A Day in Selfies

So, yesterday, we hung out at ye olde Family Fun Center, Wahooz. Couldn't get any good action shots, so went with a collection of selfies to commemorate the day.

this one is sort of a meta-selfie. I should try to post the one that Samwise took here.

A Decade of Mercy

I'm about to head to bed and by the time I wake up, this little dude's odometer will have turned, and he'll be in double digits.

Sure, my youngest hitting the decade mark makes me feel older than any of my own birthdays could. But the important -- and mind-blowing -- thing is that this one has made it this far in pretty good health and spirits. Sure, there've been more hospitalizations for him than the rest of my little family combined (more than double, actually) -- but none have been truly worrisome, really they've mostly been expensive annoyances. (for the skinny on this, if you're new to the saga, click here)

We don't owe this to his own strength and perseverance (which he has in spades), to the care of his wonderful mother, his passable father, his supportive siblings (who are really his most devoted caretakers when it counts), the grandparents and extended family who are always ready to drop everything and help, his two excellent doctors, or anything else merely human.

It's the mercy and care of Our Lord, who by His providence has given him better health, greater strength, and better kidney function than anyone could've expected. But this covenant child, recipient of the promise of God is seeing His God's hand at work in his life. He, more than many his age, can see that (in the words of Thomas Watson) "We are kept alive by a wonderful-working Providence. Providence makes our clothes to warm us, and our food to nourish us. We are fed every day out of the alms-basket of God's providence. That we are in health, that we have an estate, is not by our diligence—but God's providence."

So tonight we celebrated the anniversary of his birth. We celebrated the time we've had with him, and the time we look forward to. But most of all, consciously or not, we celebrated the Triune God's care for him.

Gracious Lord, I thank you for our little Arnold, and beg Your continued care for his health as I plead for You to draw him to a saving knowledge of You.

And son? Happy birthday, and Lord willing, many happy returns.

A Beauty of a Bot

So, this last weekend, we took our oldest up to Moscow to participate in the Idaho FIRST Tech Challenge Championships with the team from his school. Mostly, this involved TLoML and I wandering around our old stomping grounds engaging in excessive acts of nostalgia, while he worked on the robot with his team making sure everything was ready for the competition.

The team participated in 6 matches -- 1 didn't count on their overall score. I got somewhat iffy video of four of the five that did count. Like with many things, I don't think the youtube video captures the excitement of it all, but it might come close.

Beauty Bot starts on the far right of the screen here


Beauty Bot starts on the far left of the screen


Beauty Bot begins this match directly in front of (and blocked from view) by the umpire on the bottom of the screen. Best angle I could get -- sorry.


Beauty Bot starts on the far right of the screen here

If one of us has time in the next few days, I might add some more information about the videos.

Anyway, the team and the robot performed a lot better than they did last year, and it was a blast to see them at work. In addition to just doing better, they won an award -- the Think Award, which is described as

Given to the team that best reflects the "journey" the team took as they experienced the engineering design process during the build season. The engineering section of the notebook is the key reference for judges to help identify the most deserving team. Journal entries of interest to judges for this award will include those describing the underlying science and mathematics of the robot design and game strategies, the designs, re-designs, successes, and those 'interesting moments' when things weren't going as planned.

They also came in second for the Inspire Award

Given to the team that truly embodied the 'challenge' of the FTC program. The team that receives this award is chosen by the judges as having best represented a 'role-model' FTC Team. This team is a top contender for all other judging categories and is a strong competitor on the field.

Better than just the nice words, coming in 2nd to that, got the team a spot in the FTC West Super-Regional Championship next month. So that's a month of scrambling to make some improvements to the robot and fundraising to get the team to California. Good thing they've got nothing like studying to distract them.

Here's a shot of our boy holding the Think Award and smiling -- something I have a hard time capturing on filman image, but he couldn't help himself when I shot it.

I'm Like Rasputin

Good grief, it's been a year and a half (and change) since I've done anything here. I've started a new blog devoted to my book reviews, but lately I've had a hankering to write things that don't belong there. Might as well try to resurrect this thing again.

We'll see how it goes this time. I've got to clean up the list of links, and other settings and whatnot. Blogger's changed so much the controls are barely recognizable -- I may get this posted, or I might activate Skynet in the attempt.

Is anybody still listening?

The Story Board

The thing I mentioned with Arnold the other day is pretty much over, and the family (he in particular) are working on recovering from that, and I am drained mentally and physically, I'm clinging to consciousness here at work the last few days. For example, right now, if I leaned back in my desk chair, I could be asleep in 30 seconds. Which is making the whole writing thing pretty hard -- I'm trying to be good, I just know if I let off on the daily writing thing, it'll take months, if not a year, to reestablish that. So I got about 100 words yesterday, 300 or so today. No where near my minimum requirements, but...

Anyway, by gum, I'm trying to get something new posted by the end of this week.

Trying.

Here's something that both entertained and inspired me, sorta the point of this post. Geek & Sundry, one of the new Youtube channel things (and the one I watch the most of, all due respect and fealty to The Nerdist notwithstanding) started a new thing yesterday, a monthly google+ hangout conversation hosted by Patrick Rothfuss about writing called The Story Board. Now, that's enough for me, I'm watching. But this first episode featured Jim Butcher as one of the guests talking about Urban Fantasy. Squee! Good stuff. You must check it out.

. . .I turned out to be the man she loved…To this day I don't know exactly what she loved about me and that's because I don't have to know. She just does. It was the entire menu of myself. She ordered all of it.

- Charles Baxter

New Year's Wishes and whatnot

To start off the New Year, I tried to come up with something to say about resolutions or goals or Happy New Year, and honestly couldn't come up with anything.

And then I made the mistake of reading Neil Gaiman's blog post yesterday*, everything he said there is good, but this resonated with me the most:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

.
So, let's just go with that...what he said. And I hope your 2012 is at least as good as, if not better than, 2011 was.



* just kidding, reading Gaiman is almost never a mistake

When Did I Become That Guy?

This has been a weird week--far busier than normal, and therefore it's been hard to squeeze everything in. I had to cut out one workout this week, and yesterday got away from me and I wasn't able to do all the exercise I was supposed to do. Today threatened to be the same way, but I refused to buckle and forced the time--which has resulted in my schedule being pushed back by 90 minutes or so, and I'll end up sleeping tonight about half as much as usual. But I just had to get it done, and consequences be hanged. Honestly, it's not about meeting whatever (and honestly fairly nebulous) fitness goals I have--it's more of a psychological thing, sorta like a matter of esteem (not in the Robert Schuller, etc. sense, I assure you). Truth be told, there's probably some dependency on adrenaline and other hormones/whatever produced by the body during exercise. Whatever, I'm fine with that.

But the bottom line is, if I don't exercise, I'm in a foul(er?) mood, shorter tempered, and generally feel blecky about life. With the exception of one friend/co-worker and people who live with me, I can't imagine many people who know me ever expected me to say that.

I'm also jumping (a little) higher, lifting more, doing more reps, etc. Been really pushing myself the last couple of weeks, and, yeah, I feel dead like I always do at the end of the workout, but this last week and a half, I've felt human a whole lot faster afterwards. If it wasn't for this gut, I'd say I was dangerously close to almost being in shape.

Great Ceasar's Ghost! What's happening?

First Weekend of April

Not as eventful as last weekend, but I liked doing it, and hey...it's not a book review, right?

So, this weekend, I

enjoyed this old friend who has sadly, decided to go away again (not my pic, btw)

over-indulged here

toured the Old Idaho Penitentiary with the family enough implied gore for the eldest two Offspring, different enough for the others

didn'tover-indulge here (for a change)

watched this again, was afraid it wouldn't be as funny the 2nd time around, but it was

introduced my children to this classic glad to report, they reacted as they should--laughing hysterically, quoting and requoting ad infinitum

finished was better than it was my sophomore year in high school, don't know why it took me so long to reread it (won't make that mistake again)

read such a fun read

started not bad, not bad at all

was blown away by the premier of mystery fans, quality TV fans...watch this

2,000th Post?!?!?!

Wow, seriously? I know I've been doing this awhile, and if I'd been more consistent, I could've hit this mark years ago, but still...there's something about that number. Really didn't expect to hit this mark.

Thanks for reading, everyone!!

This Past Weekend

So, this weekend I:

laughed a lot, but not as much as I hoped I would at

laughed more than I expected to and totally DID NOT cry at but there was a lot of pollen and dust in the room while I watched

celebrated her 9th birthday

got this for TLoML

tried this yummy yummy beer (Kona & Maui Brewing Companies make the best argument for relocating to the Aloha State)

spent far too much time with this guy (have just started the 5th week of P90X Doubles)

finished this good stuff

started this remember this being good in 10th Grade

watched the latest episodes of and NPH got it done on all fronts this week (tho' Segal absolutely killed, as per usual)

tried out this very, very tasty cake recipe mine didn't look quite that good. BTW, if you make it, double the KoolAid like I did (accidentally yesterday, on purpose from now on)

all in all, a good weekend. How was yours?

So Much for that Father of the Year Nomination

I just got an email from Samwise's school administrator, letting me know that he'll be meeting with her tomorrow, thanks to an email I sent his teacher.

It's not that he's in trouble or anything, don't get me wrong (me, either...at least not with the school). No, he's going to be asked some questions, which will lead him to "snitch" on some classmates (I'm using some vernacular here that I understand is used by "skels" on "the street").

What guy doesn't want to do that? What guy isn't filled with gratitude toward the person that put him there?

sigh

2010 Books

I kinda overdid it this year when it came to books. No doubt, helped in part by my Nero Wolfe Corpus project, I read 78 more books than 2009. Which is just insane. I didn't think I was reading more or anything--I was just plowing through stuff. I can't imagine I'll even come close this year, but you never know... Here's the list, for those who are interested.

Now for my personal rankings...

As I looked over my list, I gotta say I was surprised and chagrined to see how little non-fiction I read last year. I wasn't consciously avoiding it, it just happened. Even if I hadn't, I can't imagine much being better than Stephen King's Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I should also note that Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History by Andrew P. Napolitano is great fodder for paranoia, as well as a nice little history primer.

• The Scott Pilgrim series - Bryan Lee O'Malley. There's no way to pick one, gotta think of them as a package deal
• Changes - Jim Butcher
• One Day - David Nicholls--best book I read all year
• Anasi Boys - Neil Gaiman
• Boy Proof - Cecil Castellucci
• Cursor's Fury - Jim Butcher
• Good in Bed - Jennifer Weiner
• How I Became a Famous Novelist - Steve Hely
• The Adventure of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle - Patrick Rothfuss (not really a novel, but trust me folks, this is worth the read)

Reading so much, however, leads to more than one stinker. Do yourself a favor and avoid these:

• Point Omega - Don DeLillo
• The Ask - Sam Lipsyte
• Bite Me: A Love Story - Christopher Moore. And I really liked the first two in the series
• Chemistry for Beginners - Anthony Strong. This thing just didn't know what it wanted to be, and ended up being nothing.
• Batman: The Ultimate Evil - Andrew H. Vachss I can't even explain how horrible this would-be expose of child sex slavery disguised as a super hero story. It was as bad as it was well-intentioned and misguided.
• Youth in Revolt - C. D. Payne
• Zorro - Isabel Allende
• Hello Kitty Must Die - Angela S. Choi
• Starter for Ten - David Nicholls. Yup, same Nicholls that wrote my favorite book from 2010.
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
• The Girl who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson

Not at all what I had in mind

So yesterday when I said, "there'll be something different [than incessant NaNoWriMo bleating] tomorrow" I was thinking something different. I was just about done with an amusing little post when the whole day went sideways.

Well, technically, it was my van, not the day.
And, technically, it went across the road and did a 180 into a ditch and a fence, not sideways. But why get pedantic?

So you can get a glimpse of most of the damage there. Nothing major. It still drives (I think, need to get that confirmed), but it ain't pretty -- who cares? Makes it more like its primary driver.

The Princess, Arnold and Wonder Mutt were with me, and we're all fine. It took an hour and a half to get us out of there. The kids did well -- Arnold was pretty shaken up, but getting to sit in the tow truck seemed to help.

But that was it for me for the day . . . I couldn't focus, couldn't relax, couldn't work. I was just shot.

oh yeah, and I accidentally increased the font size on my cell phone's text messages and can't figure out how to fix it. Talk about annoying.

What's worse, is that I reacted this way to what's in all likelihood a minor inconvenience. It's just not that big of deal, ultimately.

Speaking of things that aren't big, friend/coworker (well, until he got laid off last month) of mine is going through a tumor scare, he's going in for an operation in a couple weeks. Got an email from him this evening after a consult with the surgeon. Apparently the tumor is of a borderline size. If it's size A, it's a pretty quick, simple, but painful surgery. If it's size B, it's invasive, will require some reworking of an internal system, probably some radiation or chemo, and well, something tells me the pain is in a different Area Code than the other option. What's size B? 2 mm or more.

One more time, that's two millimeters. For you philistines that don't grasp the beauty of the metric system, that's 0.0787401575 inches.

Roughly the size of the head of a pin.

So yeah, I get that little things can mess up your day, and I accept that. It's just that some little things are bigger than others.

like the song says...

Let the headlines wait,
Armies hesitate.
I can deal with fate
But not the little things.

NaNo Post Mortem

All righty, I'm now 3 for 4 on NaNoWriMo (not even sure you can count 2007's pathetic showing as a try). As much as I loved the 2008 story, I think this year's is better. Now, how I got from a Science Fiction comedy in the vein of Hitchhiker's or Red Dwarf that I couldn't see past chapter 3 of to a mystery that I couldn't see past Chapter 1 of to a Hornby/Tropper-esque coming of age tale to an Urban Fantasy that morphed mere hours before I started into a straight-up Fantasy, I have no clue. But I really, really like what resulted.

The way the plot developed sorta surprised me, I'd envisioned three parts. Part I took place in 1985, would go on for maybe three or four chapters. Then Part 2 would be a chapter -- a little longer, maybe. And then Part 3 would make up the majority of the novel. Yeah, well, best laid plans and all that, right? I never got to part 2 (I wrote a bit of it tonight at work, after the month was over), part 1 just was too interesting. I'm still trying to decide if I make Part 2 an epilogue, and then pick up part 3 next November, or if I keep plowing away. You can see a short bit about it here.

So anyway, what about Frodo? Well, he didn't win this year, he had a hard time shuffling priorities around and it bit him (tho' he did put up a valiant effort the last night in two hours, writing about twice what he spent all day Saturday composing). So he's 2 for 3. BUT, I will say this about what he wrote, it's a whole different kind of writing than he's done before. His first two NaNo's were pretty cartoonish, with flat characters, and rather slapdash and out of control--the second was a great improvement over the first. But it wasn't until I read this year's work, that I realized how far he hadn't come then. His protagonist this year -- and a couple of the secondary characters -- were people, who acted like people. They thought, they spoke like someone you'd actually meet. Not a family of 4 who'd eat 500 pizzas a day for dinner or something. Does he have a long way to go? Yes. Is he a better writer than his old man was at that age? Probably. Anyway, not technically a win as far as the rules go, so chalk this one up as a moral victory.

I got a good deal of help along the way--back in August I threw up a post that got some interesting suggestions here and in other places. My old high school pal, Brent, saw something I said on Facebook and hooked me up with a great book about writing about fighting (I'll talk more about that some other time). A friend from college, Erika, who also also does this 30 day mad-dash, was a great source of encouragement -- not only in what she said, but also by leading me in the word count for most of the month, giving me something to shoot for. My kids were always supportive, even when (especially when?) they were distracting me from the work. And, of course, TLoML who listened to me moan about how impossible it was this year, pretended to give a crap when I babbled in the vaguest manner possible about minor victories I'd made, and generally indulged me in this for the month. Thank you all of you.

Enough about this for now...on to other things, there'll be something different tomorrow, like something about Neti Pots or...I dunno. We'll see.

NaNo-ing

As you've no doubt noticed, I'm doing National Novel Writing Month yet again. I just threw up the code for our stats/word counts over there to your right. Not the most impressive of numbers, but give us time.

I'm more than a little surprised at the direction my novel's going. FOr most of the year, I'd been playing around with a Comedic Science Fiction idea, and despite some great help from readers a few months ago, I decided I just couldn't pull it off. Then I veered into a Nick Hornby/Jonathan Tropper direction, but that one again, fell apart in the planning. Somehow, I started something that touched on urban fantasy, and then became just good ol' fantasy. Surprised the heck out of me. I'm really not sure where I'm going with it, honestly, but I'm having a blast finding out.

I wrote a fight scene tonight--first one since college. This one was far superior to those, but, ugh. I've got a long ways to go there. It was pretty fun tho. I kept fighting the temptation to mime out certain moves to make sure I could describe them correctly, but was pretty sure my co-worker would've labeled me insane (or more insane), so I kept it to the brain. Also tonight, two characters I've been working on for a week were finally introduced, which was a relief. Sadly, when I got to their grand entrance, I'd forgotten their names. So that derailed me for 5-10 minutes. Their new names are pretty cool, and at least one of them is easier to pronounce, but man, I'm gonna be trying to remember their old ones for quite some time. Note to self/other writers: jot stuff like that down. Duhhhhhh.

Frodo's the only one of The Offspring that's taking the plunge this year. The others are plenty busy, and probably a bit demoralized by not being able to finish in year's past. I think next year, I'll give the Princess a nudge again, I think with a little effort on her part, she'll be able to produce something, she just needs more practice. Samwise is clearly not a writer--at least not in his mind, and that's fine, his creative interests are directed elsewhere, and it won't be too long before he'll be writing little ditties (and maybe some long ones, too) instead of stories. Frodo, meanwhile, is writing something very new for him--the last couple of years he's written two adventure/superhero stories in a series, and this year he's going for more of a semi-autobiographical, slice of life kind of thing. The change is doing him good, it's a lot of fun to see his skills develop. Sure his word count is low, but in a week or so I expect them to skyrocket.

Let the Complaining Begin!

As soon as the polls opened today, I went and did my civic duty along with a handful of others (that's not a comment on turnout, btw), many of whom would not qualify for a Senior Citizen discount on anything, so I took heart in that.

One of the nice things about living in the State of Idaho is that I can freely vote my conscience (i.e., not a Republicrat) and be fully certain that the candidate who appears to be the lesser of two evils will make it to office. I'd vote my conscience anyway, but still...

Anyway, according to several T-Shirts and Bumper Stickers that I've seen (if these aren't the true arbiters of what passes for thought in America today, I don't know what is...twitter, I guess), as a voter, I'm now fully qualified to complain. So let me get started:

1. Kids these Days, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that ol' Socrates/Plato/Cicero/someone forever old said,

   "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

   which just goes to show ya that everyone's complained about Kids these Days.
   
   Whatever. It's still true, kids today are manner-less, contemptuous and disrespectful, you know it, I know it and they know it.
   
   Grrr.
2. Two Party System...when are we, the electorate, going to wake up to the fact that this supposed two-party system is just one party masquerading as two, different names for the same stuff? When will we demand actual choices in the forms of multiple parties?
3. Bite-Sized Candy ShrinkageNow this one, I'm really riled up about. Go check out the contents of your kids' plunder from this weekend, or a bag on the shelf of the grocery store if you're not into that--those things are noticeably and significantly smaller than they were even 1 year ago. Now, I'm not one to call for more government interference in our lives/the market, but c'mon, you're telling me the FDA doesn't have an enforceable standard mass for "bite sized" candy bar?

Yup, It's November Again, You Know What that Means...

will try not to bore you too much with it...

Yessir, That's My Baby

Am not going to bother with a why-I'm-not-blogging post, tired of those, and frankly, I don't know. I sit and sit in front of blank screens and nothing worth posting gets generated (and it doesn't take reading much of what's posted here to see that I have very low standards in that regard).

Today, I do have something worth talking about. After years of work, and a pretty major project that saved our state a whole lotta cash (for which no "Thank You" card will be forthcoming), The Love of My Life today completed her course of study to become a Certified Public Manager.

Wanted to take a moment to extend my congratulations publicly, and to say how proud I am of all she's accomplished. Way to go, Love.

Fiddy

Am sure this is of little concern to you all, but it's big enough to me that I have to mention it (besides, this has been one of those über draining days that render thought almost impossible, so be happy I came up with anything). A few months back, I said that I'd lost 20 pounds so far this year. I've kept at it, and am pleased to announce that I've lost a little bit more:

And it's a good thing I hit that yesterday. Have had one of those weeks where I was on the verge of throwing in the towel and piling it on--you know, having a large Chicago Fire Pizza every day for lunch, and getting caught up on my lounging around. I'm tired of all the work, fed up with feeling hungry all the time...yada yada yada. But when the scale flashed that magic number at me, that was all the reinforcement I needed. Back to the trench warfare that this weight-loss project has become...15 lbs to go!