The light at the end of the tunnel

The painting is finally done. All of the cleanup is done as well. The living room has its final set of furniture. Now all that's left is to reorganize everything that we dumped on the dining room table to clear out the living room. That and hooking up the TV. I hope I remember how, because it was quite complicated. Well, at least we can sit on our couch in the living room, that the table is clear enough for the the kids to have breakfast. Time for these paint spackled hands to go to bed. And yes, its really 1:15 Monday morning.
Yawn.

My Day Off

I took the day off so I could watch the kids while the Mrs. was taking a spinning class. She went with her friend who is teaching her how to spin raw wool into yarn.
I figured I would use the day to get some some much needed chores done. I woke up around 6-ish to help the Mrs get her grandmother's old spinning wheel into the van so she could use it for her class.
After the girls got up, I decided that we would make some Chicken corn soup together. I set the girls to shredding carrots in our Pampered Chef cheese grater(works wonderfully!), while I chopped onion and prepared the rest of the ingredients. The girls were thrilled. They really like cooking with Daddy.

Afterwards, I went to buy some tires. I made this decision last week while hydroplaning down the road during the rainstorm we had.
So, I go to the tire place, and while I'm waiting the hour or so for the car to be done, the kids and I walk over to the used video game store to browse around. The boy has been saving up work dollars towards a new video game, so he cashed those in.
After that, we walked down to the fabric store to let the girls peruse around. I am always amazed at what girls get excited over. They were both oohing and aahing over the different fabrics, how pretty they were, how they would like to make jammies out of this fabric, or how cute the hearts were on another fabric while The Boy was hollering about how bored he was. I reminded him that the girls were bored in the video game store.
We also went to Kmart, and looked through the girls clothes rack, and the toy aisle.
Cell phone rang. Car's done. 350 smackeroos. Back to home. Car feels wonderful. I must've needed tires for a while.
This is turning out to be an expensive day.
In the evening, we had parent teacher conferences. The Mrs had not yet made it back from her class, so I went to meet the teachers.
Middle girl's conference was first. She is doing fantastic. A few problems with counting money, but nothing that can't be helped with a little practice. It was a very short conference. "You're daughter's perfect. Any questions?" :)
Then I get to The Boy's conference.
Academically, everything is stellar. Behavior-wise, well...you know. Read Mrs. Wbobth's blog to read the history of The Boy. He is having crying sessions in class when given writing assignments because he doesn't know what to write. I can't be too hard on him, because I also hated those free form writing assignments that the teachers gave. On the other hand I don't think writing about your favorite Thanksgiving food should be a crying matter...
I didn't manage to get to what I really wanted to do, which was clean the basement.
Now I need to rest from my day off...

Take the "A" Train

The boy is learning Swing drumming.
Here is his progression of a new beat over 3 days of practice.
I'm impressed.

My awesome wife

She is taking this animation class which is taught in Flash.
Here is her latest project. (I helped out with the Russian and the globe)

Can't...walk...any...more...

Yesterday was the parents vs. kids soccer game. I may have mentioned before that I am extremely unathletic. Of the 7 parents that were on the team, 5 were soccer coaches, 1 evidently was a soccer star back in Scotland in his youth...and then there was me. I think this was the first full soccer game I ever played in my life. So I let the other guys do stuff like try to get the ball into the goal. I hung back and played defense. My only strategy was to run as fast as the kid and get in the way of them getting a clear shot on the goal. This strategy worked pretty well until I realized that I could only sprint once every 5 minutes or so. By the end of the hour, I was so tired that a 5 yr old dribbling the ball towards me got past me, and I couldn't catch up.
So this morning I got up, and I let out a howl as pain shot through my body as I went to put my pants on. Everything is painful...getting in and out of the car, climbing stairs, watching TV...
Anyway, I did have fun. The boy had a blast. And I'm getting used to the taste of Advil.
Oh, yeah...the kids won.

Animation Idea

Mrs. Wbobth is doing a project for her animation class that she is taking this semester. The instructions stated that she needed to animate a(n) historical event. After much thought, she decided to do an animation of the Alexei Leonov performing the first space walk.

Too bad she didn't decide to do Laika, the first dog in space.

Good riddance?!?

Some of you may have been shocked and dismayed by my callous attitude over the demise of an unfortunate pigeon in the gullet of a pelican.
Although this story probably belongs in the JJA series, I will enlighten you as to where this desire to see all pigeons suffer comes from.

It happened while I was at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. The barracks we stayed in were quite lovely. The barracks buildings had Spanish tile on the roof, there were two person rooms, each with its own bathroom, a common area on each floor with lounge furniture, and each floor had a small balcony so you could stand outside if you wished.
Being the Army, cleanliness of everything and especially maintainance of the facilities took a very high precedence. We all had responsibilities to keep the grounds neat and clean.
One day, we were cleaning, and we notice that a pigeon had built a nest on our balcony. As I go to shoo the pigeon away, and get rid of the nest, Specialist G (who shall be known just as Specialist G to protect the innocent) rushed up and demanded to know what I was doing.
First, a few words about Specialist G.
She was one of the few people who had been at DLI forever. She was a student, but she had gotten through some portion of the language class, contracted some illness that made her unable to attend class, so she just kind of hung around not really doing much...other than try to save pigeons.
I replied to Specialist G that I was shooing the pigeon away because it was messing up our balcony. She was so adamant that the pigeon should stay, that she went to our platoon sergeant with the case for why the pigeon should stay on our balcony. AND HE AGREED WITH HER!!!
Now, this is the Army. The Army that trains its soldiers to kill people. And the Army that has mascot pigeons roosting on the balconies of its barracks.
So we watched the pigeon lay its eggs, and nurture its young. And poop. And poop some more. And poop and poop and poop. By the time the pigeon raised it young, and abandoned its nest in search of another balcony to poop on, our balcony looked like a winter wonderland.
And who ended up cleaning up the entire balcony by himself????
Private Mitchell. Not Specialist G.
I hate pigeons.

Like Father, LIke Son

So I get home from work today, go into the kitchen, and there is a dead mouse in a trap near the dishwasher. Of course, the kids need to see, so I holler upstairs for everyone to come see the dead mouse. Middle daughter exclaims "Ooooh, you got another one daddy!!!" Then, when I thought about it, I didn't remember setting a trap there. That is when son pipes up and says "I set the trap today. I baited it with crumbs from the toaster oven." Aaaaaaah, That's my boy!!!

Mouse Hunter Extraordinaire Jr.

Mouse Hunter Extraordinaire

Since the weather became colder, we have had some unwelcome guests in our house...mice. We first discovered them because we have a drop ceiling in our kitchen (thanks to the previous owners) and I heard them skritching along above the ceiling tiles one evening squeaking all the way. Blecchhhhh. So when I get a chance i pick up some mouse hunting supplies at the local hardware store. I put peanut butter on some traps and place it by the spots that I suspect the mice are getting into our kitchen. The first night I caught 1 mouse. That was good. It was a dumb mouse and fell for the peanut butter trick right away. However, we had (at least) one other mouse that has eluded capture. I tried glue boards, I tried the peanut butter trick...the kids even suggested that I put bread on the traps since they seem to like that as well. I even tried to put a trap in the ceiling tiles, but there is not enough space between the ceiling tile and the ceiling to let the trap spring.
The mouses luck ran out....TONIGHT!!!! HAAAHAHAHHAAA!

I was sitting in the quiet evening house when I thought I heard pans rattling under the stove.
Oh No, I thought...its living under the stove in our pots!!! BLEEEEEECH!

So I run over to the stove, and pull out the thing under the stove. Nothing.
I move some pots around, and I see the mouse running frantically away. In its panic it couldn't jump high enough to get out of the box. Perhaps it use the pots to get up before, because at this point I had most of the pots out of the thingy. So, hoping it would not jump out, I ran and grabbed one of my set traps with PB on it, and placed it in the stove compartment where the mouse was. When mice aren't stressed, they can avoid the traps, but when they panic, they tend to ignore caution. So I got the broom, and started stabbing at the mouse to make it run around. Sure enough, after 30 seconds, it stepped on the trap. As it took its last breath, I tossed it in the trash can...
Trash day is tomorrow.

P.S. Now I'm washing every pan under our stove.

I'm famous too

This post is in response to Wbobth's Moms blog entry that she is famous. Well, I just have to prove that I am well known on the Internet too. She might have a video, but I have this.
(BTW, I have nooooooo idea how this got there. I must have uploaded this to a BBS when I was 14 or something.)

I know the date of my demise

This morning I found a second gray hair. I was mock weeping in the bathroom when my middle child wandered by and asked what was wrong.
"I'm getting old! I have 2 gray hairs!" I sobbed.
"Don't worry" she replied. "You still have 30 years to live."

October 10, 2036
R.I.P.

Foam Jigsaw

Well, after being in this house for around 5 yrs (wow has it been that long? We moved in November of 2001 if I recall correctly), I finally decided to take the butt ugly 70's style brown paneling out of our hallway. I feared what I would find behind the paneling, since people put up paneling to hide problems that they don't want to fix. I never expected to find...a foam jigsaw puzzle.
A foam puzzle behind butt ugly 70's style brown paneling?!?! How can that be, you ask yourself.
A little background.
We have about an 85 yr old house with very old plaster walls. In some cases, the plaster can be difficult to repair. The folks who lived here before us for about 30 years obviously did not like repairing plaster. They put up butt ugly 70's style brown paneling on every surface they could get their hands on. We have been slowly taking the paneling down and repairing the walls as we have had the opportunity. I was amazed to see the lenghts of stupidity the previous owners went through to put up this paneling in the stairwell.

This is the hallway halfway through tearing it apart:

You'll notice the beautiful framework of wood that they nailed into the walls to keep the butt ugly 70's style paneling in good shape throughout the years. They also filled every crack with FOAM. Perhaps this was to achieve an insulating effect. I guess I'll find out this winter. You'll notice at the top of the picture the desire till make sure every crevice is filled with foam.

See exhibit #2:



This insane desire goes even further when they stack foam pieces Tetris style and wedge foam between the poorly cut pieces of wood. Just to make sure no crack goes unfoamed.
Yeah we need a law entitled "No Crack Unfoamed." Interpret that however you like.
Anyway. The Piece de Resistance...



I mean what the hell is that??!??! Lets take every piece of spare foam we have and spend hours painstakingly piece together a solid block of foam so that the guy who rips this crap apart can take pictures of it and mock it in a public forum.
NO CRACK UNFOAMED!!!
Ah well, I digress.
They actually were hiding something bigger with the paneling.

A big hole in the wall. I'm going to Lowe's tomorrow for some plaster hole fixing supplies.
Adios for now!

Wbobth?

My friends and I used to play with the Speak-n-Spell when we were but budding young lads. The newer Speak-n-Spells had an "encrypt" feature that took a word, then performed the unbreakable one for one letter substitution. My name encrypted was Wbobth. And thats what they called me. Play with the Speak-n-Spell here