy to see green grass popping up in my front yard. The new sprinkler is doing its thing and the grass seed we put down has started coming in. The "baby grasses" are being monitored daily by The Bean and are up to 3" in places now. Hopefully by the time we get back from our week in Mexico it will be nicely established. (It's a bit patchy, but we're hoping that it will fill in, given some time and water.) Then we'll have to figure out why the hot tub mysteriously quit working when the sprinklers were put in. I'm afraid it may have something to do with the control box being put in the ground right where the electrical cable ran through. That's a problem for another day though.

*Sample lyrics:
I still recall the taste of your tears.
Echoing your voice just like the ringing in my ears.
My favorite dreams of you still wash ashore.
Scraping through my head 'till I don't want to sleep anymore.

Dorothy, I think we're back in Kansas.

2009-05-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I spent the weekend in Kansas with Mr. K, my Uncle Tod, cousin Alex, Tim, Erin, and my mom. The trip had been planned for awhile for Tim, Erin, and my mom, but the recent death of my great-great-aunt Dorothy brought Tod and Alex out from Seattle, so Mr. K and I picked them up at the airport and went out as well.

My relationship with my mom's family has always been a bit odd. Her parents refused to attend her wedding, since it was in a Catholic church, and things between them and my parents have been a bit strained for my whole life. We spent almost every Thanksgiving at Grandma Billie and Grandad Rex's house in McPherson, but mostly I hung out with my cousins and Tod and left the older folks alone. Rex and Billie were there, but somehow I have more positive memories of "Aunt" Dorothy and her sister "Mom-mo" Lynn (my great grandma) than my grandparents.

So that's the backstory. Aunt Dorothy is gone now, so we spent the weekend visiting the remaining relatives. First up was Mom-Mo Lynn. She's somewhere around 95, and has the Life Force that Eddie Izzard speaks of: "I'm a gran, I live forever!" She lives on her own, goes to church on Sunday, and sells Avon in her spare time. She was also heavily involved in my mom's upbringing, so has a special place in her heart. We were they for quite awhile on Sunday and went to church with her. Once back at her house we fixed her lamps. Apparently her power had been out that morning and she had panicked until the neighbor came over to find the tripped breaker. Good thing it tripped too- the 2 lamps in her living room were running on ancient cords that were frayed to the point of arcing and melting the power strip into which they were plugged. Tripped breaker= no housefire. So that's kind of scary actually. But we hit Home Depot and got some new plugs, cut the wires, and made it all safe again.

Then it was off to Mom-mo Bernese's for a quick visit. She's Grandad Rex's mom and has opted to turn her thermostat up to 90 instead of just moving to Florida, so we didn't last long there. Actually I spent most of that visit outside with Mr. K and Alex so they wouldn't melt.

Then we headed to Grandma Billie's. Grandad Rex died last year and I didn't make it to the funeral- Steph was in the middle of chemo and it wasn't a good time to get away. So it's just Billie now, living on her own. Somehow, in her early 70's, she appears about 5 years older than her mother. She's been tiny my whole life, <5' tall and <100 lbs. She has also spent her life smoking and drinking, has experienced 2 or 3 strokes (that we know of), and lives in a 3-story house that used to house a family of 5. After Grandad died my Aunt Terri got her a new boxer, so she has a dog that weighs as much as she does to keep her company.

It was kind of a scary visit really. My grandma should not be living alone. She fell several times when we were there and needed help standing back up. There were several empty wine boxes lying around. (After your 3rd stroke, why stop drinking, eh?) Her left hand is frozen and useless and her ankle is swollen unnaturally. She can't walk on it. There's a room in the basement that was full of junk when I was a kid, now less cluttered with 1/2 the junk, but the room has a water leak from somewhere above and a pool of mold in the corner under it. Tod mentioned that the pipe above had been leaking, I looked up, and gee, it's still wet! Oops. The box I moved underneath fell apart on contact and we immediately stopped touching things in there. Needs professional attention.

The real excitement was when Grandma decided that we would be allowed to clean out the freezer in the basement. This turned into more of a challenge than was originally apparent. When Tod first opened it the door didn't budge until considerable force was applied. There were 5 shelves in the freezer, of varying degrees of fullness. There was also a layer of ice on everything. I have never seen such freezer burn and I hope I never do again. There were pork chops in there that were grey after 7 years in the freezer.* There were 3 tins full of collector's coins, in their protective sleeves. There were things that were not to be chipped out of the 5" of ice covering them- they went straight to the trash on the curb like that. We spent 1.5-2 hours in the basement breaking out food, chipping ice, melting ice, and mopping the floors. The freezer ended up clean though.

We ended Sunday at Tod's cousin Brandon's house. (I can't figure out the name for how he's related to me...he's the son of my Grandpa's brother...) The kids hit the pool at the Holiday Inn Express that evening, slept, then it was Memorial Day. We stopped by Grandma's on the way out of town, partly so my mom and Tod could talk to her about moving closer to somebody, or at least seeing a doctor. She refused to consider either.

So we came home, and the car trips are for another post I guess. The whole weekend was pretty overwhelming. It's hard on my mom to see her relatives looking so old and frail, but Mom-mo is 95 and Billie refuses help, so there's not much to be done. All in all it was a good trip for me to have made, from a duty-to-family standpoint, but I can't say I'll be rushing back anytime soon.

As a side note, Mr. K was an absolutely perfectly behaved and patient kid almost the whole trip. Probably did better than when I went to my grandma's. I bought him Lego Indiana Jones as a reward. Hooray for new games!

*Grandad Rex meticulously labeled things, so there were dates on everything. It was kind of scarier that way.

An Ominous Smorgasbord

2009-05-22T20:41:00.000-07:00

(^^Currently the only usage of the phrase "Ominous Smorgasbord" on the interwebs!^^)

Today the Bean had a Smorgasbord at daycare. I'm not sure what the occasion was, but they wanted to call something a smorgasbord, so they did. We were practicing saying this yesterday and we somehow started combining it with the other word certain members of the family have a hard time pronouncing, Ominous. So we decided the Bean was having an Ominous Smorgasbord and practiced saying it 3 times fast. Try it. If nothing else you'll sound goofy.

So this morning we were headed to school and the kids decided I was the school bus teacher. Not the driver, the teacher. Just go with it. They started telling me about the pet tiger they have at home, an apparently well-trained beast who won't bite. Mostly. The Bean says he knows the commands Sit, Stay, and Eat Bad Guys. Quite the talented tiger, eh?

Speaking of pets at home...we almost lost Obi last Sunday. One of the folks who installed our sprinklers last Saturday apparently wandered through the gate on the North side of the house and left it unlatched. Sometime last Saturday night or early Sunday morning Obi went for a walk. Steph woke me up at 6:45 a bit concerned that she couldn't locate our dog. We discovered the open gate and hit the streets. We drove a bit yelling out our windows, Steph hit the dog park, then we came home and Steph started putting up signs while I went down to Standley Lake. It's only 3 blocks South of us and would be a good place for a doggy on the run to go for a stroll. I walked towards the campers and started talking to people, seeing if anyone had seen a stray dog run through. The first 2 guys I met had not, but took my number in case they ran across him. As I was walking towards the 3rd group of people eating breakfast, I saw a shape move under the next camper. A quick "Obi! Come!" and my dog popped out and ran right over to me, looking as happy to see me as I was to see him.

So all is well. The gate now has a board screwed in place over it, since we never use it anyway. Also we now have an idea where Obi might go, were he to get out again. Luckily the kids were at their dad's house when this all happened, so we just kept it quiet that Obi was almost lost. Whew.

Tomorrow I drive to Kansas for my great-great-aunt's funeral. Mr. K has opted to go with me, since he's never been to Kansas and wants to see what it's like. We're going to try to make this fun! We're driving with Tod and Alex and we'll be staying w/ Tim, Erin, and my mom, so it should be a good time. Hooray for long weekends!

Rainbirds live in my yard

2009-05-16T22:50:00.000-07:00

Today I had a sprinkler system installed. Exciting, eh? We are hopeful that by the end of the season we will have something growing in our yard. To that end we put down some topsoil, fertilizer, and grass seed today. In the next 3-4 weeks we will try to grow some seeds. If it doesn't work we may end up sodding in the next year or 2. For now we are hopeful that regularly scheduled computer-generated waterings will inspire growth more than the haphazard distracted watering schedule employed last summer.

Yesterday was another entertaining day in my life as a stepdad. We went to The Bean's spring program at her daycare and afterward I had promised to take her home for the day. When we were in her classroom, one of her best friend's moms was saying goodbye, leaving for the afternoon to move things into their new home. We have been trying to schedule a playdate for awhile, so Steph offered that she could come over and play at our house instead of hanging out at daycare for the afternoon. This was a generous offer, considering Steph was headed back to work, and it was going to be just me at home. I'm flexible though, and 10 min later I was headed home with 2 4-year old girls to hang out for an afternoon.

It was a nice afternoon...the plumbing guy came out and ran the line for the sprinkler, we made chocolate chip cookies, met the FedEx guy who brought an envelope full of Mexican pesos for our trip*, watched The Little Mermaid, and the girls got in the hot tub for a bit. Quite an eventful 4 hours. Steph called probably 6 times to check in, wishing desperately that she was home hanging out w/ us instead of at work. The 4th or 5th time she called I pointed out that I had 2 cute blondes in my hot tub and fresh cookies in the oven. Life doesn't get much better than that!

Today I took Mr. K to see Star Trek. He loved it and asked ever-so-innocently when it was over if there were more Star Trek movies or books or anything we could get for more Star Trek fun. This could be fun!

*The FedEx envelope specifically states that it is not to be used for the shipment of "cash or cash equivalent." Should I turn in Wells Fargo for apparently making this a business practice?

Project finished!

2009-05-10T21:58:00.000-07:00

It's over! The kids' bathroom is now a much nicer place to be. I hope the pictures reflect that adequately.

First, here's the view looking into the room. The Before pic is on the left, clearly displaying the horrid vinyl flooring which was probably installed when the house was built in 1985. Also you can see a touch of the yellow color on the walls, added by the prior homeowners and, we're guessing, picked by their 4-year-old girl. It's the only explanation. The After pic is on the right obviously...the tile behind the shower curtain hasn't changed, but I didn't quite replicate this pic exactly. Oh well.

Looking closer, this is the Before vs. After paint color. See a difference? What amazed us was how much the new paint changed the look of the tile in the shower. With the dingy yellow paint it looked like an off-tan pukey color that needed to be replaced. Once the new paint was in place, the tile looks greyish and not bad at all.

Also in this pic you can see the trim we replaced. It's dark brown now to match the vanity under the sink. I think it ties the room together nicely and makes the whole thing cozier, but that may be biased. Also you can see more of the new floor- I don't know why the bottom right corner of the pic looks that red. It's not like that in real life.

This is looking back towards the door. I love how the paint and reworked trim color go together, especially compared to the Before pic. The yellow with the light trim just didn't do anything for the space.

And now a word on the floor, since this pic has more visible than the others. We hated the old stuff. It was like a rejected 70's dorm bathroom floor sample. The pic doesn't do its horridity justice. The new stuff is porcelain 20x20 tiles picked up at our local tile place down the street (A World of Tile). We love the color and it has a nice subtle texture to it under the toes.

And just because I have to mention it...the floor grate on the left was replaced to better match the room. Almost everything else in the room was a brushed silver, and the new grate looks much nicer. You can't see it in the pics, but the tile around the grate is solid...I managed to cut a perfectly sized (4"x10.5") rectangle out of the center of the tile using only the $88 tile saw from Lowe's. That cut alone took the better part of 2 hours, but it was totally worth it.

So that's my first major home-ownin' renovation! I'm pretty darn happy with how it turned out. There's only a 2-week gap from the Before pics to the Afters. Like Steph says, I may not have gotten much else done in the last couple weekends (laundry, cleaning, etc.) but the stuff I did get done will make a difference for a whole lot longer. (And yes Matthew, there are contractors who do this kind of thing, but this was totally worth doing myself!)

My fingers hurt

2009-05-02T21:47:00.000-07:00

so I guess I'll spend some time typing!
Something about working with porcelain tile for 13.5 hours straight makes the fingers dry and rough and irritated. At least when your day job involves sitting at a computer all day doing namby pamby desk work. The change is shocking to the system.

This morning I started at 9ish cutting tile and laying it out to fit the bathroom. At 10:30 PM I finished cleaning the last tool. At this point all of the tile is mortared in place and curing so I can grout tomorrow, then reinstall baseboards and put the toilet back. It was a good day's work. Steph got to hang out w/ the kids all day, which had it's own whiny challenges, but we all survived and the bathroom is going to look great. Pics will be posted when it's complete!

Tools

2009-04-30T21:35:00.000-07:00

Who knew you needed a 1/2" chuck to mix mortar? Guess I need another drill, in addition to the circular saw, jigsaw, and handsaw I bought this evening. Back to the store...

New project(s)! Hooray for homeownin'

2009-04-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

We have decided that the kitchen countertops are due to be replaced. They're the only part of the main floor of our house that look really cheap. Think apartment countertops. Functional, but obviously installed with no thought for aesthetics or longevity. They're scratched and stained and really just ready to go. So last weekend we started painting the kids' bathroom. A logical first step in refinishing the kitchen.

See, the kitchen is a big part of the ground floor, and we want the counters to look great when complete. Steph had the great idea* that we should maybe try to learn tiling skillz on an area of the house that wasn't quite as visible, such as the kids' bathroom. In the garage was a stack of tiles that matched the ones installed in the master bathroom upstairs, so it seemed like an easy thing to throw those on the floor, learn some things, and move on to the kitchen in June when the kids are in Illinois w/ their dad for 10 days. But first, the color of the kids' bathroom needed work. The prior homeowners must have let the 4 year old girl pick the color, because it was a hideous pastel yellow. Since the floors were about to be redone, it was a great time to paint with no concern for the trim or the floor, both of which were being trashed anyway.

While picking the color, I measured the floor and realized we were 4 tiles short of having enough materials. 4 tiles short of a tile variety that has been discontinued by the manufacturer and is no longer carried by the tile place down the road where our predecessors purchased it. So we have now purchased all new tile for the bathroom and a nice coordinating paint color (kind of a light blueish-grey) which is now almost completely finished.

Tomorrow I get to go tool shopping to expand my collection quite a bit, Thursday my father-in-law is in town and will help me pull out the toilet, prep the floor, and figure out layout, and I should be tiling sometime this weekend or early next week. If all goes well we'll have new kitchen counters by July!

*not sarcasm

A lost pony, and the tragic demise of the Easter Bunny

2009-04-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

There's a song by Afroman, "Tall Cans," which contains the following lyric:

Now I'm walkin down the street with some chicken and a forty
I'm yellin at these hoochies and I'm lookin for a party

This song is in the rotation on Steph's ipod, so it's popped up in her car a couple times when the kids are present. Anyway, yesterday Mr. K started to sing:

"Now I'm walkin down the street with some chicken and a phony
I'm yellin at these hoochies and I'm lookin for a pony"

And just like that the song is transformed. Instead of a no-good thug lookin' to get crazy, we have a poor guy wandering the streets enlisting the help of the neighborhood hoochies to help him find his lost pony. It's so heartfelt. I've named the pony Nibbles and we've decided the "Tall Cans" in the title of the song refer to the tall cans of oats you buy in the store. Nibbles just needs his dinner. Hopefully the hoochies saw which way he went.

Yesterday I had to fulfill my manly duties once again and discard a dead animal that was stinking up the garage.* Mr. K had mentioned the stench first, and Steph said when she got home that it smelled like something had died next to the wall of the garage. So I moved some stuff and sure enough, there was a teensy baby bunny lying next to the wall. It must have hopped in when the garage was open and then couldn't find it's way out. Poor guy. Being the man of the house I had to grab a shovel and remove the body. If you're keeping score at home (assuming anyone even reads this thing anymore) that's 1 dead mouse, 1 live vole, and 1 dead bunny that I've had to rid the house of in the 13 months we've lived here. Darn varmints.

*My nose officially sucks. There was a rotting maggot-ridden rabbit in the garage and I couldn't smell it.

Swiper in action!

2009-04-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

A question pondered in a prior post, has been answered. The Bean has Dora on in the other room (the episode involves mermaids), and Dora and Boots just asked Swiper to swipe something for them from a whale. I'm not sure what it was, but I hope it wasn't the whale's personal property. Apparently Swiper's swiping skills are only appreciated when they are selfishly utilized by others.

More adventures in daddyhood

2009-04-24T08:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at dinner The Bean was vexed by something (I don't remember what), but she looked right at me with a 4-year-old glint in her eye and said "Curse you Anthony!" I'm not sure where she got it, but it was a funny moment in my evening.

I'm home with The Bean today, due to explosive bathroom happenings this morning. The poor kid lost everything and ran for the bathroom again when we were headed to the car, so she ended up with a day off (as did I...though I really need to be at work at the moment. Family 1st though!) This afternoon we have a date with the dentist to get her chipped molar worked on. What fun!

Airborne Toxic Event

2009-04-22T22:21:00.000-07:00

more funny pictures

In other news, the ninjas are so scared by the crackdown on pirates that they're reduced to robbing dry cleaners. How the mighty have fallen.

In more other news, I saw Airborne Toxic Event at the Ogden a week ago and they were really really good. Go listen if you haven't heard them.

"Manufactured in a facility that processes tree nut products."

2009-04-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

Well we're back from Easter Weekend at the in-laws. We left Friday afternoon, getting Mr. K out of school early to beat the impending storms over Wolf Creek Pass. The first, craziest event of the weekend took place Friday evening. We'd had dinner and Grandma Kathy broke out dessert- Dreyer's Fudge Tracks ice cream. Bowls were served all around and Mr. K, being the always-conscious severe-peanut-allergy-having kid that he is, asked if it was safe for him. I went straight the allergy warning and read "This ingredient is manufactured in a facility that processes tree nut products." Now he does have a severe allergy, but he has to be a kid as well, so if Steph and I are there with an Epi-pen we don't stop him from those kinds of 2nd-hand-possibly-maybe-tainted things.

So Mr. K ate a couple bites of ice cream. He said it didn't taste right and thought he tasted peanuts, so Steph double-checked the label. She read the same thing I did, re-assured him, and he ate a few more bites. Then he stopped, set down his ice cream, and within 5 minutes was having gut-wrenching stomach pains. 45-60 min later he bolted for the bathroom and lost everything in his stomach in spectacular fashion.

Steph, thinking something seemed off by this point, quadruple checked the label and notices, in little 10-pt font on the side of the carton, a notation that the ice cream contains "Real Chunks of Peanut Butter Cups!" Um, shit? Peanut Butter Cups are also listed under the ingredients section, but the allergy warning is pretty vague. (Feel free to judge my parenting skillz here. I have many times in the last 4 days) So, since Mr. K has about the most severe peanut allergy you'll ever see, we packed up and went to the ER for a visit. By the time we got there (really by the time we left the house) it was over. According to the ER doc, Mr. K's GI tract experienced the allergic reaction in place of the rest of the body and saved him. He had some tummy troubles the next couple days, but for the most part his body knew just what to do with peanuts.

So we learned some things...
1st, 3 adults can look at a container and completely miss peanuts. That's scary.
2nd, allergy warnings can be useful, but aren't always as specific as they could be and don't substitute for reading every ingredient.
3rd, Mr. K's body will be completely and totally trusted when it tells him to stop eating something, and if he says it doesn't taste right we're all going to listen.
4th, puking can serve a life-saving purpose. If Mr. K's body can do that every time he ingests a peanut product it will probably save his life multiple times.

Billy Corgan has not "sold out"

2009-03-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

I've been struggling with this thing for a few weeks now, since "Today" popped up in a Visa ad. It's a lot more than just a backing song for a random commercial..."Today" was the song that launched the Pumpkins to superstardom, as well as the song that Billy credits with saving his life. All the way back in 2004, there was an interview in Newsweek in which Billy discussed why he had repeatedly refused to license Today and Tonight,Tonight. Here are his words:

(Billy) The song I wrote, "Today," which ended up being a pretty big song--that song literally saved my life. I was completely suicidal, and I wrote that song in a cold bedroom on a day where it was like, "I'm either going to kill myself today, or I'm going to live because I'm sick of thinking about this." When I played it, it was an intense, extreme feeling. Last year, I was offered heavy, heavy money to license that song. I actually turned down two huge, huge, seven-figure-plus deals last year for two songs.

(Newsweek) For "Today" and for which other song?

(Billy) "Tonight, Tonight." That's a fundamentally difficult position to be in. At this point, it's just free money. Song's already been played. It's been exploited. The record company's literally begging me: go ahead and take these commercials. At this point in my life, I don't feel comfortable. Those songs are the reason I'm alive. If your music is not sacred to the point where it's a really, really, really heavy decision about whether or not you would allow somebody else to exploit it, then what's not for sale?

So now everything is for sale. Is that selling out? In a sense, absolutely. But looking at it as a progression of the Pumpkins it's a natural step in where the band has been headed. I've been a huge fan for years the last 16 years, but looking back there's a definite break between Adore and Machina, and things haven't been the same since. Gish, Siamese Dream, MCIS, and Adore were the work of a band (and a frontman) that wanted to express things that could only be expressed through music. From teen angst through the shock of realizing that you're an adult now, those will always be magical CDs.

Machina I and II were different. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the music, but the meaning just isn't there. It's a CD about grappling with the fact that you're a huge rock star. We can all relate to that, right? Then the breakup, Zwan, Billy Corgan's solo CD, SP reformation with 2/4 of the original members, and Zeitgeist, which is a CD about America. Again, good music, just not on the same emotional level as the first albums.

So for the last 9 years the music hasn't been emotional. Musically it's still great, but it hasn't been the kind of music that teenagers will listen to late at night and thank the stars that somebody out there understands what it is to be lost and confused in the big, big world.

With the licensing of Today, Billy has told us all that he realizes that his music doesn't mean what it used to anymore. It's a sad position to be in, but it's somewhat honest as well. Add to that the departure of Jimmy Chamberlin from the Pumpkins, coupled with the announcement that Billy will be going into the studio, alone, to record as The Smashing Pumpkins, as we have a clear picture of Billy's view of the world:
He is the Pumpkins, and music will continue to be made. The music will continue to rawk and be spectacularly constructed, but if you're looking for music that will save your soul the new CD probably won't be it.

Stewart vs. Cramer

2009-03-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

I finally saw The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 3/12/09. If you doubt the brilliance of Jon Stewart, go watch. I don't watch The Daily Show as much as I'd like to these days, but it remains brilliant. I wonder how it will be viewed 50 years from now. It's one of those cultural touchstones that pops up every so often and you know it's going to be on "I Love the 2000's" on VH1 in a few years, and enshrined in the Smithsonian for posterity.

In other news, life continues in wonderful fashion, hence the dearth of posts. Of course this year I only have 1 blog to update, so my post count here is fairly consistent :-P It also strikes me that as I grow up there are lots of things I can't say on a blog. With the nature of my work, frustrations with sponsors and such are largely confidential. Steph's job lately has been...interesting to say the least. And frustrations with the father of my children will rarely be posted here, because I don't want this to be off limits to the kids in the future.

So things I can talk about...I've been doing well ramping up my running lately and getting some consistency. Currently I can go about 3.5 miles at the dog park without stopping. Pacing is good, as is music to run by (for some reason "Everlong" is great at sunset looking up at the foothills). There's a 5k Saturday being organized as a benefit for a parent of a kid at Kade's school who has cancer, and Steph & I want to go run it. I think I'll do well.

Jennifer and Paul are coming out in a week and a half to see me, which is exciting. The last time I saw them was a few weeks after Sarah and I broke up. I drove to OK for the weekend and spent the whole time venting about how much my life had quietly sucked for a long time. They admitted to me on that trip how little they had liked Sarah, but had put up with her to hang out with me. It'll be a nice change to have them come out and see how great my world is now and meet my new family. They'll love Steph :-) Also I want to go running with Paul. I know he can go a lot farther than me, but then we'll be on my home turf about 5,000 miles higher than he's used to, so I'd bet I can keep up. He was always a runner and I was jealous of that ability. I think I can not embarrass myself now, under these conditions at least.

Lookie there, we're in the paper!

2009-03-15T07:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_11915651

This was the front page article on the Denver & the West section of today's (Sunday) paper. Our picture was the big above-the-fold image. We're famous!

A little too quiet...

2009-03-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

That doesn't refer to my blog, but rather to the release of the new ipod shuffle. I live on MSNBC for my news updates, and I completely missed this happening today. 4 GB with no buttons? It's like the flea, but REAL. I actually paused for a sec to think about how close April Fool's Day is. But no, apparently this is real and I kind of want one. (But only kind of...1st I'd like a real ipod. My Mini has served me well, but at almost 3 years old it doesn't function when not connected to a power source, and it's only 6 GB.)

I used to mock the original shuffle. My sister had one and I thought it was dumb. I've stolen Steph's now though. I've taken up running and it's perfect for that. 1 GB will hold plenty of music for a good assortment when running or skiing. It works well for the purpose it was made for. Weird how that works.

Shenanigans in the past week

2009-02-22T21:12:00.000-08:00

Wow it's been a crazy 7 days.
Last Sunday my Uncle Tod made it to Denver for the 1st time in forever. He was always the favorite uncle growing up, so we were all looking forward to his visit. He brought my cousin who is a year older than Mr. K. They got along great and it was good to see them...except that Tod picked up Influenza A on the way down and ended up being a bit too miserable to enjoy himself. By Tuesday my cousin had been stricken as well so we had to stay away after that. Luckily Mr. K and the Bean didn't catch it somehow. Whew. They'd hung out with my cousin Sunday evening, all day Monday, and again Tuesday night and didn't get the bug. Kind of amazing, but we're happy for the small favor. Mostly I was bummed we didn't get to hang out more.

Wednesday was the final prep evening for the MyLifeLine event last night. We headed to Marcia's house and stuffed the gift bags w/ the rest of the crowd. We met Marcia's parents too; good folks. Thursday was the usual gymnastics, but it was bring-a-friend night and since my cousin had left town we did a last-minute invite and had to do a last-minute friend-invite and pickup. Friday we hung out w/ the Myers clan (Steph had drinks w/ Taryn, Jarrod and I hung out w/ the kids and the Wii), and then it was time for Saturday.

We knew yesterday was going to be a bit stressful. We had been helping a bit w/ planning the fundraiser for MyLifeLine when they asked us to share our story as the "featured speakers" for the evening. We agreed, but only because we believe so strongly in the organization. Public speaking is something I haven't done in years, and Steph was a tad apprehensive. We ended up spending almost all day yesterday tweaking the speech to get it just right and finalizing the powerpoint we were going to be using to show off the features of the site. We practiced as many times as we could manage and did a pretty damn good job of it at the actual event. (Video is forthcoming...right now it's trapped on Jarrod's video camera and we need to get cables to get it digitally shareable...) We got nothing but positive feedback (but then I guess people wouldn't say it to our faces if we sucked :-/ )

The event itself was quite nice. Both of our sets of parents went, along w/ Tim & Erin. They'd reserved a table for us right up front, which was nice. We got a couple things in the live auction too. Yay for carefully-directed tax deductions!

Today was regular weekend catchup stuff, and Steph and I both got runs in. I'm up to 1.5 miles or so without slowing to a walk. (At the local dog park that's the distance from the bridge to the pond off over a few hills.) It's not at all a level course, and it's good for me. Steph says I run well, so maybe I'll stick with it awhile and see how it goes. I don't know that I'll get up to her half-marathons, but maybe a 5-k? We'll see.

Bed now. Work 9 hours tomorrow, then immediately hop on a plane to Atlanta, where I stay until Wednesday. Oy.

Recent goings-on

2009-02-09T20:09:00.000-08:00

It's been a few weeks. Oops.

So the weekend before last a critter entered our home. This was brought to my attention when I was in the shower and heard Steph talking quite excitedly to Obi. I couldn't hear much, but it was the "come on doggy, let's play!" type voice. Then she started yelling for me. Hmmmm. I turned off the water and Steph yelled at me to GET DOWNSTAIRS! I did so as quickly as was decent given my previous state and found Steph standing on the stairs trying to redirect Obi from the couch to a basket in the corner. Some sort of creature had darted behind the basket and Obi was lost trying to find it. I found a box and a broom and went to my husbandly duties. One poke to the basket and a small furry thing ran right at me. I showed great braveness and jumped out of the way, while Obi snatched it up in his jaws and ran right outside with it. When Steph and I followed we found him in his dog run poking at a now-bloodied vole. I had to pull Obi off and put the poor little thing out of its misery. Poor guy just had to pick a house with a dog. I felt a little bad for him. But then we don't want to share our house with any furry thing that wanders in out of the cold.

The kids continue to do their thing...The Bean is growing up way too fast. She's getting really tall and it's scary. She has started coming home and relaying details of her day, along with the 4-year-old daycare gossip (who was mean to who, who was her best friend yesterday that she doesn't like any more, etc.) Mr. K has started to notice that people generally like him. It's a good realization for him to come to. He's an energetic kid and quite smart...the realization that people look up to him has helped him with the idea that he needs to set a good example for his friends. He's definitely going to be the ring-leader type. We'll just have to make sure he's steering his friends in the right direction.

In other news, the mylifeline annual soiree is coming up Feb 21. Steph and I have been helping a bit w/ the planning and we are slated to speak at the event...they wanted somebody to share their story and we were a convenient choice. If anybody reading this would be interested in attending, please RSVP at https://www.blacktie-colorado.com/rsvp/ event code: mylifeline09 . Or if you just want to make a donation to a very worthy cause that helped us a ton through the cancer thing, there's an option for that as well at the same link.

Obama's immediate impact

2009-01-21T22:46:00.000-08:00

(x-posted from squarestate)

An interesting thing happened yesterday. There was that whole inauguration, sure, but I witnessed a change closer to home that was pretty interesting.

First some background. My stepson is 7. His dad is obsessed with all things military, being from a military family (but not having enlisted himself. Details.) So Mr. K, as I call him in blogs, had grown up with the schema of good guys vs. bad guys, our side vs. their side, our military vs. theirs. Now combine this with the fact that he's 7; born 2 months after 9/11, alive through almost the entire W presidency. His background has always been this national talk of war, conflict, and terrorism. He has told us many times that he'll be a soldier someday, or develop the biggest and best weapon yet, or something of the sort.

And then Obama became President. Mr. K canvassed with me, went to the DNC with me, and got to see the result of all this election nonsense. His class watched the inauguration and by the time I picked him up from school his plans for the future have changed. Suddenly he wants to learn about conflict resolution; about how to get people to agree without fighting; about how to make a living by traveling the country teaching other people about how to get along.

It's hard to imagine the impact a speech can have on a young brain. We older folks watch and think "that was a good speech." For kids they may be getting introduced to new ideas, new ways of looking at the world, and new priorities. I think for kids Mr. K's age and older this change in leadership and tone is going to have a huge impact in the long run. If Obama can continue to inspire, be honest with us, and display real American values, Mr. K and his generation will grow up with a really great study in contrasts. The better option should be fairly obvious.

Transitioning to manhood

2009-01-18T20:45:00.000-08:00

Along with the growing of new hairs and the deepening voice, there is a step that is not often mentioned in the health classes. (I blame abstinence-only education.) This is the moment in a young man's life when he pauses in the aisle of a Home Depot (or similar store) and thinks, "you know, I would like to own that tool. I know what I would do with that tool. I can name times in the past week when I would have found that tool to be a handy thing to own." It's a weird moment. Stephanie thinks it's more a function of being a relatively new homeowner, and she probably has a point. But in any case, I have reached the point in my life where I would actively like to own more tools. Straaange.

In other news, this evening the Bean was talking to Steph about her ankle tattoo. "It's there all the time? Will it be there when you die? When you die you're a zombie. But first you have to eat brains." Thanks Uncle Tim.

***The following paragraph may be considered gross to some. Just a warning.***

Continuing on the subject of death, I have started reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers finally. This was recommended to me by both my brother and sister, so I figured it had to be a good read. So far I'm not at all disappointed, however I made the mistake of reading it over breakfast this morning. I was on the chapter about the decomposition of the human body, specifically the part where the author mentions that adolescent maggots chewing on a weeks-old body sound just like fresh Rice Krispies in a bowl of milk. I was eating Cocoa Pebbles, but that was close enough. Note to self- don't read about decomposing bodies while eating. Duh.

Being a superstar

2009-01-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

American Idol is back. The season premier was last night, and I can honestly say I have never seen auditions like those on display yesterday. The people on TV were OK, but the real powerhouses of rawk were in my house. See, during commercials the Bean and Mr. K would get up and perform their own auditions, using entirely original compositions. Mr. K had one called "10 Blankets," which faltered only slightly when he needed to pause and think about how many blankets he had referenced so far in the song. The other I remember was about mascara (he rejected my starter lyrics "I've got bat poop on my eyeball/and it makes me pretty"). We'll work on song structure maybe in the future, but he was pouring his heart into it and having a blast. He made it through to Hollywood.

After songs about rainbows and such, the Bean provided the grand finale of the evening. The song was called "Being a Superstar," and the lyrics were something like this:

Being a Superstar is harder than I thought
Harder than I thought
Harder than I thought

Being a Superstar is harder than I thought
Harder than I thought
Harder than I thought

This song was at least 10 minutes long. Every time she hit a "BEING" the air guitar got a big strum for emphasis and her rawk poses came out in force. It was an hour after bedtime, but Steph and I were laughing too hard to stop the madness. She later confessed that the song went on so long because she thought she would have to go to bed when she finished. At least she could admit that.

Wedding reception

2009-01-13T21:33:00.001-08:00

OK, it's night and my internet is so far functional...lately it's been crashing at night, so we'll see if this works so I can actually post something.

On New Years Eve we had a wedding reception. The plan originally had been to have an outdoor mountain picnic in June of '08, but that didn't work out with Steph's treatments and such, so we moved our target back to October. The impending birth of our new nephew delayed that, since Jeff and Kelly wouldn't have been able to make plans to be here. It turned out that they couldn't come anyway, but in any case the party was pushed back to New Year's Eve, which has become my favorite holiday over the years anyway. The shindig was small, with just family and a few of our very close friends invited. There were still some last-minute no-shows (Wendy had the nerve to have a baby the day before her due date, which we knew might happen, and Kath had a migraine. We love those.) but then my uncle Steve happened to be up skiing in the hills with his family and they were able to come down, so that was a nice surprise.

The party itself took place at our home, with food prepared almost entirely by Steph & me. We had fun putting it together and the whole thing went off nicely. So now...pictures! (Photo credits and thanks to my sister-in-law Erin, previously mentioned here as the designer of my tattoo)

Since this was a wedding reception, we did have a couple traditional things...I gave Stephanie a wedding ring finally (which had been offered when we got married and declined at the time):

And of course there was cake.The kids were able to pretty much entertain themselves, the adults sometimes wandering in on their action...Tim enjoyed telling them scary stories at their request. I can't wait until he has kids and I can repay his kindness :-)

The evening was spent hanging out with friends and family, eating, talking, the things you do at a reception.

And just 'cuz...some gratuitous pics of the happy couple:

Steph thinks I don't open my eyes when I smile. Where would she get that idea?!
But seriously, am I lucky or what?

I'm glad we got to celebrate our marriage. The meaning of the celebration kind of changes when it's over a year after the fact, but more than anything this was a celebration of where we've been and where we're going. We face the future with our eyes wide open to the curveballs life can throw, but we're happy to have each other, to be a family, and to build our future together.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-07T22:15:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2009!
There's a lot to be said about the holidays and such...in addition to Christmas, we finally had a wedding reception on New Year's Eve :-D Pics to follow when I get to it...

For now a quote from and old SNL that had Steph and I laughing our asses off the other night...

"Laughter is the best medicine. Unless you have cancer. Then you should get chemo."

Sharing

2008-12-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season once again, for the sharing of tradition and memories and creation of new ones.

Tonight was a West-family-style pajama drive to look at Christmas lights. I taught the kids to "Bah Humbug!" the boring houses and "Ooooh, Aaaah!!" the pretty ones, just like my siblings and I used to do. They haven't been exposed to enough Christmas Carol, because there were a lot of Boo Hombugs and Bah Hoombugs. It was fun, but harder in the suburbs somehow...in Hays we knew right where the 1 guy with the huge display lived. Denver's so full of cul-de-sacs and such that the good ones were hard to spot and harder to get to. Good times though.

In other happenings, the Bean and I have been making up our own little stories over the last few months. There's this little girl in the stories we make up named Suzy Q, and she always faces problems remarkably similar to those being faced by the Bean. In one she didn't want to sleep in her own bed (until she tried the closet and the bathtub and the sink), and in a recurring story she was afraid of strangers (until her strong doggy protector proved he could scare off the Bad Guys). Tonight the Bean wanted to tell her own, about Suzy Q's friend (named "Koyla"...the Bean has a Kayla in her class...) who was being too mean and bossy and sticking her tongue out all the time, even though Suzy Q was super nice to her all the time. Poor Koyla got nothing but COAL COAL and more COAL from Santa. Hopefully that taught Koyla a lesson. We shall see...

Bed now. Santa is watching, and he'll know if I'm sleeping in my own bed like a good boy.

Sick day

2008-12-10T11:46:00.000-08:00

Called in sick today. I haven't done that in quite awhile (for myself at least). Then I check the news and realize that today is the designated "Day Without a Gay," when our homosexual friends are s'posedly calling in to work in massive numbers. Huh. Maybe I just padded the statistics.

Back to the couch now. bleh.

Lights!

2008-12-07T21:26:00.000-08:00

I put lights on my house this weekend. That's cool. I had no idea how expensive that could get...just not something you think about I guess until you're standing there going "OK, a strand is 7 feet, and the front of my house is 50? AAAAAHHH!!!" When it's just buying a string to brighten up a dorm room or an apartment balcony, such things don't happen. Our house is cheery now though. We'll probably get more in future years, but for a start on a budget, it looks good!

Also we love LED lights. I don't know if those are new this year, since we weren't really in a place to look at other people's decorations last year, but the white LEDs have a beautiful bluish hue that's so much nicer and wintry than the harsh yellow we're all used to in our "clear" lights.

Turkeys in the mud

2008-11-30T22:23:00.000-08:00

Obviously Thanksgiving was last week. We went down to Durango* to celebrate w/ Steph's family, and to meet our new 5-week-old nephew/cousin.

We started Wednesday, when we got off work and looked at the Thursday forecast over the south-eastern CO mountains...it was s'posed to start raining/snowing early Thursday, so instead of driving through that we left at 7 pm Wednesday for the 6-7 hour drive to the far corner of the state. Steph did most of the driving, but I got to take over at the end when it was getting to be 2 a.m. and we were exhausted and ready to sleep. But we made it to the in-laws place at 2ish and conked out, waking up to lots of rain, which turned their entire property into mud pit for the following 3 days. They're off the grid out in the country, so there's a LOT of space for mud to develop. Thursday was the traditional way-too-much-food and then hanging out w/ family. Jeff and Kelly and their 3 came over and we spent a lethargic day hanging out.

Friday was relaxed as well, with necklace-making for the girls, fudge-creation, and swimming in the evening. Saturday we went to Jeff & Kelly's place, then hit the road to come back to Denver. There was a massive storm set to hit early this morning so we got out ahead of that one as well. The news today told us that was an excellent idea, since travel conditions were a complete disaster all over the state today. Getting back a day early meant we had time to de-mud some things and go into the week not completely behind.

That's all for now. I get to sleep in a comfortable bed tonight and I'm looking forward to that!

*I say "Durango," but technically we stay in Ignacio at the in-laws place...Jeff and family are in Durango-proper.

Realization weighs a ton

2008-11-16T20:53:00.000-08:00

I don't really know where to start this entry. I spent the weekend in Miami at an investigator meeting for a new depression trial. That's only significant because this is the 1st meeting I've been to alone since the weekend of October 27, 2007. For that meeting we'd just gotten married a week before, we were both starting new jobs, and Steph hadn't been feeling well, so she stayed home and I spent the weekend wishing she hadn't. As it turned out that was the only weekend of marriage we had before the diagnosis, and we spent it apart.

This weekend I was alone again with lots of time to think. The weight of past year finally hit me. I spent most of the weekend anxious to get home and see my wife, while feeling completely overwhelmed with gratitude that she's still around to come home to. I hope I never lose that appreciation for this amazing woman who allowed me into her life.

The death of fear

2008-11-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

First, a link to my uncle's blog post on this topic. It's good reading, and a lot of what I was going to say.

I wanted to add that this election was especially interesting to me in light of a couple of the more interesting books I've read in recent years. The first I'll mention is "False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear." It's not really a political book per se, but it's about how the constant state of fear inflicted on Americans is really not healthy, and pretty silly. (Like...how many smokers ignore the odds of that damaging their health, while simultaneously panicking if a guy in a turban gets on the plane with them?) Fear is just such an innate, hard-wired response that it is incredibly easy to elicit and manipulate.

Which leads to the other book, "Conservatives without Conscience," which explores the right wing's assumption of the strong-leader role to play into the authoritarian sensibilities of their base.* For the last 7 years, the GOP has played up fear and claimed to have a monopoly on the answers to what scares you. In this election, Americans shook that off. Instead of giving into the fear of the "other" (which was the point of every whisper campaign against Obama), the majority of Americans went with Hope. That's a pretty incredible shift, biologically and electorally.

So in light of this...where does the GOP come from here? I'm going to stick with my pre-election prediction, that the GOP is going to be doing a lot of soul-searching, which is going to be quite confusing for their evangelical base.

And I thought I'd close with this...it's one of my favorite pieces of multimedia art from the 2004 election cycle, when fear-manipulation was in full swing. (The original this was mixed from is "Pet" by A Perfect Circle.) Hopefully we can put this kind of thing behind us and get on with the future!

*This is a fascinating book and I've blogged about it before, but the gist of the argument is that evangelicals are primed to buy into an us vs. them mentality and the idea of a strong leader who has all the answers.

America gets it right.

2008-11-04T21:36:00.000-08:00

There are many people who will have more eloquent things to say about what happened tonight. I understand that. But this is my blog.

What strikes me most about tonight is that this was the Howard Dean campaign writ large and executed to perfection. It was the goal of Dean to run a campaign from the bottom up, to ask a lot of normal people to buy in at the ground floor, rather than relying on the powers that be to carry the day. Beyond the racial issue, this is the greatness of this election. Obama has proven that a Democrat can win across large segments of the population, and that Dean's idea of going into 'red' states has real merit. At the moment, the Electoral College vote is at 338 Obama, 154 McCain. There are more states undecided of course, but that's pretty incredible. The country was ready for change and we'll get it.

And Colorado? We're not red any more. 2 years ago we were a 3/4 Dem/GOP split in our House delegation. Perlmutter made it 4/3, Markey tonight makes it a 5/2 Dem/GOP split, and we flipped a Senate seat this evening as well so we now have 2 Dem Senators. Add to that our Dem Governor, state house, and state senate, and you'd be hard pressed to make a case that this is a red state.

Time to turn the TV off. Stay safe Obama. The country has said loud and clear that we need you.

Halloween and politikin'

2008-11-02T21:23:00.000-08:00

Halloween this year was spifftacular. It was my first year with children...Adam had the kids last year. So this year was our turn and we got to explore our new neighborhood with the dozens of other wandering chilluns. The Bean had a Wonder Woman costume that she wore to school and to the party at Mr. K's school. Then of course she jumped in a mud puddle on the way back to the car and declared her costume unfit for trick-or-treating. Fortunately the Bean has no shortage of dress-up clothes, so she quickly reset as a fairy princess. Mr. K was a clone trooper, and his school costume parade had a plethora of Star Wars characters, with the odd Indiana Jones thrown in. It was weird seeing so many costumes that would have fit in perfectly with similar parades in my youth.

Trick-or-treating was great, with nice mild temperatures and only a few falls in the dark. We ended up with a TON of potentially-peanut-laced candy that Mr. K can't touch. You would think that with the growing prevalence of peanut allergies, some candy makers would start separating non-peanut items in the factories. They'd increase their marketability quickly. As it was, by the time the evening was over Mr. K was itching and needed benadryl and a shower before bed, just from leaked-through-the-package peanut exposure. I can't wait until somebody nails down the peanut allergy vaccine.

In political news, I was able to spend 3 hours volunteering this weekend. Still nowhere near 2006 levels, but that will never happen again. (Rightfully so...I have a happy life now.) Saturday I hit the phones for an hour while Mr. K was at a party and today he and I canvassed. We got a nice concise walk list (40 units in an apartment complex) and did the whole thing in just over an hour. Nobody was home, and the people that were tended to be the new tenants, since the people on the list had moved out. He claimed to have enjoyed it, though most of the time he could hardly hold still while waiting to see if the tenants were home. It was a good 1st exposure though.

In other political news, just a few more tidbits of stuff I find amusing. The 7-11 7-Election has ended, and Obama won handily. The 7-Election has predicted the last 2 presidential races accurately. No word from 7-11 if there was a cup-affiliated creamer preference (Obama cup=black coffee, McCain cup= creamer?) For the real 'official' poll numbers...Gallup released it's last poll prior to the election. Their national popular vote number puts Obama at 53%, McCain at 42%. (MOE=2%) That looks pretty darn good for Tuesday.

Just please...if you're reading this and you haven't yet, VOTE. Don't let anything stop you. When Obama wins this, you don't want to remember this as the election that changed the country, but you couldn't find the time to cast your ballot.

Politics, mostly

2008-10-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

I think the hardest thing about being a step-parent is being reminded at times that you're an add-on member of the family. 99% of the time things are great, everybody gets along beautifully, then the kids get home after 4 days with dad and I'm a stranger again for a few hours. It passes, usually within the space of an evening, but for awhile I don't belong in my own home. It's a weird feeling.

In other news, the political landscape looks great for next week. The polls are all out there to be perused at will, but if things go the way they are now next Tuesday will be a happy day in American history. It's kind of funny to once again be in the spotlight of the entire nation...in 2006 CD-7 was the #1 race to watch in the country and we won that one, under intense national curiosity. This year Colorado is one of the states being watched carefully, since we may flip from our 2004 voting errors. The sign at Forward Colorado reads "To win the White House, we have to win the West. To win the West, we have to win Colorado. To win Colorado, we have to win Jefferson County." Sure there are lots of other races to watch and lots of other places where things need to fall in line, but my beautiful state definitely matters. (They mentioned on the news Saturday that we had all 4 candidates in the state campaigning in the space of 7 days.)

Of course Colorado has preferences. The Obama event in Denver Sunday had an estimated turnout of 100,000, then he went straight to Fort Collins, where 50,000 more waited for him (this in a city with a population of 130,000-ish). A McCain appearance a few days earlier had a whopping 4000 people show up. Palin's visit to the Springs (Home of the Fighting Fearmongers) whipped 11,000 into a frenzy. So if the rallies are any indication, Obama will win here in a landslide, just like the rest of the country. Of course all that matters is the final vote total. I finally got out last Sunday to canvass a bit and Steph's going to phone bank w/ me next Sunday. It's not as much as 2006 certainly, but then I have a somewhat hectic life now. I can't wait to see what happens Tuesday!

Homeownin'

2008-10-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

Since moving in here, I have changed out 3 light fixtures, installed a swing-arm-enabled mirror, reattached numerous wiggly fixtures to walls, repaired a fence, repaired a toilet, and learned how to maintain a hot tub. In addition I have taken apart and reassembled an electric air filter attached to the furnace, 2 garage door remotes (remarkably simple contraptions), and most of the previously mentioned random fixtures. I'm glad I owned some basic tools before we moved in, thanks to my dad's insistence for several years in a row that Santa brought tools to grown children. I even found a use for the industrial-strength plastic clamps that I've moved 5 times from apartment to apartment. (Particle board destruction + wood glue + clamps = fixed filing cabinet!)

It's a little thing, but there's a nice sense of accomplishment after a day of tangibly fixing things that you just don't get from cleaning. When you clean, and especially when you do laundry, stuff just gets messed up again. But if you install/repair/replace part of your house, that sticks. That doesn't mean I couldn't do more to help with cleaning though. There's always more to do.

NYC #2

2008-10-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

So Saturday, 9/20 in NYC was my sister's wedding. My brother's semi-official anniversary is 8/13, mine is 10/20, my sister's is now 9/20. Easy enough, eh?

We arrived at the venue about 2 hours before the wedding was set to start. This was designated Picture Time, but the bride's wedding dress was notably absent so that didn't happen so much. Instead we took some of our own pics.

The wedding was at the Palm House at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Nice place, nice ceremony, everybody was happy. The DJ apparently had some commitment issues and showed up a couple hours late, but it all worked out. Dancing was done, with the Grand March, the Flying Dutchman, and the Chicken Dance thrown in as a nod to our Western Kansas roots. The kids took advantage of the dancin' as well:
After the reception it was off to Coney Island. We rode the subway in all our wedding gear, which created quite a scene. Also it took forever. We had dinner at Nathan's, where the Coney Dog originated. The hot dogs were tasty as advertised. Then it was off down the boardwalk to the WonderWheel, where the happy couple was engaged. We rode in a "swinging" car, after being promised it wasn't *too* scary. It was fun, and the kids' screams of "WE'RE GOING TO DIE!!!!" were full of laughter. Here are the newlyweds on the Wheel:
No account of the trip would be complete without mentioning Rhiannon. She's a girl my sister knew and spent a ton of time with in San Jose, and she flew all the way to NYC to be a part of the festivities. She and Mr. K bonded in the way that kids in a crowd of adults will, and he developed quite the little 6-year-old crush on her. It was cute, and we can only hope he's able to move on since losing her to the ending of the weekend.Saturday was a laaaate night, with the longest subway ride ever back to Manhattan with an exhausted family, wife, and kids. But we made it eventually and crashed hard. Sunday morning was the final event of the weekend, a brunch hosted by Matt's mom. Steph and the kids stayed behind at the hotel for some much-needed relaxation prior to the return trip. The Bean was much much better on the trip home, and we made it back to bed in Denver without incident.

All in all it was a great trip, if a bit exhausting. My new family has now met the remainder of my original family and it all went well. It sounds like we'll all be together again for at least part of the holidays and I can look forward to that now.

Re: Every road trip with kids ever.

2008-10-02T23:19:00.000-07:00

This is by far the best Fail pic I've ever seen.

see more pwn and owned pictures

Supplemental pic post

2008-09-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

OK, 1st of all I've decided that the K1 & K2 thing isn't working for me. From here on, it's Mr. K and the Bean. I'm sure you'll catch on quickly, whoever you are reading this.

So here are selected pics from the activities mentioned in the prior NYC post.

The morning Friday started with Toys R' Us. We had to take my parents along to ride the giant ferris wheel in the middle of the store. I wasn't able to get any decent pics of everybody while they were riding, but they got in a Nickelodeon car w/ Spongebob clinging to the outside, which was appreciated I think.
The we explored the store. This is my mom and the Bean leaving Jurassic Park.
Here's what the Bean was worried about. She wasn't quite sure what to think of it, showing some concern that it might break out of it's animatronically limited range of motion and try to get a bite of little girl meat. Luckily Mr. K was there to protect her.
From Toys R' Us we trekked home through Times Square with Tim & Erin.
And my lovely wife of course.
The it was off to Governor's Island. This is on the way to the ferry, after everybody had met my sister for the 1st time.
Governor's Island was fun, and photogenic.

And then there was the ferry back to Manhattan. It was photogenic as well.
So there you have it. The pics to go with the prior post. More to come! I'll finish blogging this trip eventually.

Light the Night

2008-09-27T21:52:00.000-07:00

*I have to take a break from NYC stuff...pics are uploaded, but I have something else to talk about at the moment*

Tonight was the Light the Night walk for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. (At least this was the Boulder iteration. There are others coming up in the Denver area.) We went, because it would seem bad karma to not support a group that supports people just like you staying alive. K1 was with dad, so it was Steph, K2, and I walking with a few hundred other people around the CU campus.

I was surprised at how emotional it was for me. Most days it's easy to forget that 3 months ago Steph was fighting for her life. Tonight she had the special blue "SURVIVOR" shirt, with the special survivor-specific white balloon. K2 and I had the red everybody-else balloons, and scattered throughout the crowd were gold balloons, representing people who had died from leukemia or lymphoma. I got hit upside the head with the realization that, had things gone differently, I could have shown up there and been forced to pick up the gold balloon. Instead I had my wife, with her blue t-shirt and white balloon.

This salsa was made in New York City!

2008-09-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my sister got married again. This is #2 for her. I only mention that because, growing up, it was always assumed that I would be 1st to get married. Instead, by the time I got engaged my little brother was on his 2nd engagement and my older sister had been married, divorced, and was engaged again. Fast forward a year and Tim & Erin have passed their 1st anniversary, Steph & I are almost to ours, and Meg & Matt are newlyweds. The end result though is that all 3 of us have found wonderful partners that suit us well. What more could you ask?

So Thursday we flew out. Delta was the airline chosen, due to flight times which they then modified to be not-as-convenient-as-hoped. We were set to arrive at 4:30, but our plane landed at 4:00 somehow. That was great, except that we spent about 45 min. sitting on the runway waiting to get to a gate. K2 had been somewhat fussy throughout the trip (really, really unusual for her...she's usually a much better traveler...) and sitting on the ground for an extra 45 minutes was not fun. After she finished her 3-year-old meltdown, we got off the plane, hopped in cabs, and headed to Manhattan to our hotel. We met up w/ Meg and my dad, then wandered down to Times Square for dinner on Mars.

The restaurant was Mars 2112, a theme place with pretty decent food and no traffic at all on a Thursday evening. There was no wait for our spaceship, a jiggly-simulation-type ride that took us through space and through a wormhole to land on mars, where we disembarked and ate in a very space-esque atmosphere. It was a perfect choice of place after the plane ride. The kids wandered around with my sister and explored, K2 talked to a woman dressed as an alien (as opposed to the ACTUAL alien who, the alien-costumed-woman confided in K2, was kind of scary...mostly he just danced and posed a lot) and there was even a DDR machine for post-dinner entertainment. Then it was off to the M&M store and a walk back to the hotel.

Friday started at Toys R' 'Spensive. K1 got his Nintendo DS for his bday and Steph got Halloween costume shopping done. Then it was subway time and we headed out to Governor's Island to explore, play very-mini golf, fly kites, and see civil war-era forts (a highlight for K1). The evening was spent at the "rehearsal dinner," which was drinks and finger foods in a swank place where they weren't used to small children or peanut allergies. K1 locked herself in the bathroom at one point and I got to talk her down through a door until she was able to unlock it. So that was fun. We left after the manager snapped at us.

More tomorrow. Bed now. I need to find my camera too...there are pics of some of this!

History successfully witnessed

2008-09-07T22:16:00.000-07:00

This post has been kicking around in my head for awhile now, but life's been busy.

On August 28, I got to take my stepson along to witness history being made. What's odd is that we knew it. This wasn't a spontaneous event on the streets, it wasn't a tragedy out of our control like flipping on the news the morning of 9/11, it was a conscious decision that "Hey, we're going to go witness a piece of history that will be talked about for years. Let's go!" That doesn't happen often. But we were lucky, thanks to the Perlmutter office who gave me 2 "community credentials" to get in the door.

The first time I saw Obama in person, he flew out in 2006 to do an event for Perlmutter, when he was fighting in what looked like a close election. This was the scene then:

That's Ed Perlmutter, Barack Obama, Sen. Ken Salazar, now-governor Bill Ritter, and soon-to-be-Senator Mark Udall. I was a volunteer for that event, and still have the badge that says so. The turnout was large, for what it was, especially considering we had made the decision to open it to the public just the previous afternoon. This is the crowd (notice the snipers on the roof, even back then):

I only mention this to give perspective on the difference 2 years makes.

*****

I picked up K1 at school at 1:00. He had worn his Barack Obama shirt to school that day, and had been telling his classmates that he got to go see Obama that night. He says many were jealous. At 1:00 he practically bounced to the office and we headed to parking. According to the official parking guide, all parking at Mile High was closed, so shuttles were running from Coors Field (only from 11-2 to encourage/force early arrival) and returning folks conveniently to their cars afterward. (Can you sense foreboding?) We got there at 1:45ish, hopped on a repurposed school bus, and rode to the stadium. Rather, we rode to the line, taking a circuitous route around the actual stadium, since reports of extremely long lines made this seem wise to the bus operators. They were not wrong. This is K1 after about 30 min in line (looking back toward the line behind us):
Behind the picture, the line wrapped up a hill to the right and stretched for about 1/4 mile that we could see. In front of us at that point stood about a mile of line, 2 security checkpoints, x-ray machines, and metal detectors. And we were in the short line. The one coming in from the north was about twice as long when we finally saw it from the stadium ramps. This is about 45 minutes after the last picture, with the stadium actually in sight!

Notice...he's still smiling! A pretty incredible task really. We spent about 2 hours in that line and he didn't complain once. Well, there was once, when he was getting thirsty. Luckily the Coca-Cola corporation had thoughtfully set up stands w/ free Dasani water along the line so we didn't die. Considerate, since all water bottles were specifically prohibited, so nobody had brought any. Mostly though K1 was so excited to go see Obama that nothing else really mattered. He made a game of finding fallen political buttons on the ground and hung out better than many of the adults who kept sneaking past people in the line.

Around 4:30 we made it to our seats. Hooray! We had a great view of the stage from the nosebleed seats. (This is zoomed a bit. And that's Ed Perlmutter again speechifying!)
And here we are, enjoying the afternoon.

The afternoon was spent enjoying speeches and scouring the concession stands for food. We got stuck in 1 line when Gore was on, but saw pretty much everybody else the whole afternoon. K1 hung in like a champ, and only spent about 20 min total playing the Gameboy he'd brought along in case of boredom. Of course people-watching in a crowd of 84,000 is always fun.

Finally after 4 hours of listening to music and speeches it was time for the big event. Flags had been distributed, placards passed around, and the excitement was palpable.

The speech itself...well, you can see that in a million other places. Hopefully it will come to represent an actual turning point in our country's history and K1 will be able to tell his grandchildren someday that he was there for the speech they're talking about in school. It was historic, and I was just honored that I got to be there for it. (I did have to watch it again online...something about 84,000 cheering people kind of drowned out the actual content at times. That's a price I was more than willing to pay though.) K1 got really into it, jumping up on his seat when everybody stood to applaud, waving his flag when it seemed appropriate, and taking it all in about as much as he could have. This is the view he'll be remembering:

Eventually it all ended and it was time to go home. We grabbed all of our souvenirs and headed out with everybody else. Now, remember that thing about the shuttles? When we had left the bus I had asked where to meet the shuttle and had been told 5th & Walnut. "Leave the stadium, go under the overpass, then follow the massive crowd." Great! We left the stadium [check], flocked under the overpass [check], followed the massive crowd [check]. Except at some point it became clear that the massive crowd was being led by someone who also didn't know where they were going. Or had been redirected...the way I thought we should maybe go, based on a hasty glance at the map, was blocked by several security personnel saying "Nope, can't go this way, keep it moving people!" So we walked. And walked. And walked.

Eventually the crowd started to thin out, with groups breaking off to go different directions. When we finally got to a map on the bike path we'd been following it became quite clear that we were nowhere close to the shuttle pickup. We were actually about 2/3 of the way back to our car by then. So we hoofed it, with K1 dragging at this point and me carrying him about 1/2 the way. Google maps puts the distance somewhere between 2.5-3.5 miles, and we certainly didn't take the most direct route.

After leaving the stadium at 9:30, we got to our car at 11:00. We had passed/walked with many others who had also missed the shuttle stop. We certainly weren't alone in that. K1 was asleep before we left the parking lot. I can't blame him. 10 hours of logistics and politics is a long day! But we went, and he was insanely glad he got to go. I am too.

Corn blowin' in the Popo Agie

2008-08-20T22:05:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was great. It was Death March 11...for some people. This group of 4 guys started doing an annual guys-only hiking/camping trip back in 1998 (when I was graduating high school). (John, John, Jeff, and were the original 4, I think). The group of people involved seems to vary from year to year (obviously. see also: I was invited.), but the nature of the weekend has not. It's just a group of guys, out in the woods. Pretty basic.

So Friday we headed out. Jarrod picked me up at 7:00 to head up to Wyoming. Jarrod, Curtis, Jeff, and I rode up together, planning to meet the rest of the bunch in Landers, WY at noon. After meeting up, eating, buying fishing licenses, etc. we headed up to the trailhead at about 2. That's when we met the Snot Road of Doom, a.k.a. the 6-mile road up to the trailhead. Apparently they're getting ready to pave the currently-dirt road, because the road was entirely stripped down to perfectly-flattened dirt. The parking lot full of heavy duty road-making equipment was a clue as well. See, it had rained the night before. A lot. For a long time. The old-timers we later met said it snowed in the higher elevations from 3 am to 3 pm. So the road was a muddy, slippery disaster. We aborted 1 climb after 1/4 mile, due to a Honda Odyssey not quite being up to the challenge. We returned to the base parking lot, consolidated into 2 4WDs, and headed back up. An hour later (for a 6-mile jaunt remember), after seeing several cars with panicked drivers heading down ("I don't know where the 4WD button is and I can't call my husband because it's a new car and he'll kill me!"), we made it to the trailhead. We saddled (strapped?) up and headed up the trail at 4:00.

By 9:15 we had hiked almost 6 miles with all of our gear. The trail was muddy and we were muddy and we were sore and we were tired and the sun was down and we were hiking by flashlight through marshes of questionable density-of-ground. At 9:30 we finally found a spot to camp. Tents were pitched, crackers eaten, bed achieved.

Saturday we awoke to frost and fog. We had a big breakfast (people really do use those half-dozen egg containers they sell at REI! Who knew?) and by the time we were done cleaning up (11:00 AM) the clouds had broken, the sun was out, and warmth was seeping in. We spent the day doing...whatever. Really. It's not often you get to just do...whatever without worrying about if you should be doing something or cleaning something or cooking something or saying something or being somewhere else. There were no expectations and it was great. I spent the day mostly hiking up a ridge on the opposite side of the valley from our camp with various groups of guys. The evening was cooking and hanging out, then sleep.

Sunday we basically got up and left. The sun was out, the day was great, and the downhill dry trek took 3.5 hours, compared to the 5.5 for the long slog in.

Of course this is the short version of the weekend. There are other stories, but I wanted to get something down before I let it slip too far out of my head. It was a really good time and I'm glad I got to go. Hopefully I'll be included next year too!

It's possible I'm a horrible person

2008-08-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

but I made my 1st LOL image...

The tragic demise of moles

2008-08-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

I currently have 4 dermatologist-inflicted holes in my body. I had some moles, went to the doctor, lost some moles. It's such a non-event, for a surgical procedure. "OK, I think I'll take off...that one...that one...hmmm...not that one...that one if you want..." It's a strange experience. She took the 2 I wanted her to, the ones that have actually noticeably changed in the last year, plus 2 more that looked at her funny. Terribly exciting, I know.

In other news, Fri-Sun is my 1st weekend out in the woods with a bunch of guys since Boy Scouts all those years ago. Jarrod invited me along with him and some of his friends for a camping trip in Wyoming. It should be a good time. The impending trip has already given me an excuse to buy new hiking boots and a new frame pack (which are SO MUCH CHEAPER than when I was 14!!) Now I just have to see if I can get out the door at 6 am Friday. Damn mornings.

Things on the tubes

2008-08-06T22:20:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd update my links over there on the right to include some things on this series of tubes that make me laugh. Links over there---->
(graphjam and totallylookslike are new additions)

In other news, our carpet has taken a beating lately. First K2 decided to open a vial of unidentified red powder in the basement* and it got on the carpet. Using my crack cleaning skillz, I grabbed the #2 vacuum that lives in the basement and tried to vacuum the spot. High speed brushes + unidentified substance = more mess that K2 had made in the first place. So I pulled out the attachments and tried to use those to clean up the mess, forgetting that the brushes were still spinning, leaving another red stripe a foot away from the giant blotch created by the spreading of K2's initial 3" wide spill. In the end #2 vacuum is pretty much ruined and the carpet had 2 giant patches of stain.

Then last night K1 was sick. Some sort of stomach bug that caused the contents of his stomach to rush for the nearest exit repeatedly over the space of 10 hours or so. This was also not good for the carpet. So a Rug Doctor was rented today and lots of cleaning done by Steph, who stayed home w/ K1. Neither happening has been totally eradicated from the carpet of our home, so I guess they will become a permanent (until the carpet is replaced at least) record of mishaps. That's what makes a home a home though, right?

*note to self and other parents...if your child receives any presents which include learning activities with potential messes hidden inside, make sure you complete these ASAP!! Otherwise you're asking for trouble. At least I was.

TGIF- Bird Flu edition

2008-08-01T22:03:00.000-07:00

Well the bird flu vaccine trial has been enrolled as planned. Good times. Busy times, but good. Up next is the insomnia trial that has been pending for awhile now. Late August is the new projected start (pushed back from next week, which was revised from mid-July, which was the declaration when late June didn't happen.) We'll see when that really happens. In the meantime I have a bit of breathing space to catch up on the big weight loss trial and close out 4 other studies in the next 2 weeks. Really breathing space is overrated.

In other news, Obi continues to assimilate. We've had a few issues...at some point he decided that his pooping places were either out in the backyard or in the basement, so the kid-gate the previous homeowner's left here went back up so he can't get to the basement unsupervised. I've lost a pair of shorts and a pair of PJ pants, and a Darth Vader mask was destroyed (don't tell K1. He doesn't know yet!). That's just stuff though. He's a really great doggy and wants to be loved...it's a constant PET ME PLEASE!!! sort of wanting to be loved. We've been out for walks or visits to the dog park almost daily since we got him and he loves to get out and see the world. He also started refusing to go in his crate after only a few days, so now he has the run of the house during the day and does really well with that. He hasn't destroyed a single thing while home alone during the day...that's only happened at night when we're sleeping. He's come a long way in the last month!

Funeral/Wisconsin

2008-07-27T21:56:00.000-07:00

Last week Stephanie's Aunt Jackie passed away. This was her dad's (step-dad technically) twin brother's wife. The passing was somewhat expected...she's been sick for a long time...but nobody really knew it was coming so soon. So we took a quick family trip to Madison over the weekend for the funeral.

First the good stuff...I got to meet a lot of the family that I hadn't yet. I met Steph's other 2 brothers and their families, her grandma, and Charlotte & Bob. All were wonderful and friendly and such, and I'm glad I got to meet them all finally. They all thanked me for updating the cancer blog and it really sank in for me how important that had been to people I had never met. I also got to experience some important Madison stuff...we drove by Steph's childhood home and high school and went to a Friday Night Fish Fry (it's capitalized when Steph says it...). We (the kids & I at least) were only there 40 or so hours, but we got a LOT in during that time.

The funeral itself was quite surreal.
First, it was a Catholic service. Having been raised Catholic, and having been an altar boy for years (no, I was not molested), I have been to more than my share of Catholic funerals. That was always from a perspective of an insider participant. This was the first one I've been to since I left the Catholic church. Aside from 1 wedding, I have not been to a Catholic mass since 1998. The ritual of it has all changed for me. I know all of the appropriate audience answers, I know the sing-songy responses to all of the prayers, and I know almost all of the songs. But I can't participate. I don't believe it anymore, and I don't want to cheapen it for those that do, so I can't just act clueless and play along. I know what it means and I've chosen to allow my beliefs to go in a different direction. That makes for an awkward service.

The other thing that got me this weekend was the fact that Stephanie is alive. Jackie's husband had 45 years of marriage with her. Sitting at a funeral for someone who had that kind of love for that long, it really sank in for me how close I came to losing Stephanie prematurely. I cried at the funeral of a woman I had never met. Not out of sadness, but out of relief and the realization that I was going to get to live that kind of complete, loving life with my wife.

When it's our time to die, we will be judged by the love we gave and the love we received. I am overwhelmed with relief that I get to continue building that kind of bond with Stephanie.

C-boy

2008-07-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

I'd like to introduce a character in my universe. He's the neighbor kid, known here as C-boy from here on.

C-boy was not a planned child. This is apparent. His older siblings are 18 year old twins, destined for college in the fall. C-boy is therefore in the unfortunate position of ruining his parents' empty-nesthood through no fault of his own. Not that they notice his presence. When we come home he's often in his driveway playing, many times in the old Jeep that sits in the driveway and doesn't move. (His "fort." He sleeps in there sometimes.) He'll come running over within 45 seconds of our arrival home and want to play with the kids.

This started out innocently enough. On the day we moved in, K1 noticed that hey, he KNOWS THE KID NEXT DOOR!!! HOORAY!!! He and C-boy are (were) in daycare together and were delighted to live next door to each other. C-boy's mom came over and introduced herself and welcomed us to the neighborhood and gushed about how we'd have to get our kids together to play!! Oh boy!! Since then that conversation has changed significantly in my rememberance and taken on a weird tone in my memory. I haven't talked to the mom since, or ever met the dad. I've spoken to both of the twins randomly, but not the parents.

The level of inattention to their child frankly scares me. He'll be playing in the driveway, see us, wander over, and spend 2 hours in our home without his parents ever noticing that their child isn't outside any more. He's wandered off with us on adventures and walks with Obi without ever telling his parents where he's going and they have never noticed. Maybe I'm weird, but I like to know where my kids are, ya know? And if they were ever going to spend time at a neighbor's house, I'd want to meet the parents, talk to them, make sure their home didn't have sharp knives for doorknobs...something. Knowing who your kids are hanging out with just seems (in my mind) to be such a basic function of being a parent. I guess they have different ideas.

So all of this puts Steph and I in an awkward situation. We feel bad for C-boy. His parents ignore him obviously. K1 asks us if he can come over all the time, citing the fact that "his parents don't pay any attention to him. They give him hugs and food, but that's about it." But Jesus...we have 2 kids, we have enough going on, and C-boy NEVER wants to just hang out. He comes over and demands that the kids change what they were doing to fit his whims. If the kids want to play, he wants to watch TV and vice versa. He'll ask K1 to show him Lego Star Wars and then 5 minutes later be playing in the corner with the kids' toys. We've fed him dinner and he's questioned what we're eating. If you're going to crash a party, try to blend in! I don't think he's ever come over when someone hasn't ended up crying by the time he went home. So he's not an easy presence. And he's not our responsibility. But I'm afraid there is always going to be a part of me that feels like I should just function as a fill-in parent for this kid too.

The world would be such a better place if people of all races, colors, creeds, and genders would fulfill the function of Parent to the children they bring into the world.

Changing the map vs. changing your life

2008-07-14T22:47:00.000-07:00

In 2006 I was an active part of the Perlmutter campaign. Starting before the primary, I was at Perlmutter HQ at least 10 hours a week, gradually increasing to where I was spending 30+ hours a week volunteering. (And 12+ hour days in the week before the election.) I got to know Ed and his family, got to serve as his back-up driver when the regular guy wasn't available, and became a go-to volunteer around HQ. Eventually I got paid a bit, for the last month of the campaign, but mostly I was there because I wanted to be. I believed in his candidacy and worked my butt off to get the guy elected and flip the district from (R) to (D). In most cases this has proven to be well worth my time. He's been a solid vote on almost everything (with the exception of the recent FISA debacle. I don't know what happened there.) He's also done some neat stuff with encouraging 'green' construction nationwide.

So now we're in the middle of another election cycle, if you hadn't noticed. I find myself strangely uninvolved. Thinking back it's pretty obvious why 2006 was so different. Back then I was in a crumbling relationship with my roommate and girlfriend of 5.5 years. I didn't want to be home in the evenings and time at HQ (.25 miles down the road) was time away from awkwardness. It was an escape for me, in addition to being something I believed in. For all of her political leanings, Sarah didn't want to do much to actually get a candidate elected, so that became my escape. At the time I was also working a job that required me to actually show up zero hours/week.

2 years later, I'm a husband to a wonderful woman, a step-daddy of 2, and I actually have to go to work. This leaves pretty much no time to get involved politically. People from the old campaign are asking me constantly to help phone bank or canvass...things I absolutely loved doing. I hate saying No, but at the same time my responsibilities are so much greater at home. It would be nice if I had time to be idealistic and do what I could to help get Udall and Obama elected and (I believe) create a better country and world for my kids.

It's obvious to me now why the politically involved tend to be college students and retirees. When it comes to changing the world, there's so much more immediacy and intimacy in spending time your family than in struggling to convert voters to a candidate you believe will promote policies that will eventually create a better life for said family. I haven't lost my idealism or anything, but the expression of it has certainly changed with the changes in my life.

Honeymoon!

2008-07-10T22:44:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago Steph & I finally managed to sneak in a honeymoon. With the way things went right after getting married, we hadn't had a chance to get away together and enjoy being married. So we scooted off to Riveria Maya, just South of Cancun, and spent 5 days doing...nothing. Absolutely nothing.

If there was ever a case of taking the perfect vacation at the perfect time, this was it. Steph finished radiation a week before we left, so she was still recovering and a bit run down. As for me...well, not to brag or anything, but I've had a pretty full plate myself since taking on a family last October. Lying on a beach was just about the best thing I could ask for.

We stayed at the Grand Sirenis, a really new (opened last year) all-inclusive place. The food wasn't great, but we never went hungry or ran out of options; the alcohol was free and readily available; the pools were large and quiet; and the beach was beautiful and relaxing. The days were pretty much wake up, eat, go to the beach, eat, float in the pool or go back to the beach, eat, go watch the evening's entertainment, go to bed, repeat in the morning. It was pretty perfect. Occasionally somebody would walk by and try to talk us into an excursion or snorkelling or some such and we shot them all down. "Nope. We'll be sitting right here for the next 3 days. Thanks though!"

We came home relaxed and rejuvenated, with more fun memories to share. I'm sure more stories will trickle out later (the cokehead from England, Carlos the Hyperactive Entertainer, etc.), but for now here are some pics...

I'll start with me because I'm the least interesting to look at. On the little outcropping behind me was some sort of old ruin, probably a lookout of some sort. It had a tiny little toilet in it.

And then there's my lovely wife. This is standing on the outcropping looking back toward the beach (you can see one of the bars by Steph's head)And then some pics of us (taken towards the end of the trip, hence the sunburned raccoon look I'm rockin'):

And that's almost all of the pics I have actually. I'm very bad about remembering to take my camera along, and when I do I'm horrible at remembering to take pictures of things that I'm enjoying or might want to remember. Oh well, at least there's enough for a blog I guess!

The family grows!

2008-07-07T23:06:00.000-07:00

The West/Smith family is proud to announce the addition of our newest member:

Obi-Sid Kenobi

Obi came to us from a German Shepherd rescue. He was given up by his old owner for unknown reasons in Arizona a couple months ago, sent off to Utah where he was not adopted, and then made his way to Colorado courtesy of the Rescue group (whose name I will track down...) who thought he'd have better luck finding a family here. He did that within a week! Overachiever.

From what we know he's a German Shepherd/Malamute (or Husky) mix, about 16 months old. He's a smart puppy, but still a puppy in many ways. Whoever owned him before didn't take the time to teach many manners, so we've started that. The place where we picked him up (I'll get names when Steph's awake tomorrow...) is a daycare/training facility that takes in rescue animals as a community service on the side and socializes them for adoptability. They're great folks, and have offered to keep working with our Obi for a couple days to help with some of his puppy-ish traits (jumping up on things, bowling you over when he wants petted, etc.) We've been keeping him home in the evenings and Steph has been dropping him off at 'school' on her way too and from work.

I guess I should explain his name...he was Sid when we met him, but to me that sounds too much like Sit (which he was just learning and has now mastered). It's hard to ask a dog to master hard consonants at the end of words. Also Steph had Sage and Summit along with Arlo and another S-name was confusing her up front. On the drive home we settled on a name we could all agree on...Star Wars for Kade and Kaia (yes, she watches it too...) but Steph and I retained veto power. Retaining part of his heritage, he is now Obi-Sid Kenobi, a.k.a. Obi, Obi Kenobi, Obers.

He's a smart boy. In the 3 days we've had him he's figured out his name (he never responded to Sid, according to the rescue folks), mastered the Sit thing, learned how to get along with the family and walk on a leash, and started on Stay and Shake. As with any puppy there are things to learn, like Don't Pee On Mom's Jewelry Armoire, and Don't Poop In The Basement, but you can tell he's an intelligent pooch and it won't be any trouble helping him learn these things. Now some pics, and bedtime for me...

First the side view for scale...he's about 80 lbs at the moment:

Here's me with Obi in the kitchen:

Obers on his first ever walk with Steph (he picked up on the leash thing quickly with the help of a "naughty boy collar"):

And on his first (brief) hike, cut short due to thunder and rain:

That's all for now. I'm sure there will be many more Obi pics in the future!

Thoughts on my wife

2008-06-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

Stephanie has her final radiation treatment today and I want to dedicate a post to her.
--Feel free to skip if you're not in the mood for mushy. It's that kind of post.--

I was madly in love with this girl already when I married her. I must have been...we got married 8 months earlier than planned after all. And then came the cancer and all of the trials of the last 8 months. Through it all she has been amazing. She has bulled straight ahead through cancer like it was just something on her to-do list. Her attitude has been positive, and she has managed to simultaneously grapple with a life-threatening illness, incorporate a new husband into her world, acclimate her kids to a new stepdad (and vice versa), learn and adjust to a new job with expanded responsibilities in a new therapeutic realm, buy and move into a new house, and deal with the loss of a 14 year companion doggy. I thought she was a tough cookie when I fell in love with her. I had no idea.

That's not all there is though, obviously. She's just a wonderful person, loved by (almost) everyone in her life, smart, happy and fun to hang out with, kind, loving, caring, a great mom and a wonderful partner (not to mention damn sexy). I had suspected back when we got engaged that this was the case, but I didn't have the perspective on it then that I do now. The surreal feeling of "Wow, this girl married *me*?!?!" has only grown with time, and I feel lucky every day to be included in her life.

I'm glad we got married when we did. The last 8 months might not have resembled the First Eight Months Of Marriage I envisioned in my head growing up, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. We have grown stronger through this, individually and as a couple and as a family. The post-cancer years will only be sweeter for having been through all of this up front.

KS 107.5 Summer Jam

2008-06-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

The big Summer Jam was last night...Lil Wayne, Ice Cube, Wyclef Jean, Danity Kane, Day 26, Ray J, 2 Pistols, Colby O'Donis, Flo Rida, David Banner...basically this was the hip-hop event of the year for Denver. Stephanie gets free 'events' from the Diana Price-Fisher foundation due to the cancer thing, so she requested 2 tickets. There's something intensely odd about being among the older demographic in the place, in the minority racial demographic, and in the handicapped seating section for the gang-banger event of the year. But it was an entertaining evening that was certainly memorable.

First the music...I've never been to this kind of show before. I'm used to rock concerts, with instruments and such. Obviously this is not the case with rap, but what a difference it makes. Instead of getting up on stage and creating music, the performers (specifically Flo Rida, Ray J, and David Banner) get out on stage and show off their CDs. The DJ plays the hit track, and the rapper sings along with himself, throwing in the odd Unnh or unhhuhh. That's weird to me. There's the occasional freestyle moment, but that's not the same as musicians jamming, at least to my admittedly raised-on-rock ears. To me it felt like the show was more about the artists showing off (look at what I recorded!) than musicians sharing their music with an audience. It's a totally different vibe. Later in the evening Wyclef and Ice Cube performed in the "old skool" way, actually rapping the lyrics to their music over a music-only backing track. So maybe it's just a generational shift, and the newcomers to the music scene are just more afraid to forget the lyrics. Wyclef even got out a couple different guitars for various songs!

So then there were the people...it was an amazing evening for people watching. Memorable folks:
The mid-40's ish white woman who sat down next to me for 10 seconds while she dumped what looked like an 8 oz. bottle of vodka into her coke before running away.
The 13-15 year old gangsta wanna-be girls who intruded on our space for almost the whole show, until I snapped at a girl who decided that she could jump up on Steph's seat to watch a fight.
The Mexican kid in front of us...so many memories of him. His girlfriend started the evening shoving her tongue down his throat, but by the time we left she wouldn't touch him. He was flashing the "Westside!!!!!" sign constantly (including persistently to show support for Wyclef...who is from Haiti...by way of New York). He bonded over something gang-related with a couple big-ass dudes next to us and spun a purple bandana over his head off and on (the Crips are in Aurora. Yep.). His girlfriend was not amused.
The attitude of most people was quite respectful, notable only because most rock concerts I've been to have inevitably involved some asshole being an asshole. Looking back Steph thinks this might have been because so many people recognized the potential for a violent outbreak and didn't want to piss anybody off. But the crowd was cool, until some guys behind us on the lawn started messing w/ the event staff. We saw a trashcan lid thrown at one point but we couldn't see the whole drama. By the middle of Ice Cube's set the crowd was starting to get louder and more tense and it felt like something could break out at any minute. Steph was exhausted anyway from the radiation, so we headed out. (Neither of us were there to see Lil Wayne luckily.)

All in all it was an enjoyable afternoon/evening. It was a fun experience, if a little out of our element. Good time though. I don't know that I could do a Jay-Z concert though, as much as I'd like to.

History is made

2008-06-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

I haven't mentioned politics on here in awhile. Tonight though...wow. Obama has clinched the nomination, by all counts that matter. His speech from Minnesota this evening was everything that it needed to be and the man has proven once again how eloquent and inspirational he can be. Put up against McCain (or Clinton for that matter), there is no question who is the more electrifying presence. It's 28 minutes, but watch if you can spare the time:

There are moments where you just *know* that you're watching history happen. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the chaos of the 9/11 coverage...there are moments that have that sense that kids will be learning about them for years, and political science classes will be dissecting them for a generation. Tonight was one of those. K1 and K2 sat down with Steph and I for a good 10-15 minutes to watch Obama speak, and I think K1 at least will remember this for a long time. It's a magical feeling, knowing that a chapter in history is beginning before your eyes.

I don't know what will happen with Clinton. She practically submitted her resume for VP consideration this evening, while refusing to concede. We'll see where that goes...a joint ticket would be a dream for party activists, but whether that would appeal to people outside of the Democratic Party is a different question. Obama may have to look elsewhere for a veep, and after her comments tonight Hillary would be hard pressed to NOT bust her ass on the campaign trail supporting him. Her actions will have an impact on what her followers choose to do. I hope that if she's not the VP candidate she'll do the right thing with respect to Obama.

So we'll see what happens in the general election. I think I'll request the Monday and Tuesday of election week off so I can do my part on those days at least. This is going to be an exciting election, and I have to get involved where I can!

Tattoo forthcoming

2008-06-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

Way back when I started this blog, I mentioned that the image over there to the right was going to be my next tattoo. This is still true, but the meaning has evolved a bit.

The original reasons for the tattoo still hold true. Humans are amazing creatures. There's more now though. When I sketched the artwork during staff meetings, I always started with one person in the middle of the image, bearing the brunt of the weight. At one point that was the person leading the effort to lift the burden. Now though I think it's the opposite...the person in the middle is far too close to being overwhelmed with the burden placed on their shoulders. That person has realized that they can't achieve their goal alone...they need the support of the people on the sides, or they will inevitably be crushed by the task they have undertaken.

The sun now seems to represent cancer. The person in the middle...well, depending on your point of view it could be Stephanie or anyone fighting such an illness. It's all about perspective. Any major stress in a person's life is made easier to bear and overcome by the presence of outside help and understanding. For me, on my body, if that guy in the middle is me, the people helping are Stephanie, K1, K2, and my family and friends. I haven't been going through chemo myself, but I've certainly had my own stresses with my new wife doing so. It would have been crushing, had I not had the support of amazing people in my life. This definitely includes my new family, who have supported me through this with acceptance and love. I can't think of a better thing to commemorate in a tattoo.

Heard louder than a gun
The sound they made was love love love love love love love love

Trees, apples, and the distance between

2008-05-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, oh so long ago, my father purchased an electric lawnmower. I think it may have been one of the earliest non-gasoline-powered mowers. It was a quietly humming Black & Decker that ran on an extremely long extension cord. My brother and I complained mightily about this contraption, deriding the choice and lamenting openly about the hassle of dealing with a 75' extension cord whilst doing laborious yard work. My opinion of my dad's poor decision making in lawn-care equipment was solidified when that mower died and he went right out and bought ANOTHER Black & Decker mower that ran on an extension cord. It was the silliest thing I think I ever saw him do.

So last weekend Steph & I had to acknowledge that we desperately needed a lawnmower. I'm on the liberal-tree-hugger side of the spectrum, so I didn't want a gas mower. Battery-powered mowers (at least the ones available in nearby stores) were all a bit more money than we wanted to spend. So I consulted the ever-trusty Consumer Reports (a purchasing habit I learned from my parents) and came up with...the Black & Decker corded electric mower. Which I now own. With a 75' extension cord.

While I was dealing with lawn-care and other home-owner-related things that used to be my dad's job, he was participating in the Colorado Democratic Party Convention. This is a fairly significant thing...up until the 2006 election my parents had both considered themselves Republican. One evening I asked my dad "So, what is it that the current Republican Party believes that you agree with?" I don't know if that was the exact conversation that changed his mind, but shortly after that he became a Democrat and is now to the point of being a delegate at the state convention. Not only that, but being an ALTERNATE delegate, which means showing up and hanging out all day waiting to see if anybody even cares that you're there. I was impressed, and I like to think that I contributed to one person's delegate-hood even if I couldn't actually go to the convention this year.

Life is funny sometimes.

A proud moment in daddyhood

2008-05-02T21:15:00.000-07:00

While going through K1's backpack last weekend I found a project from Earth Day at school. It's a standard kindergarten worksheet: "I can help the earth by..." with a blank page underneath. His response was "Git red av bad on gas cars" Get rid of bad on gas cars. There is a large vehicle with flames coming off of it, that has apparently been 'sploded by the eco-terrorists (it says 'CABOOM' and there's a smiling guy saying 'YAAA!') Around it are the non-flaming good cars, including HOONDA, TODAYOODA, and SLG BAG (Honda, Toyota, Slug Bug) all with smiling people and their own "YAAA!"s.

I don't know where this started, but K1 developed an interest in fuel efficiency several months ago. While driving from the old apartment to the daycare, he would point out cars on the road and ask if they were a "bad on gas car" or not. Obviously we established that Honda and Toyota made more efficient cars than others, generally speaking. The Slug Bug thing came up literally once, about a month ago when we were out exploring our new neighborhood. His friend in the car with us did the "Slug Bug no tagbacks!" thing and K1 just said "Anthony, is that a bad on gas car?" It was an old diesel Beetle, so I told him it was not a bad on gas car. I guess that was enough that it stuck.

I will do my best to teach him that blowing up Hummers is probably not the way to accomplish his goals, but this is still a piece of kindergarten artwork we will be saving.