Rob's Cubicle

Bad Blogger

2008-09-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been ages since I've written anything. The problem is that I've been spending so much time playing on Facebook. Take a look at the little widget over there on the right...that's Facebook. If you click on it you can actually go to my Facebook page and see what I've been up to. Between MySpace and Facebook, I've gotta say that Facebook is much better. Check it out.

Back from Texas

2008-07-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a trip to Flower Mound, Texas to visit my older sister and her family. Where is Flower Mound? It's just outside of Dallas, right by the Dallas-Fort Wort airport. While I was flying high above the southwest on my way to Flower Mound, Kristen and the kids (and Kristen's mom) were driving. After a brief stop in El Paso to drop Kristen's mom off at a friend's home, they finished the last leg of their trip and we all met up at my sister's house last Thursday evening.

We had a very nice visit. On the 4th of July we walked to a local school and watched the fireworks. As we walked we heard TONS of cicadas in the nearby trees. I even saw a few of the empty exoskeletons of the critters that had molted as they climbed up the fences and trees. Neat stuff.

On the 5th we celebrated my brother-in-law's 50th birthday. There was lots of good food, beer and wine. It was nice to meet some of their friends in a casual and relaxing environment.

For most of the rest of the week we just kind of hung out and just enjoyed spending time with the Texas clan. The kids got to do lots of swimming at the next door neighbors' pool. Irene got to try out a snorkel for the first time. Rhys tried it out too. It's amazing how fast Rhys is learning to swim. He's absolutely fearless in the water. That's a good thing since it's helping him learn faster, but it freaks us out because he does some crazy things from time to time.

One of the days we did venture into downtown Dallas where we visited the American Airlines Center (where the Dallas Mavericks play), Victory Park, and the Dallas World Aquarium. The aquarium was way cool. It wasn't just fish. There were tons of birds, monkees, crocodiles, otters, insects, and even a sloth. I've posted tons of photos on our web photo gallery here:

http://gallery.mac.com/kristenirene#100214&bgcolor=black&view=grid

I returned on Thursday and Kristen and the kids started driving back. As I type this, they are still in Southern California. They hit some of the tourist spots on the way back. Unfortunately, Kristen's grandmother passed away the other day due to natural causes. The service will be on Friday down in La Jolla. Since they're already down there, they'll just stay at Kristen's dad's house all week and then I'll fly down for the service. Then we'll all drive back up to Sparks on Saturday and, depending on our progress, maybe Sunday as well.

While Kristen and the kids have been away I've been holding down the fort here in Sparks. I've watched lots of the Tour de France, the MLB All-Star game, gone on lots of bike rides and played lots of Lego Star Wars on the Wii. What could be better? Well, having Kristen and the kids back home would be the best of all.

More Bike Commuting

2008-07-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

I'm doing my bike commute again today. It's about 7 miles each way from where I park my car. Most of the ride is pretty easy. The traffic isn't too bad, just a few spots that are tricky. Sometimes I can go around them, but sometimes I just have to deal with them.

This morning as I rode in there was another rider a little ways ahead of me. As we approached an intersection he decided to cut through a gas station. I guess he took the turn too fast because the next thing I knew he was on the ground. I slowed down and asked if he was OK and he just looked at me, got on his bike, and went on his way. I'm guessing he was a bit embarrassed.

But that incident got me to thinking about the risks I take when I ride and how prepared I am to deal with them. All of the so-called experts tell you that riding on the side of the road is the safest way to go. By law, a bike is to be treated like a slow-moving car (or like the slow tractors that we so often see clogging up traffic.) I don't think most car drivers see bikes that way. I think they see them as a nuisance that have no business being there.

I always tend to ride pretty defensively, but I'm pretty aggressive about establishing my position and being sure that cars can see me. I don't do stupid stuff, and I'm not about to yell at the driver of a car or bang on one of their quarter-panels when they cut me off (I've seen that a few times!)

Making sure I have the right equipment is always a bit of a challenge for me. I have to be sure I have a bike pump, tire levers and a patch kit. I also have a multi-tool that I carry with some hex wrenches in case I have to make a major repair. If I have a major malfunction then I'm basically stuck with walking and being late for work. I can fix a flat or replace a tube in about 5 minutes so that's not a big deal.

I'm going to try a slightly different route on the way home tonight. Hopefully it won't be too windy or smoky!

Five Years Old!

2008-06-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe, but my little boy turns five today. As I write this, Rhys is with his mom watching "Wall•E". I'm a bit jealous, but he's been dying to see it since he learned that it was being released on the same day as his birthday.

I can still clearly remember that day five years ago when we went to the hospital for Kristen's C-section. We still didn't know whether we were having a boy or a girl. We weren't really hoping for one over the other. We wanted to be surprised and just wanted a healthy baby. We went to the operating room, I got all dressed up in scrubs, boots, hat and a mask while Kristen was wheeled in and prepped. They called me in and I sat down up by Kristen's head behind the curtain that hides the view of all of the icky blood and internal bodily stuff that most folks don't want to see. When they pulled Rhys out, I stood up and took a good look. I didn't care about the icky stuff since that doesn't really bother me. After a quick look I was pleased to announce to Kristen that we had a boy!!

It took Rhys quite a bit longer to turn pink and start to cry. Irene came out of the gates all full of piss and vinegar, crying and pink as a baby piglet. I carried Rhys up to the nursery so he could be checked out and cleaned up. After a couple of days we took him home, but there were some complications with jaundice that took many days to clear up. We made several trips to the hospital for blood tests and even had a special blanket at home (called a billi-blanket) that we had to keep him wrapped up in. Basically it was like a tanning bed in blanket form with lots of lights that helped to break down the toxins in his blood. Eventually, it was all cleared up and it's been (mostly) smooth sailing ever since!

So, Happy Birthday buddy!!

Bike Commute Part II

2008-06-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

Didn't mean to leave y'all hanging there thinking, "Did he or didn't he make it back home? Why isn't there a Part II? Did he fall into the Truckee River" Nah. I just got lazy and busy and didn't have time to finish the bike commute saga.

The ride back to my car was actually better than the ride to work earlier in the morning. Even though it was really windy, it was mostly at my back and my side so it actually helped me. I made much better time. The tricky traffic spots weren't too bad, and I learned about a different route I might try next time. All in all, it was a positive experience and when I got back to the car I felt exhilarated and satisfied. Strangely enough, the moment I pulled my car out onto the main road I ended up in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Just wanted to mention how saddened I am by the death of George Carlin. I saw him perform once at the Civic Center in San Rafael. He wasn't too funny that night, but I think that was a rare exception. Do a search on YouTube and you'll find a bazillion videos that will have you rolling on the floor (unless you're a conservative and/or have no sense of humor!) Here's a classic bit about football and baseball.

Bike Commute Part 1

2008-06-17T08:16:00.000-07:00

I finally did it. After weeks of talking about it, I finally dragged my butt out of bed a bit early and rode my bike to work. Actually, that's a lie. I didn't ride ALL the way from home. That would take an hour and a half and would be suicidal. Instead, I left my car at a park along the Truckee River and rode from there. It cuts about 12 miles from my daily drive. So, instead of driving 32 miles round-trip, I'm doing more like 20. It may not seem like much, but if you do the math it turns out that I'm saving about .2 gallons of gas and about 80 cents each time I do it. It adds up! Plus it's a decent workout.

The ride was easy. There are only a couple of hairy traffic spots, and I avoided most of the bad areas by taking a detour into a residential area. The trade off is that the roads were in poor shape. Ah well, it's better to be safe. The ride back will be trickier because 1) it'll be hot, 2) it'll be windy, and 3) there are a couple of hairy traffic spots that I can't avoid.

Wish me luck!

Weekend Recap

2008-06-16T08:52:00.001-07:00

Rhys and I had a delightful time in the Bay Area.

We left on Friday morning around 8:45 and made great time on our drive to Berkeley. We arrived at my sister's house at around 12:15. It was great to see my dad and all three of my sisters, as well as the other family members and friends who had come. We visited, ate some food, and Rhys harassed his cousins (especially his cousin Ben) while we waited for the graduation ceremony.

At about 3:45 a few of us headed over the Greek to save some seats for the rest of the group. There was lots of traffic on the Berkeley campus, but we finally reached our destination...and were greeted by a long line. Hmmm.... Fortunately, the wait wasn't too long and we were finally able to go in and grab some seats. I was glad I was wearing shorts because it was quite warm as we sat on the concrete seats waiting for the others to arrive. Rhys played with his Star Wars toys and snacked on some chips that I had brought. The Greek slowly filled to capacity and the rest of our group arrived just in time for the start of the ceremony.

Berkeley High School is a large, diverse school adjacent to the UC Berkeley campus. The student body is a mix of rich, poor, middle-class, white, black, Asian, latino, and many other groups I've negleted to mention. The ceremony itself reflected this diversity. It was loooooong (as all graduations are) and flowed is a somewhat haphazard fashion. Many beach balls were batted around and 'The Wave' occasionally flowed through the graduates' seating area. Rhys got more and more restless but he held it together and did very well. The weather turned from sunny and warm to foggy and cold; a feature I LOVE and miss greatly about the Bay Area. My niece finally walked across the stage and received her diploma. We all screamed madly, but our cheers paled in comparison to many of the other family members who sported air horns, cow bells, signs, and very loud voices.

After the ceremony we walked across the Berkeley campus to where the car was parked. Fortunately the walk was all downhill since I had Rhys on my shoulders most of the way. We walked past the Campanile (aka Sather Tower, the iconic clock tower) and my sister took a couple of photos. It had been a while since I had walked on the campus and it was neat to see some familiar sites. For those who don't know, I didn't attend UC Berkeley, but since many of my family members DID go there I have spent quite a bit of time on the campus.

We finally got back to my sister's house at around 10pm and I got Rhys to bed. He passed out almost immediately and, after having some champagne and visiting a bit more, I did the same.

The next morning we woke up, had a nice breakfast, and then headed across the Richmond-San Rafael bridge to San Rafael to visit one of my old friends. He drove down from Santa Rosa to his parents' house so I didn't have to drive all the way up to his place. His parents' house is the same house he grew up in. It's right across the street from MY childhood home, so going there was like a trip in the Way-Back machine for me. I got to see my old house (the current owners need to landscape a bit better!) and I got to see my friend's parents' house that I spent almost half of my childhood in. But that wasn't the most surreal part of the trip. The strangest part was watching MY son play with my friends' son (whom he had brought along with him) in the same trees and backyard expanses that my friend and I had played in when we were kids! Talk about deja vu!! It's a somewhat rural area with lots of trees, blackberry bushes, a creek and hidden patches of poison oak. The boys just kind of ran free while my friend and I had a couple of beers and caught up on each others' lives. The boys found a deer skull and large alligator lizard. We saw a doe and her two spotted fawns running through the trees. It all took me back to the wonderful times I had as I grew up. The place where we lived was a GREAT environment for a kid to grow up in. I wonder if our old house is for sale?? Oh wait, we could NEVER afford it!

Rhys (right) and friend playing on an old bay tree. Rhys is scratching his nose....really, that's all he's doing is scratching. Nothing more.

Our old house

Our street with my friend's parents' house on the right. We used to play football, ride bikes and skateboards, play catch, and get into all kinds of trouble on this street.

We finally left at around 3:30. Rhys and my friend's son invited each other to their respective birthdays and asked when the next play date would be. It was hard to explain to them that we live REALLY far apart and we may not see each other for a while.

I have a few more photos from the trip over on my moblog site.

The drive home was uneventful, especially since Rhys slept most of the way. We arrived home at around 7:30 and got the lowdown on what 'the girls' had been up to while we were away. There was much manicuring, hair dying, and Japanese food eating involved. I think I prefer what Rhys and I did...

Added later...I almost forgot about Father's Day! I received a wonderful hand-made card from Rhys and several hand-made cards and gifts from Irene. Perfect! They will make nice decorations for my cubicle. I also got to go on a bike ride and play lots of Lego Star Wars and the newly-acquired Lego Indiana Jones. I got to watch a little baseball as well as the Lakers-Celtics basketball game. To top it all off, I got to have pizza for dinner. What could be better?

Over the Hill

2008-06-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

Rhys and I are headed over the hill to the Bay Area today. My youngest niece is graduating from Berkeley High tonight so we're heading down to cheer her on. The ceremony is at the Greek Amphitheater, which is also where I went for several concerts lo so many years ago. The other bonus to all of this is that I'll get to see my sister and her family who are coming out from Texas. Always a plus to be able to see them.

Tomorrow Rhys and I will hang out with one of my old friends. He's not old (unless you consider 40 to be old - I don't), it's just that we've been friends for something like 35 years. What's even more fun is that we're meeting at his parents' house in San Rafael which is right across the street from where I grew up as a kid. It'll be fun to see my old house and see the old neighborhood.

We'll drive back tomorrow night after our whirlwind tour. I'm glad we have the Prius to offset some of the costly price of gas.

Veggies

2008-06-06T09:06:00.001-07:00

Kristen and I have signed up to join a local farmer's co-op here in Northern Nevada. Basically, we contribute a chunk of money (quite a bit, actually) that goes towards supporting local farmers. In return, we get a weekly share of what they're growing. Once a week we go and pick up a box of fresh fruits and veggies. It's different each week depending on what's being picked. We figured this would be a good way to help out local farmers who are getting hit hard by the rise in fuel prices (their tractors burn diesel which is the highest priced fuel), would also keep us from buying fruits and veggies from big chain supermarkets that truck it in from California (using lots of fuel) and it will also force us to eat healthier.

We'll get a box each week from July thru the first week of October. I'm curious to see how much we get and what the quality is like.

Scars and Broken Bones

2008-05-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun topic: Let's all talk about broken bones, scars or other notable injuries that we've had. I'll start. These are in somewhat chronological order.

Broken Collarbone - I broke my right collarbone when I was playing football in my neighbors' driveway. I was running to catch the ball, slipped, and must've landed on my right shoulder. **SNAP** Mostly I just remember the pain. The bone snapped clean. The doctor had to set it by hand, and I didn't get any pain killers. Yeeesssh. I must've been about 7 or 8 years old. I had to wear this funky cast around my shoulders. It was really hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in for a while. I still have a know on my collarbone to this day.

Disclocated Pinkie - I was in middle school and playing a game of pickup basketball. I jumped up with my right hand to rebound the ball, someone tipped it, and it came down straight on the end of my pinkie. The middle knuckle joint popped out of place and suddenly my pinkie was pointing awkwardly away from my ring finger. I quickly grabbed my pinkie, and thankfully it spontaneously popped back into place. I had to wear a splint for a couple of weeks.

Broken Wrist - This one happened when I was senior in high school during baseball practice. After taking batting practice, I had to run the bases and slide into second and third. When I slid into second, I landed awkwardly on my right wrist. It hurt, but I kept on going and slid into third. This time it REALLY hurt. I got some ice and sat out the rest of the practice. After I drove home (with one hand - thankfully it was an automatic transmission!) my mom took me to the ER. Yep, it was broken. Thankfully it was just one of the small bones in the wrist itself, but the next day it hurt like a son-of-a-gun. Man, I really remember that pain. I missed the second half of the baseball season, but I came back and was able to pitch in the playoffs.

Sebaceous Cyst - I had a benign cyst removed from the middle of my back that left about a 2 inch scar on my back. The night after I had the procedure done, I went out drinking with a buddy and we drive the little go karts at a local Scandia. When I got home, my incision hurt quite a bit and it had bled enough to leave a nice red spot on the back of my shirt. Not my smartest move...

Disclocated Kneecap - My buddy and I were goofing around with firecrackers in his driveway; the same driveway we were playing in when I broke my collarbone. I lit the fuse of a firecracker, backed away, and the back of my right knee hit the bumper of one of the cars in the driveway. I must've hit it just right (or wrong) because it caused my kneecap to dislocate to the side of my knee. My parents weren't home (they were in the Delta on their boat) so my oldest sister called the EMTs and they came out. They diagnosed the problem, put me on a backboard, and put me in the back of our station wagon so my sister could drive me to the ER (anything to save the cost of an ambulance!) It was a long, bumpy and painful drive. In the ER, the doctor put my kneecap back in place by just straightening my leg. It popped back into place, and for an instant I was in excruciating pain...but then it was better. I still had some torn cartilage or ligaments or something, as well as a small bone chip, so my knee swelled up to the size of a cantaloupe and I had to wear a big brace on my leg and walk on crutches for a little while. I also got to enjoy several visits to the physical therapist to strengthen my leg since the quad muscle had atrophied quite a bit.

Skin Cancer - About six years ago I had a benign cancerous growth removed from my forehead just above my left eye. Since I had neglected to go to the doctor to get it checked out when it was relatively small, it had grown to about the size of a dime. Kristen and I got to spend all day at UCSF in San Francisco while they scraped out all of the cancerous cells. When the scraping was all done, I was left with a hole about the size of a half dollar. A plastic surgeon sewed my head back together, and now I'm left with a 2 inch scar above my eye. For a couple of years, my eyebrow was pulled up like I was pondering a difficult question. It's normal now, and the scar doesn't look too bad. I don't even notice it anymore.

Those are the biggies. I've probably broken a toe or two as well, but I don't really count those. There are also the countless scrapes and bruises from when I was a kid as well as the bloody knees from playing softball.

Weight A Minute...

2008-05-20T11:49:00.001-07:00

Despite my efforts, I'm having a hard time getting my weight down. Granted, I haven't been all that disciplined of late. Even though I completed the long bike ride on Saturday, I also ate quite a bit over the weekend as well (Pizza, In n' Out, etc...) I'm right around the same weight I was when I started. More on this story as it develops...

Lodi Bike Ride

2008-05-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

I survived the 38-mile bike ride in Lodi this past weekend. It was actually rather easy. The ride was flat, there was no wind, and the heat only really kicked in towards the very end.

When we reached the Sacramento area on Friday afternoon, the thermometer in my car said it was 106 degrees outside. Yeeesh! I knew then that we would be getting up the next morning as early as possible so we could beat the heat on our ride.

I awoke at 5:45am and started getting ready. My dad came downstairs shortly thereafter. It was all going well until he broke the valve stem on one of his tubes as he was trying to add a little extra air. Hmmm.... None of my spare tubes would fit his tires, but fortunately he had an extra one on hand. I quickly swapped out the bad tube for the new one, we inflated it, and it he was all set to go!

We arrived at the starting point (Lodi High School), checked in, and started our ride. The ride was easy, but a little monotonous. The roads are all straight and flat as they cut between the farmland. There was very little traffic which was very nice. However, a few more turns or ups and downs would've broken up the ride nicely.

We reached the halfway point in good time and stopped for some juice, cookies and a brief rest. It was already starting to get quite warm so we didn't dawdle for too long before we headed back.

The ride back was much like the first leg. I hung back with my dad a bit as he was getting tired and was feeling the effects of the heat. Towards the end, I left him behind and sprinted to the finish. When I got to the car, I checked my phone to see that I had a message. It was my dad. He had pooped out just a few miles from the finish. Fortunately, I had thought ahead and asked him to give me the car keys at the halfway point. So, I jumped in the car and drove back to retrieve him.

For those who don't know, my dad is 76 years old. I was duly impressed that he went as far as we did, considering that he hadn't ridden in quite some time. I hope I can do half that distance when I'm that age!!! Good job, dad!!

After the ride we came home, showered, had l lunch, and relaxed. We even napped a little bit. Kristen and the kids, who were down in Tracy visiting her newborn cousin, arrived a bit later and we had a wonderful hamburger dinner before I crashed at 9pm.

It was a great weekend and I'm hoping to do the ride again next. Maybe next time I'll try the 100k...

60 Miles Per Gallon

2008-05-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

That's what I'm getting on my current tank of gas in the Prius. On my last tank I averaged about 57 MPG. That's the nice thing about the Prius. As the weather gets warmer and the gas prices start to rise, it gets better mileage! The only problem is that when it gets really hot, you have to use the air conditioner and the mileage suffers.

We finally upgraded our satellite service. We now receive HD programming. It didn't make a big impression on Kristen, but I'm enjoying the prettier picture and being able to see the WHOLE image now rather than having it cropped on each side. Could we live without it? Sure. But man, it does look nice!

We're heading down to Lodi this evening. I'll take a half-day off from work so we can get an early start on our drive. My dad and I, along with my sister and her boyfriend, are doing a 38-mile ride tomorrow to benefit the Lodi Rotary Club. I'm not an ardent supporter of the Lodi Rotary or anything. It's mostly an excuse to do a nice long bike ride with my dad. I haven't ridden any distances over 20 miles in quite some time, and I'm still feeling the effects of a chest cold, and it's supposed to be near 100 degrees in Lodi, so if I don't die along the way I'll be lucky. I'm kidding!!! I'll make it, but I'll be wiped out when I'm done. For those who don't know, Lodi is in the San Joaquin valley (between Sacramento and Stockton) and it's mostly flat.

I'll blog a recap on Monday.

Salary Adjustment

2008-05-14T10:21:00.000-07:00

I just learned today that I received a salary adjustment...in a positive direction. Basically our company is making an effort to bring everyone's salaries in line with others in comparable industries. Apparently, we were below the average so many of us were bumped up a bit. Nice! I also now have a new title: Technical Production Artist II. That begs the question, "What the heck is a Technical Production Artist?"

In order to best describe the role that I play, it's best to use analogies. I usually use the analogy that I am a translator between the artists and the engineers. I have to be able to 'speak' both languages. I work closely with both groups, and I work with many of the tools that both groups use. That describes my role. In order to understand what I actually DO, it's best to use a cooking analogy. Basically, I'm a sous chef. I take the raw ingredients from the artists (Photoshop files, After Effects compositions, 3D content, etc...) and I do all of the prep work (cutting up the files, organizing them into their components, making sure everything is in the right place) so that the 'chefs' (engineers) can put it all together quickly and efficiently into the finished product. I also have to help to make sure the engineers are following the 'recipe' properly so that the finished product turns out the way it should.

Make sense? Basically I have to have a good mix of technical, artistic and interpersonal communication skills. Strong organizational skills help too.

G.U.E.S.S. Homeschool Science Fair Sponsors: Please Steal This Post

2008-05-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

The G.U.E.S.S. Homeschool Science Fair took place on May 5th in Norfolk VA, where smart young scientists shared their research and conclusions with their peers, their families, and the judges. Fun was had, friends were made, hypotheses were proven, and prizes were awarded! Thank you to all the sponsors of the G.U.E.S.S. Homeschool Science Fair!

If you would like to help thank these generous sponsors by boosting their links on key search words, please steal this post, links and all, and republish it to your blog. When you’ve done this, email guess@littleblueschool.com and let us know, so that we can add you to our “Science Fair Bloggers” and give you some links and traffic too! You’ll get a link on Little Blue School, Homeschooled Twins, and on the homeschool science fair web site. Need the code? Click here to get the .txt file with all the links in place.

Moore Expressions is a homeschool bookstore in Virginia Beach, VA. They sell used and new homeschooling curriculum, host a support group, and publish a newsletter called the Bayith Educator. They are the premier source for homeschooling books in the Hampton Roads area.

Art of Dance Academy is a dance and theater school on the border of Norfolk and Virginia Beach. They offer “Tiny Tots” toddler dance classes, youth classes for ballet, tap, jazz, and hip-hop, and adult classes too. Most importantly, the host the famous summer princess dance camp.

Norfolk Karate Academy offers classes in Tang Soo Do (Korean karate) and Gracie Jiu Jitsu (Brazilian grappling and self-defense). With classes for children, teens, and adults, it’s a great way for anyone to get in shape and kick things in a socially acceptable way!

Nauticus is Norfolk’s maritime museum and home of the USS Wisconsin battleship. The hot new exhibit is Seabots: Pilots of the Deep! Have you seen it? Nauticus is in the process of setting up a Homeschool Advisory Group to talk about homeschool science programs at the museum.

Mariner’s Museum has amazing programs for homeschoolers learning about maritime science, history, and even pirates! Their next homeschool open house is on May 15th and features a class in pirate lore. Visit Mariner’s Museum for historical exhibits and educational programming.

Homeschoolingbooks.com offers homeschool curriculum packages to take the guesswork out of selecting materials that compliment each other to create a whole year of learning for your homeschooler. Three collections are available for each level, and individual books are for sale too.

Brooks Systems offers standalone software and web applications that check legal compliance in all municipalities in all fifty states, and create truth-in-lending documents for residential lenders. Using Brooks for your automated mortgage compliance, you can be sure your loans are safe.

Dr. Bernard Nebel has written two books to help homeschool teachers integrate learning in different areas of the curricula into one living breathing learning experience. His new book, Building the Foundations for Scientific Understanding, is a science curriculum for K-2.

Young Chef’s Academy is a marvelous kitchen classroom with amazing cooking classes for kids. Go ahead - cover yourself in flour! Most amazing of all: their summer camp offerings are themed around the Olympic Games. Cook for the Gold with Camp Can-I-Cook in Norfolk this summer.

Mad Science is Hampton Roads’ premier provider of science enrichment classes for children. Summer classes include “Crazy Chemistry” and a space camp developed with NASA! New homeschool science classes are being offered in Norfolk and VA Beach, with more planned for fall.

eScienceLabs creates boxes of joy for science loving homeschoolers. In each kit is a complete science experience — from individual lessons to full years of high school labs. Hands-on science kits are the answer to your laboratory woes. Everything is in there: test tubes, goggles, and fun.

Folkmanis Puppets makes the most delightful animal puppets available outside Santa’s workshop. Meet their most unusual creations like llamas, Chinese dragons, ostriches, flying squirrels. Unusual materials create realistic textures, and they all move in very realistic ways. Irresistible.

Book Exchange is the largest used bookstore in Eastern Virginia. Unlike most musty and confusing used stores, this one is clean, bright, inviting, and has a huge selection of used homeschool books.

Thank you for your help in promoting these homeschool-friendly sites. They took a risk on sponsoring us in the first year of our science fair, and we appreciate their support.

Random Bits

2008-05-07T08:09:00.001-07:00

This blasted cold is making it hard to form coherent thoughts, so all I can do is spit out some random bits of information.

The weather has gotten warmer around here; right around 75 to 80 degrees. We actually had a thunderstorm last night, complete with large hail that woke us all up as it pinged off our roof and the side of our house. Delightful.

Our Monday softball team is 4-0 and our Wednesday (over 35) team is 1-2.

Irene received her progress report. It was all O's with an 'exceeds standards' thrown in for good measure. Can't say enough how proud I am of my little girl. We went out to Pinocchio's to celebrate (and to use the gift certificate Kristen received from the Girl Scouts in appreciation of her work as troop leader) and Irene and Rhys devoured a huge slice of mud pie for desert.

I was suffering last night. This cold was showing no mercy as my sinuses were throbbing which was causing two of my teeth to hurt. We were out of Nyquil and I didn't feel like running to the store to get any. I took some Advil and just laid down and closed my eyes. I managed to sleep, but it was a restless sleep and I feel groggy today.

I'm hoping to do a 38-mile charity bike ride down in Lodi on May 17th. I haven't really ridden much this year so it should be interesting. Luckily it's mostly flat around Lodi.

Friday is cash sharing day here at IGT. They do this twice a year, once in the Spring and once in the Fall. For the Spring event they close off one section of the parking lot, have a huge BBQ and give away prizes, and then we generally get to go home early with our checks in hand. I love this place...

One of the mousetraps in our garage caught another ROUS (Rodent of Usual Size - c'mon, haven't you seen The Princess Bride?) last night. We're catching less mice these days that we were a few months ago, but we still manage to trap one every now and then.

May The Fourth Be With You

2008-05-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist...

I'm still recovering from yesterday's softball tournament as well as a cold bug which has decided to invade my body. It has already taken up residence in the other members of our household, so why should I be any different?

But back to the softball tournament. We played five games yesterday, and unfortunately lost the last one and were eliminated. It was a double elimination tournament and since we had lost earlier in the day to the Sierra Pacific Power Company team we were in a 'win or go home' mode for the rest of the day. We were doing well until we came up against the Reno National Guard team (the High Rollers). We actually jumped out to big lead, but they chipped away and tied the game in the last inning. In the first extra inning, we scored two in the top half and then they scored two in the bottom half to tie. We scored two more in our next at-bat, and then they scored three in their turn to win the game. Arrrghh! If we had won we would've played today and would've finished no worse than third. Instead, we finished fourth. Ah well.

Today I mostly just recovered from a full day of physical activity in the sun. My body aches, but not as bad as I thought it would. Maybe I don't feel the pain because I'm dealing with the effects of this cold. Either way, I didn't want to do much else other than sleep and relax. I got to bed last night at midnight and slept until 10 this morning - a new record for sleeping in since we've had kids!! Despite my desire to lay around like a slug all day, I did manage to go to Costco to get gas and groceries, and then stopped at the car wash on the way home. Since I got my car washed and it was parked outside, Mother Nature decided to bless us with a thunderstorm. Fun times...

The Crystal Skull

2008-05-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll admit it. I'm a big dork. That's not much of a surprise to those who know me. To prove it, I pre-purchased tickets to an opening weekend showing of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which opens on May 22nd. We'll be there at 4:30 on the 23rd, waiting in line with hordes of other people. I don't have super-high expectations that the movie will be off-the-charts fantastic, but it should be fun. Even better will be the fact that our kids, who are big Indy fans, will be there too. They will be like me when I was 11 and went to see Star Wars for the first time.

For those keeping score at home, I've lost 2 pounds over the past couple of days. I'm now at 191.8 on our scale at home. I must've lost a lot of water weight or something. For those out there who are cursing me because I seemed to drop a couple of pounds so easily, let me just say that I'm trying to watch what I eat (and eating less altogether with few snacks) I'm keeping myself active with softball and bike riding. I'm cursed with a fairly slow metabolism so it takes some work for me to burn calories. It ain't exactly easy. Oh, and playing Mario Kart on the Wii helps burn some calories too (at least that's what I keep telling myself!)

The Reno Corporate Challenge softball tournament is this weekend. We may play 5 or 6 games tomorrow and then another one or two on Sunday (if all goes well). It'll be tiring, and my body is already hurting. I'll be popping lots of ibuprofen for sure. Wish us luck as we go for the gold medal.

This should be a good month financially. IGT gives out the first of two profit sharing checks next Friday, we have the Federal stimulus check coming soon, there's an extra payday, and there could be good news coming with regards to my salary. I don't want to jinx that last bit by divulging more details so maybe I'll share more when/if it actually happens.

Have a good weekend.

Bring Me A Bucket!

2008-04-30T08:59:00.001-07:00

I'm feeling a little like Mr. Creosote from "Monty Python's Meaning of Life". You don't remember him? He's the super-fat guy in the fancy restaurant who eats a ton of food and keeps throwing up into a bucket, and when the waiter (John Cleese) offers him a mint ("It's wafer thin!") he finally explodes. A gross scene, but quite memorable.

Anyhow, I finally stepped on the scale after avoiding it for most of the winter and found that I've re-gained all of the weight I lost last summer. I'm not all that worried about it. I know I'll lose most if not all of it as my activity level increases this summer. And it's not really a surprise because I could definitely tell I had put weight on. But it's still a bit of a downer.

For the record, the scale said I was 193.8. Last summer I was down to 179 or so at one point. So, my goal is to lose about 14 pounds over the coming months. Now that the weather is getting nicer I've already begun to ride my bike and I'm playing softball two nights each week. I'm also planning on doing one or two hikes to the top of Mt. Rose over the summer. The weight WILL come off, I would just rather it was sooner rather than later so I can enjoy the leaner me for most of the summer.

I'll try to post updates her periodically. Weight has never been a huge issue for me or anything, but as I get older my goal is to keep my weight right around 180-190. I figure there might be one or two people who'll read my posts, but that's enough to keep me honest.

Reno Weather is No Fun

2008-04-23T08:14:00.001-07:00

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the Reno/Sparks area. We have lovely scenery, warm summers, just enough snow in the winter to make everything white and pretty, tolerable traffic, lots of entertainment, and no snails (really...none at all. It's too dry.) But there's one thing that really chaps my hide - the wind! It can blow here like nobody's business. I brought my bike to work today with the hope that I might go for a ride with a co-worker at lunch, but the wind is picking up and I'm thinking we may have to postpone. You know it's not good when you see the blowing leaves on the graphical five-day weather forecast.

I could also do without the drastic swings in the weather in the Fall and Spring. I'm used to big weather changes from living in the Bay Area. Down there, you always carried clothes for warm and cool weather wherever you went. Because of the marine influence and the fog, you could literally leave the house in shorts and a t-shirt, and then have to throw in the next town because it would be shrouded in fog.

But here in Reno and Sparks, it's much more extreme. A week and a half ago I was in shorts and a t-shirt as I worked in the yard, turned on our sprinklers, and contemplated slathering the kids in sunscreen as they played outside. A few days later, we woke up to snow. I've been bundling up in sweats and layers of long-sleeved shirts for my softball games. At least it's not as bad as last year when it snowed and I was wearing long underwear for our first game of the season.

As I drove to work the other day, there were ice sculptures all over the place since it had gotten well below freezing overnight and folks all had their sprinklers timed to go on early in the morning. I actually lost traction briefly on a small patch of ice in the road.

So, despite the chilly and windy weather, I'm wearing shorts today and listening to Bob Marley as I do my work. Reggae music always reminds me of summer. At least for today I can create the illusion that it's actually warm. And, if you look at the forecast above, you can see that my wishes MAY come true in the next few days (but I'm not holding my breath.)

Softball is Underway

2008-04-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

It's springtime so that must mean it's time for softball. I'm on two teams again this year. We play on Monday nights and Wednesday nights. Most of our games are on the new fields at the gigantic sports complex about a mile from our house. The new facility is gorgeous and it's really wonderful to play out there. All of the fields have synthetic turf that's easy on the knees and doesn't scrape off layers of skin when you slide on it. The dugouts are huge and are protected from the wind and sun. The best part is that our teams are a combined 3-0 on the new fields.

My body is feeling all of the aches and pains associated with the early part of the softball season. Ironically, my throwing arm feels fine. It's my back that's been bugging me. It hasn't helped that it's been fairly chilly for each of our games. Maybe once it warms up a bit the pain will go away.

Happy Earth Day!

Movie Quotes

2008-03-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll borrow this one from Kristen because I like movies and movie quotes.

I'll pick 15 of my favorite movies and then provide a quote for each one. Your job is to guess the movie the quote came from without looking it up on the internet (or anywhere else for that matter.) Here goes.

1) "Dear Mother, They learn, learn quickly, faster than white troops it seems to me. They are almost grave and sedate under instruction and they restrain themselves. But the moment they are dismissed from drill every tongue is relaxed and every ivory tooth is visible and you would not know from the sound of it that this is an army camp. They must have learned this from long hours of meaningless, inhuman work too set them free so quickly. It gives them great energy. And there is no doubt we will leave this state as fine a regiment as any that as marched. As ever, your son, Robert. "

"Glory"

One of my favorites...but Kristen has a hard time watching it because it makes her angry. We saw the memorial to Robert Gould Shaw across from the capitol building in Boston when we were there for our honeymoon.

2) Ellen: "Martin hates boats. Martin hates water. Martin... Martin sits in his car when we go on the ferry to the mainland. I guess it's a childhood thing. It's a... there's a clinical name for it isn't there?"
Martin: "Drowning."

"Jaws"

3) "Sorry I'm late. I was taking a crap. "

"The Sting"

Paul Newman's character, Henry Gondorf, makes a classic entrance and says this as he sits down at the poker table on the train.

4) "I could see why some of the boys took him for snobby. He had a quiet way about him, a walk and a talk that just wasn't normal around here. He strolled, like a man in a park without a care or a worry in the world, like he had on an invisible coat that would shield him from this place. Yeah, I think it would be fair to say... I liked Andy from the start. "

"The Shawshank Redemption"

5) "I can't believe what a bunch of nerds we are. We're looking up 'money laundering' in a dictionary."

"Office Space"

6) "By the time I was ten, playing baseball got to be like eating vegetables or taking out the garbage. So when I was 14, I started to refuse. Could you believe that? An American boy refusing to play catch with his father. "

"Field Of Dreams"

Hard to have a dry eye at the end of this one.

7) "It places the lotion in the basket."

"The Silence of the Lambs"

An easy one.

8) "I'm afraid I'm gonna have to pull rank on you. I didn't want to have to do this. I'm with the Mattress Police. There are no tags on these mattresses."

"Fletch"

Whatever happened to Chevy Chase after this one?

9) "The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It's a good non-specific symptom; I'm a big believer in it. A lot of people will tell you that a good phony fever is a dead lock, but, uh... you get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor's office. That's worse than school. You fake a stomach cramp, and when you're bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It's a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school. "

"Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

10) "In the immortal words of Socrates, 'I drank what?'"

"Real Genius"

Probably my all time favorite movie. I could've used any one of about a thousand memorable lines.

11) Scientist 1: "Einstein WAS right!" Team Leader: "Einstein was PROBABLY one of them!"

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind"

12) "He needs to go home, he's calling his people, and I don't know where they are, and he needs to go home."

"E.T."

A friend of mine said that this movie has the best ending of any film. It's hard to disagree.

13) "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

"Blade Runner"

Wow, what a great film this is.

14) "Asps. Very dangerous. You go first."

"Raiders of the Lost Ark"

Another easy one.

15) "Excrement! That's what I think of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard! We're not laying pipe! We're talking about poetry. How can you describe poetry like American Bandstand? "I like Byron, I give him a 42 but I can't dance to it!"

"Dead Poets' Society"

Another great film. Robin Williams was both funny and serious at the same time. I think he could've easily won an Oscar for this role.

Out From Under A Rock

2008-01-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

It may sound lick a cliché, especially here, but life has gotten in the way of late and has kept me from posting to my blog. But now I have a brief window that will allow me to do some catching.

The biggest bit of life that has complicated things of late is the passing of my mom. She lost her battle with ovarian cancer on January 10th. She died peacefully at home in her sleep. I'm grateful that I was able to be there to help out where I could in her last days and to spend some time with my dad and my family in the days that followed.

My mom had discontinued chemo just before Christmas. It was ravaging her body and was doing little to halt the cancer's growth, which at this point had spread to her lungs and brain. Our whole family was able to be together in Lodi on Christmas Day, including my oldest sister who flew out from Texas and took up residence at my parents' house to help with my mom's care.

Not long after Christmas, my mom pretty much stopped eating. I was able to take a week off from work, so Kristen, the kids and I went down to Lodi. I slept on an inflatable bed in the living room while Kristen and the kids stayed at Kristen's cousin's house in nearby Tracy. I did what I could to help; I sat with my mom, got her water from time to time, and just basically did whatever I could. Mostly I was there to help my dad through the last days. I also did lots of visiting and talking with my oldest sister.

In my dad's delegatory fashion, my sister's and I have all been given tasks to undertake in preparation for my mom's service on February 9th. My job is to make a video slide show using photos of my mom from various points in her life. Kristen had been doing a great job of scanning the photos and I've been doing lots of Photoshop cleanup to get them ready. It's a tough thing to have to do, and I have moments where I have to stop for a few moments and collect myself. I think the video will make a nice addition to the celebration of my mom's life.

To add to the fun, the past couple of months have been extremely busy at work. Lots of sudden fire drills. Not ACTUAL fire drills mind you, but unexpected work that popped up out of blue and had to be done quickly. Some of my other projects have also flared up as well. It's actually been a good thing since it's made it easier to take my mind off of other things.

Not to be left out, the weather has also played a part. We had some pretty decent amounts of snow a few weeks ago and it's never really melted. There's been snow in the forecast almost every day since then and we get occasional flurries from time to time. I've had some interesting drives to work with lots of slipping and sliding. Fortunately, my Prius performs nicely in the snow so it's not too bad.

There's been a lot more going on but none of it is worth going into great detail about. We went down to Redlands for Tamale Day, Christmas was delightful, we celebrated a friends' 40th birthday down in Vallejo, we've driven back and forth from the Bay Area about a jillion times in the past two months, we had a great visit from two sets of friends from out of town, I've started doing some freelance graphics work for a friend and his partner who work in S.F., my dad is coming up this weekend for the Super Bowl, I went to the dentist and got a filling, Irene graduated to the next level of gymnastics (blue belt), I grew a beard and then shaved it off, and a whole lot more!

Next month I'm going down to San Francisco with a group from work to attend the Game Developers Conference. We'll be staying at the swanky Grand Hyatt on Union Square. I haven't been to San Franscico in a couple of years. It'll be nice to see The City again.

As always, you can check out my mobile blog where I post mostly pictures.
You can also check out Kristen's blog.
And if video is your thing, you can always go to YouTube to see us in action.
Oh, and don't forget about MySpace...

That's all for now. Only one more day until 'Lost' returns. Hooray!

While I Have a Moment..

2007-12-05T10:26:00.001-08:00

Yes, I've completed the move to my new cubicle. It's nice, except now I have a bright flourescent light directly above me. I'm thinking of bringing in a slingshot so I can knock it out! I've been mega-busy ever since I've settled into my new digs, hence the complete lack of blog posts in the past few weeks. I have a second to take a breath so I'll fill y'all in on a few things.

It's gotten wintery here in Northern Nevada. We've already had one small snow event and the forecast calls for another one later this week. It's actually pretty warm out right now, but we've had a few nights with lows right around 20.

The Christmas lights are up at our house and we're hoping to get a tree this weekend.

My mom's health is slowly declining. She's battling cancer and it looks like the cancer is winning. The chemo is not really helping and it's wiping her out. I think she's going to stop the chemo soon. We'll be spending Christmas down in Lodi with her and my dad as well as two of my sisters and their families.

Everything else is fairly quiet in our neck of the woods. I'm slowly working on doing some excavating in our back yard so we can put in a patio. I usually dig after it rains while the ground is softer.

I'll write more soon...I promise!

Moving

2007-11-12T10:39:00.000-08:00

My cubicle, along with those of the other in my group, is moving starting this week. There's a complete reorganization happening with our group and an adjacent group. I'll be moving a grand total of about 75 feet. So, I've been spending the past few days packing up my stuff, and starting tomorrow my computer will be down for about two weeks while they shuffle us around. I'll be doing other stuff in the meantime, including going to Vegas for the big gaming show and taking two days off for Thanksgiving.

While I'm away, you can check out my moblog for pictures from Vegas and other stuff that I encounter while I'm away.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Yearly Review

2007-10-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

I've just gone through the process of completing my annual review here at work. Let me tell you, that was just about the hardest thing I've had to do since i've been here.

In this day and age, you don't just jot down a list of your accomplishments, sit down with your boss, discuss a few things and then get your annual raise (or not). Before you can even have your face-to-face meeting there's a lengthy form that has to be completed. This form has several sections outlining; your goals from LASY year, whether you met those goals and why (or why not), your goals for the coming year (complete with specific steps for completion, dates, etc...), your development goals and your strengths and how you plan on expanding on them. For each of those categories you are requested to supply numerous items. We even had to have some training on how to fill this form out properly!! Many in our group (including yours truly) got our butts chewed out for not filling out the form properly. Mine wasn't as bad as others, but I still had to 'flesh it out' a bit more.

Whew!!!!

The bottom line is that I'm done. My actual face-to-face review is yet to come. I know I've done well over the past year, and I understand the value of filling out comprehensive reviews for both the employer AND the employee, but COME ON!!! It was a huge hassle. Compared to the actual work that I do each day, filling out my review was much more difficult.

The one constant that I'm noticing across all the companies I've worked for is that the hardest tasks to undertake are timecards and reviews. Why does it have to be so difficult??

I'll start working on NEXT year's review right now!!!

Stop and Smell the Roses

2007-10-04T08:32:00.000-07:00

It just struck me as I was sitting her reading blogs and e-mails that people seem to take tremendous pride in how busy they are. Has anybody else noticed that? It's like,

"I woke up at 4am, went to the gym, balanced my checkbook, went to the store, had breakfast, went to work, cured cancer, worked out, came home, went to a meeting, went to an evening class, came BACK home, had dinner, worked out again, did some work, and went to bed."

It's like that old Monty Python skit with all of the wealthy, upper crusters sitting around with their wine and cigars trying to one-up each other with stories about how hard they had it when they were kids.

It's no secret that in today's world it's easy to fill up our days with errands and tasks. I've tried very hard to avoid this. I take great pleasure in having days where I don't have anything to do. Sure, I could find plenty of projects to do in the yard or around the house, but I would much rather ride my bike or go out geocaching with my kids or just take the day as it comes. No schedule. No agenda.

From time to time I do have to take care of those things I've been neglecting (mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, fixing broken things, etc...) but I try not to be a slave to those types of tasks.

I think that some people genuinely enjoy being outrageously busy, but that's not me. I believe my worth as a person is not based on how much I accomplish, but on what I accomplish.

Another Year Older

2007-10-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

My 41st birthday was this past Sunday. At this point in my life, birthdays don't mean a whole lot to me. I mean, I aknowledge them and everything. I just don't expect tons of gifts and a big party and all that. Usually I just like to do something for myself to celebrate the occasion.

The past couple of years I've celebrated by going on a hike. By coincidence, a local brewpub sponsors a hike to the summit of Mt. Rose each year at about the same time as my birthday. They haul a keg or two of beer to the summit from which hikers can drink (to the tune of $5 a cup) when they arrive. The hike is no easy feat. It's about a 10-mile round trip hike with about 2,000' of climbing. What makes it even more challenging is that the summit is at 10,700'!! Last year I made it to the summit. It was cold and windy and I was gasping for breath, but it wasn't all that bad. The year before, the wind was so bad at the summit that they had one keg up at the top and one at a spot a little further down the mountain. I didn't make it to the top that year. The same thing happened this year.

On Sunday we got up to the trailhead at around 9:30. It was sunny, windy and a little chilly. There had been some snow on the mountain, so we had to contend with sections of the trail that were slippery and slushy. Not fun. Once we got into the trees and out of the wind the hike was quite pleasant. In short order we made it to the saddle just below the summit. This was the same spot where the lower keg had been two years ago. This year we had no such luck. No keg here. It was still sunny and breezy with a patches of snow on the ground. We stopped for a brief rest and began talking to people coming down from the summit. They were reporting miserable and somewhat dangerous conditions. Based on that information, we decided that we would not try for the summit. So, we turned aorund and headed back down the mountain.

I'll get back to the summit one of these days. Having some snow on the ground made the scenery that much more beautiful. Here are some photos to enjoy:

http://gallery.mac.com/kristenirene#100063&bgcolor=black

And here are my photos from LAST year so you can see what it's like at the summit:

http://web.mac.com/kristenirene/iWeb/De%20Haan%20Photos/Mt.%20Rose%20Hike%202006.html

Softball in the Rain

2007-09-20T16:19:00.000-07:00

The softball season has almost come full circle. Our first game back in April was played in temperatures in the high 30s with snow flurries. Last night, it was in the low 50s with wind and rain. The rain was more of a light sprinkle, but it never really let up. I had on my sweatpants and a sweatshirt with my jersey layered on top. My feet got cold because my cleats were wet from running around in the wet outfield grass. Still...it was pretty fun. I went 4 for 5 and we won the game in a nailbiter; 25-23. We have one more game next week then we're done for the year.

A Change of Seasons

2007-09-19T09:42:00.000-07:00

Quite suddenly, the it has become Fall around here. We're two weeks into the football season, the baseball and softball seasons are coming to an end, the weather forecast is calling for lows around 40 and a possible dusting of snow on the mountains, and I'm wearing long pants to work for the first time in months.

I got bowled over during our softball game last night. I was playing catcher and there was going to be a close play at the plate. The throw wasn't very good and I got out of position while trying to catch the ball. Wham!! I had my back turned to the runner and I must've been standing on top of the plate. It wasn't a full-on hit or anything. I think he just sort of shoved me out of the way or lowered his shoulder slightly. I just know that I was suddenly on the ground and had to quickly grab the ball so the other runners couldn't advance. I wasn't hurt, short of a few sore spots on my hip and arm this morning, and the runner was nice enough to ask if I was OK. As one of the guys on my time said, I "had my spine realigned." That's what I get for standing on top of the plate with my back turned. Oh yeah, we lost the game in a big way.

IGT Picnic

2007-09-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday was the annual IGT summer picnic. This event is held at Wild Island, the big local water park. Huge water slides, a wave pool, miniature golf, race cars, etc... IGT buys out the whole park for the day for all of the employees and their families. There's a free BBQ, unlimited ice cream, a pie eating contest, a hula hoop contest, and a raffle; just a few of the events throughout the day.

We got there about a half hour before the doors opened and got in line. The kids waited patiently, but they were very anxious and wiggly. Once we got inside, we made a bee-line for the kiddie pool and grabbed a few chaise lounges. Despite the frigid temperature, the kids quickly dashed into the water and started having fun.

After a little while, Irene and I ventured onto one of the big water slides. It had a really gradual drop with a few twists and turns; nothing too hair raising. Then, she wanted to ride the Dragon's Eye. The Dragon's Eye has one big drop and then it shoots you out into a huge funnel that resembles a toilet bowl. You zip around it a couple of times before you get flushed down the hole in the center. Very fun.

Rhys and I ventured onto the racetrack to drive the sprint cars. They have a few cars which have room for a passenger, so we grabbed one of those and Rhys sat next to me while I drove. I think he had a permanent smile on his face as we zoomed around the course. The cars actually moved along pretty fast and you could take the turns at full speed. Sometimes you'd actually get a little squirrely going around the sharper turns. It was a blast and I think Rhys loved every second.

We spent most of the rest of the day playing around near the kiddie pool. At one point we ventured over to the other kiddie pool which has a giant tip bucket on top of the play structure that periodically dumps huge volumes of water down onto the unsuspecting kiddos. It's a little scary, but after Rhys got dumped on he came up laughing.

Kristen and I took turns riding a couple of the new slides at the park; Fire and Ice. These are the kind that you body slide on; no innertubes. I rode on Fire first, and it was really fun and fast. It's totally enclosed the whole way down and has lots of sharp turns. After my turn, Kristen rode on Ice. It's the same as Fire except that it's not covered the entire way. She enjoyed it, except for the closed part which made her claustrophobia kick in.

Irene entered the hula hoop contest and was out after about five seconds. We ate lots of hamburgers, hot dogs, ribs and ice cream. We pretty much gave the kids carte blanche to eat whatever they wanted, and they took full advantage by eating lots of ice cream.

We let the kids play and play until the place closed down around 6:00. We played a few holes of miniature golf to round out the day and then we headed home. After washing the layer of chlorine off of our bodies, the kids collapsed in bed and the parents weren't too far behind.

You can see photos from the picnic here:
http://gallery.mac.com/kristenirene

I also have a few YouTube movies:

Camping

2007-08-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

All is well here in Sparks. I haven’t sent out an update in a while because I’ve been a bit busy. But, this week will be a little more mellow so I’ve got some time to recap the past couple of weeks!

Last weekend we loaded up the Prius and headed to Santa Cruz to do a quick camping trip with our friends, the Myers. We were able to fit everything in our little car (using virtually every nook and cranny) mostly because we didn’t need a tent or mattresses. The campsite (Big Basin) has tent cabins with ‘beds’. Very cool. Anyhow, it took us about 6 hours to get there on Friday, then we set up and started camping! The Myers had gotten there ahead of us and procured two adjacent campsites. There were lots of bugs so we set up a little ‘easy-up’ sort of thing with mosquito netting and put it over the picnic table. We didn’t have a fire because A) we didn’t have enough room to bring our own wood, and B) you can’t gather wood in the forest and the camp host charges an arm and a leg for a few sticks of firewood. Oh well.

The kids had lots of fun exploring, running around, getting dirty, pretending, etc… The adults had lots of fun visiting while trying to keep an eye on the children. Not an easy feat!! On Saturday, we got up early and drove to Monterey to check out the Aquarium. We got to watch them feed the large fish (all in a huge tank; tuna, 1,000lb sunfish, a sea turtle, hammerhead sharks, etc…) as well as the sea otters. Irene got to touch a bat ray. Rhys arms were too short to reach those guys, but he did get to handle some star fish, hermit crabs, and a decorator crab. It was a GORGEOUS day in Monterey and I would’ve been happy just sitting outside watching the kayakers in the kelp beds.

After the Aquarium we went to a snazzy park just a few blocks from Fisherman’s Wharf. It was designed by Hank Ketchum, the guy who created Dennis the Menace. The kids ran all over the place and had a great time while the adults relaxed. Rhys insisted that I take him to a huge steam locomotive that they have there for kids to play on. He climbed ALL OVER the thing, even onto some really high places that had my toes tingling. I guess I’d better get used to it…

Our final stop in Monterey was Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner. We found a nice place (with award winning clam chowder!) and quickly got a table overlooking to marina. The food was nice and the kids mostly well-behaved. Afterwards, Rhys spotted one of those boats that you sit in and, after inserting a quarter, it bounces around for a minute or so. We didn’t have a quarter so Kristen just grabbed the boat and manually moved it around while Rhys sat in it. As I was reaching down to get Rhys out, bending down over his head, he suddenly jumped up and his noggin slammed into my nose. I heard a ‘crunching’ kind of sound, as did Kristen, but after a few moments of waiting for the blood to flow and the pain and dizziness to subside, it felt like everything was OK and nothing was broken. Whew!!

We drove back to the campsite and crashed in our beds. The next morning was getaway day so the plan was to eat breakfast, go on a short hike, pack and then head to the Myers’ house in Novato for an overnight stay. There was only one problem with that; Kristen was feeling ill. REALLY ill. So, while she slept, I fixed breakfast and started breaking down camp. We decided that it would be best to postpone the hike and just head home given how lousy Kristen was feeling. After a brief stop at the camp headquarters to grab a geocache, we headed home. We arrived in Reno around 7:30pm, I unpacked, Kristen (feeling a bit better) threw the kids in the bathtub, and we all collapsed into our respective beds.

Some photos from the trip are here:
http://shotsfromsparks.blogspot.com/ (you’ll have to scroll down a little bit)
http://gallery.mac.com/kristenirene

All this past week at work I was attending Lightwave training. Lightwave is the 3D modeling and animation tool that we use at IGT on a daily basis. Most of the training was primarily aimed at 3D artists and animators, and therefore was way over my head. However, I did get some useful nuggets of information here and there. Mostly, it inspired me to download a program at home called Blender. It’s a free 3D modeling and animation program that’s surprisingly powerful. I spent quite a bit of time over the weekend learning how to use it. Some of the results of my work are posted at the second link above.

Speaking of this weekend…we spent most of this weekend just relaxing at home. Like I said before, I spent quite a lot of time noodling around with the 3D program. I’m also battling a bad cold or flu bug so I didn’t feel like being TOO active. I took a short bike ride with Irene, and that just about wiped me out. The upside is that I got a lot of nagging little projects completed (including some ‘honey-dos’ around the house) so I feel pretty good about that. Sometime last week (must’ve been while we were all away or we would’ve heard it) the fan in the kids’ bathroom suddenly dropped out of the ceiling. The cover fell onto the floor. The actual fan was left hanging from the ceiling by the electrical wires. It’s a good thing because if it had fallen on the floor it would’ve either dented the floor or broken the fan. I can only imagine what would’ve happened if one of the kids had been in there. I put it back together in such a way that it won’t fall out again.

The next couple of weekends will be busy again. We have a friend and her son coming to stay with us this weekend. Next weekend is the rib cook-off and we have lots of friends coming into town for that. The Myers will stay at our house for the annual exhibition of gluttony and good times.

The weather is gradually cooling off up here. The days are still warm, but the evenings are cooling off. Oh yeah, we watched a fun movie last night called “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”. Don’t watch it if you are turned off by foul language or mild violence, but DO watch it if you enjoy Val Kilmer, Robert Downey Jr., and tongue-in-cheek dialogue and storytelling. Very entertaining with some fantastic one-liners.

That’s all for now! Ciao.

I'm Still Here

2007-08-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

The motivation for new blog posts hasn't struck me lately because there really hasn't been all that much happening that's blog-worthy. So, you'll be blessed (or cursed) with lots of random, non-related, possibly non-important bits of information.

Irene has started second grade and is loving it. Kristen and I have learned that there are lots of kids in Irene's class who are a little behind the curve. Because of that, the teacher is moving very slowly, and in a lot of ways it's a step back from where Irene's class was last year. As parents of a child who is so ready and eager to learn it's a bit frustrating. Irene read part of a book to me the other night and I was blown away at some of the words she was reading...and with little difficulty!!

Irene and Rhys (especially Rhys) have really gotten into playing "Star Wars: Battlefront II" on the the Xbox. We've had the game for some time, and I've played it quite a bit, but only now has it become a big hit. As soon as my foot crosses the threshold of the back door Rhys is right next to me asking, "Daddy, can you play the Star Wars game with me?" It's a first-person shoot 'em up type of game (not so great for the kids, I know), but it's Star Wars baby!! How bad could it be??? I'm a product of the Star Wars generation and I turned out OK...right?? I guess it depends on who you ask. Anyhow, I couldn't be more thrilled at the prospect of 'having' to play this game with my kids.

I just read a story the other day that this July was one of the hottest on record in Reno. The average high for the month was something like 96 degrees. It's normally around 91. I guess I'm getting used to the heat because it actually feels downright pleasant when it's around 95 degrees. It only really feels hot when it's close to 100.

We had quite the exciting incident the other morning. As I was getting ready for work, I heard several sirens whiz past our house on Vista Blvd. I didn't think much of it until I got in my car and left our development. As I turned onto Vista, I saw a couple of unmarked police cars at a dead stop ON Vista Blvd. just sitting there with their lights on. They were letting cars pass, but I definitely had the impression they were looking for someone. I wasn't all that concerned because A) they didn't seem all that concerned and, B) we live in a gated community and that should make us safer, right? Anyhow, I got to work and received a phone call from Kristen. Seems a couple of police officers came knocking and advised Kristen to keep our front door shut for a while (as is often the case, we had it open to let the cool morning air in) because they were looking for some kid who had done something bad and was hiding in the area. Doh!!! We never did hear what had happened or what the outcome was, but that was a little freaky. We don't live in a high crime area or anything, so this was a little unexpected.

Softball continues to happen two nights a week. It's a little rough on my body to play two nights in a row, especially when the games start at 10pm!! However, it's still a lot of fun to get out and play and stay active.

Work is still going well. My current project requires me to learn all I can about horse racing; something I know almost nothing about. It may involve 'field trips' to the local sportsbooks in the casinos. It's a tough job but somebody has to do it...

We're going camping with some friends next weekend down in the Santa Cruz mountains. It should be lots of fun and I'm looking forward to being among the trees and close to the ocean. We may also spend some time in Monterey where (hopefully) we'll go to the aquarium. That will pretty much be my vacation for the year so I'm looking forward to it.

That's all for now.

Summer Softball

2007-07-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

We had our first game in the summer softball league last night. We won - but just barely. I think the final was something like 15-13. Our team moved down from the 'C' league to the 'D' league so we should fare better this time around. Last summer we won the 'D' division (and I have the snazzy t-shirt to prove it!)

It was a 10:00 game so that was a bit rough. There was lots of smoke in the air from the big fire that's burning southwest of downtown Reno. Breathing was a little difficult which was a drag because I was running around the bases quite a bit. I went 3 for 4, drove in a couple of runs and scored a couple. I even got to test out my new sliding pad when I hit the dirt on a play at the plate. The pad did its job and me knee came out of it un-scraped, but I did land funny and bruised it a bit.

Tonight we have another 10:00 game in the 'Masters A' league (a.k.a the Over 35 league).

Crowded House and Neil Finn

2007-07-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to the new Crowded House album the past few days. Undoubtedly many of you (besides my wife) were unaware that CH was still together. Well, until recently they weren't. They broke up for a while (after a HUGE farewell concert in Sydney), their drummer hung himself, frontman Neil Finn did numerous side and solo albums, and now they've put out what will probably be a one-off reunion album.

The new album is pretty good. Not quite as pop oriented as CH's other stuff. It's more moody, reflecting the death of Neil Finn's good friend Paul Hester. Much of the material was written just after Paul's death in 2005 and was meant to be used for a Neil Finn solo album. One of the better songs, "Silent House", is a collaboration between Neil Finn and the Dixie Chicks.

Neil Finn is probably one of the better singer/songwriters to come along in quite some time. His early stuff was pretty typical pop music, but it never really found a home on American top 40 radio. As time has gone on, he has experimented with different sounds by using different instruments or by collaborating with different musicians that he admires (see "Finn" and "Seven Worlds Collide") Even though his songs are deeply personal, he veils them in enough ambiguity that you really have to dig into them to figure out the meaning. In some cases there is no meaning. In most cases there can be multiple interpretations. One of my (and Kristen's) favorite songs describes the early days of our relationship quite vividly, yet if you really listen to the lyrics it's clear the song is about a loved one who has passed away.

Most folks only know about the "Hey now, hey now" song that's been played to death on the radio, but I urge you to check out some of the other Crowded House and Neil Finn material. Probably my favorite is his solo effort "Try Whistling This". I also enjoy CH's cover of Hunters and Collectors' "Throw Your Arms Around Me."

Much of his songs strike a very personal chord with me, either because of the lyrics or because of the time on my life when I heard them. I first heard one of his songs in 1984 (first year of college, the dorms at UC Davis, Split Enz, "I Got You") and I'm still enjoying his songs today. For those who are mathematically challenged, that's 23 years give or take.

Neil Finn has worked with artists such as; Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, Johnny Marr (from The Smiths), Sheryl Crow, the Dixie Chicks and Bic Runga (big in New Zealand.) He's also written the soundtrack to the movie "Rain" and contrubuted a song to "Antz".

Oh yeah, his brother and his kids are pretty talented too...

Rhys

2007-07-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

I took this photo yesterday with my new iPhone. What a silly kid!

Boneyard Blast

2007-07-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

The 48-hour Boneyard Blast softball tournament came and went this past weekend...and I survived. I've mentioned it before, but for those who are just joining us I'll fill you in: The Boneyard Blast is a softball tournament that runs around the clock for 48-hours. Yes, that does mean that games are played at all hours of the night and morning. It's quite a spectacle, and what follows is a brief recap.

Our first game was at 7:30 on Friday evening. I met my friend Bob at the softball field at around 7:00. Bob came up from the Bay Area to experience the Boneyard Blast and to help fill out our team's roster. We entered the sports complex and beheld the spectacle; loud music, a DJ, booths selling everything from softball gloves and equipment to beer and pork sandwiches, and a giant inflatable Coors Light bottle which, if hit by a home run ball, would reward the batter's team with free t-shirts.

We warmed up and hit the field for our first game. Our team came out flat and our opponents took a quick lead. But, our bats came alive and we ended up winning the game. Whew!

After the game we walked over to the big board where they posted the results and showed the brackets. We noted that our NEXT game would be at 6:30 Saturday morning.

Bob and I headed to the Nugget hotel and casino where he was staying for the weekend. This would be MY home away from home for the weekend since the Nugget is much closer to the softball venue than my house is. Bob checked in, we hauled our gear up to the room, then we drove down to the local Apple store so Bob could buy his new iPhone. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the Atlantis casino so I could show Bob one of the first slot machines that I had worked on. It had only just been released into the field for testing. It was pretty cool to see it in the casino, and from what I'd heard it was doing pretty well in the testing phase.

After Bob lost some money in the slot machine I had worked on, we headed back to the Nugget to check out the iPhone. I've gotta say that this is one nifty gadget. We stayed up way too late playing with it.

The next morning we rolled out of bed at about 5:15am and headed back to the softball fields. Our team came out hot and we crushed our opponents quite soundly. Since we won, our next game wasn't until 2:00 that afternoon.

Bob and I went back to the hotel (after a quick trip to MY house), had some breakfast, and then did some gambling. Actually, Bob did all the gamblng. You see, sometime earlier in the week I had lost my wallet. I didn't realize it was missing until Friday afternoon. I looked in all of the likely places (at home, in the car, at work, at the lost & found at the softball field) without any luck. Bob was kind enough to spot me some money for food, but I was reluctant to borrow money to gamble since I have lousy luck and I didn't want to owe him a ton of cash!

I watched Bob play Pai Gow Poker for a while then went up to the room for a little nap. Before I knew it, it was almost 2:00 so we headed back to the fields one more time. Once again, we played well and dominated our opponents. Our reward for winning was that our next game would be at 1:00 AM on Sunday morning. Ugh!

Once again, we went back to the Nugget and then we grabbed some dinner at a nearby brewpub. In the evening, Bob gambled a bit more while I watched, and then I retired to the room at about 8:00 for a little nap. I was asleep only moments after my head hit the pillow.

The next thing I knew, it was midnight and the alarm was going off. Back to the fields we went. We put up nineteen runs in the first inning and broke the morale of our opponents. It was an easy win and we only played three innings due to the mercy rule. For those keeping score at home, we were 4-0 at this point in the tournament.

We went back to the Nugget, grabbed a quick bite to eat, hung out in the casino for a little while, and then I went to sleep around 3am.

Our next game was at 10:45 on Sunday morning. Our team must've been a bit tired because we were shut out and lost our first game. Now we were in the loser's bracket and our road to the finals would be much tougher.

Our next game was at 2:00 so Bob and I headed to my house for some lunch and a bit of a rest. Bob, doing his best CSI impersonation, found my wallet...in the TRASH CAN IN OUR KITCHEN!!!! I have no idea how it got there...

We went back and played our last game...and lost. The game was really close until the last inning when they scored a bunch of runs (including a grand slam). We hung out for a little bit and then went back to the Nugget to gamble a bit and to have some dinner. Bob hit the road to head back to the Bay Area and I went home to take a shower and collapse.

It was a fun weekend that was made even better by getting to spend time with Bob. He took lots of pictures with his snazzy camera that you can see by going here. I'm #9 in the photos and, in the later pics, I'm wearing a red t-shirt under my jersey.

In other news, it's supposed to get up to 109 degrees up here by Thursday. Ugh. I tested our air conditioner last night and it works fine, so we're ready. Kristen and the kids had a great time on their camping trip in Southern California.

Ciao for now...

Happy Birthday Rhys!

2007-06-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe, but Rhys turns FOUR today! I talked to him on the phone this morning (Kristen, the kids are camping in S. California with family) and he told me, "I'm going to be four forever!" Happy Birthday buddy!

Rhys achieved another milestone on the camping trip; he caught his first fish. I didn't get all of the details, but he either caught a salmon, trout or a great white shark. Like I said, it was hard to tell exactly what happened.

Irene has mastered tieing her shoes. I showed Irene a couple of times, she practiced, and apparently now it's no big thing. Two years ago, at about this same time, she learned how to ride a bike. Must be something about the end of June...

You've probably seen the news reports about the big fire in South Lake Tahoe. Yesterday afternoon the wind was blowing just right and all of the smoke was coming over the mountain right to IGT. It looked really eerie and dark outside the window. Here's a link to a webcam at the top of Heavenly that's pointed at the fire.

In honor of his birthday, here's a short video of Rhys drawing at our kitchen table.

Rob from Sparks

2007-06-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

I watched the first episode of a new HBO show called "John from Cincinnati" this week, thus the title for this post. I can't tell if this show is any good or not. It's written by the same guy who did "Deadwood" which was a great show, so hopefully this show will follow suit.

I'm sure all of my dedicated readers (all two of you judging by the comments) are dying to know what's going on in Rob's Cubicle, so here's a little blurb to satisfy y'all.

This past Saturday we had Irene's half-birthday party (she's seven and a half for those keeping score at home.) We met the guests at a local movie theater and played Twister, ate cake and opened presents in a grassy area nearby. Then we all adjourned to the theater to watch "Shrek the Third". The movie was good (not spectacular) and Irene and her friends all seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. That's all that matters.

On Sunday, Kristen and I did a bit of work in the back yard. I mowed the lawn and did some general cleanup and landscape work. Kristen began tearing up the sod in an area where we hope to eventually put down some brick to create a little patio area. I've been putting this project off for three reasons: 1) I haven't had the time, 2) I'm not looking forward to doing all of the digging, and 3) I've never laid down bricks before and, even though I know it's not that hard, I'm terrified I'm going to screw it up.

Our Monday night softball team won a thriller this week. We were down 10 runs going into the last inning and we came back to win. I went 2 for 4 in the game. I was playing catcher and even managed to tag a guy out on a play at the plate. There was a funny sequence in the game when I reached base, came around to score on a hit, and then after I scored I had to go in to pinch-run for the guy who had just gotten the hit that I scored on!! I was winded as I jogged back to first and then I immediately had to sprint around the bases AGAIN! I scored twice in the span of a few minutes. Very funny.

This is Irene's last week of first grade. It's hard to believe she'll soon be in second grade. We're having some issues with Irene's school that I'm sure Kristen will outline in her blog. Thankfully, Irene is a bright kid with parents who have their heads screwed on straight (or so I'm told) so it'll all turn out OK.

Kristen and Irene head of to Camporee this weekend. Camporee is a big camping trip for all of the local Girl Scouts. They're going down to Washoe Lake which is down towards Carson City. It sounds like it should be lots of fun. Rhys and I will take the opportunity to have lots of father-son time at home (a.k.a. playing lots of video games and watching the Giants play the Red Sox).

Work at IGT is slow at the moment. A lot of the projects I'm on have been pushed out on the timeline so I'm doing lots of busy-work until things ramp up again. Maybe that means I'll be able to post a little more frequently, do more videos, etc...

A Good Week

2007-06-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

It must be the luck of the Irish (does it count if I'm not Irish?) or something, but I've had some good fortune this past week. Maybe it's the prayer flags I recently hung up in my cubicle...

Anyhow, my first bit of good fortune came in the form of a $100 gift card given to me by a co-worker. You see, I volunteered to put together a little PowerPoint presentation for the luncheon next week honoring IGT's recent success in the Reno Corporate Challenge. The guy who's organizing the whole thing (who also happens to coach the softball teams I play on) was kind enough to thank me with the gift card. Nice!! I was happy to do it for nothing, and that's what I was expecting, so it was a nice surprise. Kristen and I are using the card to buy Irene's cake and the movie tickets for her half-birthday party this weekend. We're taking a gaggle of girls to go see "Shrek 3". I'll need a little more luck to make it through that experience!

My other bit of good fortune came when I answered some trivia questions on the local newspaper's web site. I answered all the questions correctly and my name was picked so I was the lucky winner of two movie tickets!! Hey, with the price of movies these days that's a nice prize.

Today I get to go on a casino tour. Basically, a group of us from IGT goes out and does market research in a local casino to see what the competitors are up to. They give us each $40 to play some games and then we have to write up a report. The best part is that we get to keep whatever money we have left after our tour is over. Wish me luck!!

Casino Tour Update: I basically broke even, which means I walked out of the casino with $41 in my pocket. I was down to my last $2 and then got a ridiculous number of bonus spins on a slot machine. I just sat and watched the numbers roll up, and when I was all done I was back to what I walked into the casino with. I cashed out and left. Actually, I took the $41 and met Kristen and the kids at Bully's for dinner. Thanks IGT!!!

Warming Up

2007-05-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

The title of this post says it all...it's starting to warm up here in Northern Nevada. It's topped out in the low 90s the past few days. Lightning strikes are starting fires in the area and the thunder clouds are building up more and more each day. We haven't fired up the air conditioner in the house yet, but Kristen went out and picked up a few ceiling fans that I'm going to install in the kids' bedrooms and the spare bedroom/office.

We're really trying to focus on saving energy these days. In part, we're doing this to save a bit of money. Mostly, we're doing it to be good to the Earth and to ensure that our subscription to the Democratic Party will be renewed. Instead of using the gas dryer, we're drying our clothes on a drying rack when they come out of the wash. We've slowly started replacing our incandescent light bulbs with compact flourescent bulbs. These bulbs (CFLs) have been in the news quite a bit lately. They use about 1/5th as much energy as an incandescent bulb and they last fifteen times as long. For those that don't like the color of the light they put out, they now make soft white CFLs that are indistinguishable from regular incandescent light. At this point, the biggest knock against CFLs is that they have a teeny bit of mercury in them. But, so long as you're careful not to break them and you dispose of them properly (by taking them to a recycling facility) then that's not a problem. Just think of the money you'll be saving and the reduction in the pollution from generating much less electricity. Go out and buy a few and try them out!!!

I'll get off of my soapbox now and move to more mundane subject matters. This past weekend we drove down to my sister's house in Berkeley for a little family gathering. My father is turning 75 next month, and since we have lots of other family members with birthdays in May, June and July we just got everyone together and had a big hoedown. My oldest sister, her husband and her son even flew out from Texas for the occasion. It's always nice to get our whole family together and this was no exception. Kristen posted some pictures on her blog here. There are also some recent photos on our family web site here.

The softball season continues to roll along. We lost a tough game last Wednesday night. We were ahead by eight runs going into the last inning. Naturally, the other team mounted a furious rally and tied the score. In the first extra inning neither team scored. Then, we scored one run in the top of the ninth to go ahead. Unfortunately, they scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth and we lost. It was a very tough loss. However, we did win last night in convincing fashion. In think our record is now 4-2...good enough for third place at this point. Our Monday night team is 3-3. I've been recruited to play tomorrow night on the IGT co-ed team so that should be interesting.

I'm fighting a bit of a cold right now so I'm going to drink some Emergen-C while I get back to work. Enjoy the weekend!

Of Mice, Toads and Bikes

2007-05-18T10:19:00.000-07:00

Today is the official Reno Bike to Work Day. I drove a few miles to a co-worker's house and rode to IGT with him (a little over 11 miles one-way.) There's a stretch of road from our house to his house that's a bit too dangerous to ride on early in the morning so I DID have to use some fossil fuel to get the job done. However, since I drive a Prius the impact was minimal. The ride was mostly flat and easy, and we made it here in less than 40 minutes. The best part was that IGT had a table out front with juice and muffins. Yum! The ride home won't be quite as nice as it promises to be warm (mid 80s) and windy. Oh well. At least it's Friday.

We had quite an exciting evening on Wednesday. Right as we were sitting down to dinner, our cat (Cleo) came strolling in the door from the back yard with a mouse in her mouth!! We tried to shoo her outside so she would take care of her quarry someplace other than on our carpet, but instead she let go of the still-alive mouse and it darted into our family room!! It ran under various pieces of furniture with Kristen and me in hot pursuit, but we weren't able to grab the sucker. Cleo was oblivious and wandered back outside to see what else she could catch. We finally gave up the chase after the mouse climbed up into our sofa bed and wouldn't come out, despite all of our efforts to flush it out. We had dinner, I went to my softball game (we won!) and after I came home and we watched 'Lost' Kristen tried one more time to get the little bugger to show himself. Cleo was watching nearby as Kristen jumped on the couch and made lots of noise. I've never seen a cat move so fast as Cleo did when that little furry fella darted out. She was on him in a flash and before I knew it she had him in her mouth. This time I managed to throw her outside where, after playing with her catch for a while, she finally finished it off and had a late-night snack.

This also leads me to last night's wildlife story. You see, we've set up lots of mouse traps in our back yard in hopes of catching the voles which are eating all of our plants (a vole is like a mouse only slightly bigger.) I read on a web site (so it MUST be true!) that you can catch voles with mouse traps baited with apple slices or a peanut butter/oatmeal mixture. Well, after catching two more mice we managed to trap something a little more...exotic. Who knew that TOADS would go after peanut butter!! Kristen went out to check on the traps and found a golf ball-sized toad, legs splayed out, caught in the trap. Fortuantely, since we use relateivly benign traps, the toad walked away physically unscathed; although I'm not sure about its mental well-being.

No Title

2007-05-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

I couldn't come up with a good title for today's post. Sometimes I just draw a blank.

It's been an eventful week. Last Wednesday I came down with some sort of bug and was out of sorts for a couple of days. I didn't play in our Wednesday night softball game. We lost...but not because I wasn't there. We would've lost either way.

On Friday we had the first of two cash sharing days here at IGT. Twice each year (in May and November) IGT gives out bonuses, the amounts of which are variable dependant upon the company's performance. This bonus was a good one. In honor of giving us all a bunch of money, the company has a big BBQ in the parking lot, gives away prizes (including slot machines!) and then lets everyone go home early. Not bad. By the time we went to the BBQ I was just getting my appetite back so I ate way too much food.

My mom and dad came up for a brief visit over the weekend. On Saturday afternoon, Irene, my dad and I took a short bike ride along the Truckee River. In the evening we had a nice BBQ'd pork loin for dinner. On Sunday, we went to a restaurant at the nearby golf course for a nice Mother's Day brunch. It was just warm enough that we were able to sit outside. Very nice. After a brief driving tour of the nearby Native American community (Hungry Valley) and a trip to Home Depot to scope out stone and materials for the patio I'm hoping to install soon, my folks drove back home.

Last night our Monday night softball team played a great game but still lost to one of the undefeated teams in the league. We kept it close, and with one or two more key hits and plays we would've won it. I went 4 for 5 with a double and a triple. I also took a throw right in the middle of my back as I cruised into third base. Ouch.

Kristen is subbing every day this week so things are a bit hectic at home. She's also heading down to the Bay Area this weekend with her mom and Irene. Rhys and I are busily planning to throw a big party while they're away. Shhhhh!! Don't tell Kristen! Friday is the Reno's second annual Bike to Work Day. I'm going to try to ride part of the way to IGT. It's just too dangerous to ride all the way from our house because the road is too narrow, but if I drive part of the way and park along the Truckee River somewhere I can ride most of the way. I'm trying to hook up with another guy here at work so we can ride together. IGT is actually getting with the program this year with a table out in front that'll have muffins, drinks and a prize drawing for folks who ride their bikes.

Catching up...

2007-05-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

The first part of this week I've been pretty busy with lots of projects at work. Therefore, I haven't had the time to do the ol' blog thing. So here's what's been happenin'.

Irene had her music performance at school last week. All of the first grade classes at her school performed together. Each class had a song where they played the instruments or were featured in some way or another. I did my geeky-dad-with-a-video-camera thing and taped the whole thing. I used my experience from videotaping special events as a 'professional' and set my camera up on a tripod in a prime location. Of course, my tripod is far from 'professional' so the video ended up a little shaky and jumpy, but it looked good nonetheless. Irene (and the other first graders) performed very well. Irene sang loudly and with lots of expression. It was very cute.

Rob mans the tripod.

This past weekend was pretty much devoted to the Reno Corporate Challenge softball tournament. The weather was looking iffy on Friday as we had a dusting of snow and some rain throughout the day. But the skies cleared for the first game at 9am (though it was still cold) and it was on. We beat Wells Fargo quite easily in the first game and then did a number on the City of Reno team in the second game. However, we lost the third game to the Washoe County team (probation officers, police, etc...) so we had to come back early on Sunday morning to play the Reno Air National Guard team. It was a double-elimination tournament so we HAD to win that game to stay in the tournament. We didn't. The only consolation is that we finished with the bronze medal and, since the weather was nice on Sunday, we hung out and watched Washoe County and the National Guard teams batlle it out for the gold. Washoe County won. While we hung out, Rhys, Irene and a couple of other kids who where there played on the adjacent softball field. It was all very cute.

Here are a couple of photos:

Our team. I'm third from the left.

Rob making a catch in left field.

Rhys blocks the baserunners off of second base.

Rob chases after Zach in an attempt to tag him out.

Irene takes a turn at the plate while a crowd gathers to watch.

You can tell by the shorts I'm wearing in the photos that the weather was MUCH better on Sunday. The weather up here has been wacky of late. As I mentioned before, it snowed on Friday, it was cold and windy on Saturday, and I was in shorts on Sunday morning. Today the temps are in the 80s.

Last night was our Monday night league softball game. It was nice and warm for the game at 7:40, and our team was hot as well. We played great defense, had some timely hitting (myself included) and we won, 22-9. Our Monday C league team is now 2-2.

Monday Softball Recap

2007-05-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

Last night our Monday (C league) team finally won its first game. We were 0-2 up until then. The first game we had to forfeit and we were blown out in the second. So, it was very nice to finally get a win. I think the final score was 23-11 or something like that. I had a couple of hits, drove in a run or two and scored a couple of times. It was a nice night to be out playing softball; mild temperatures and a bit of a breeze. Heck, I was playing in shorts and it was 9:00 at night!

Our Wednesday team has a bye this week so I don't have another game until the Reno Corporate Challenge tournament this weekend. Our first game is at 9am on Saturday and, if we keep winning, we'll have a couple more games over the course of the day. Then, if we do REALLY well, we'll play in the championship game on Sunday morning. Our team won the gold medal LAST year so we're looking to defend our title.

It looks like our league team is going to participate in a tournament called the Boneyard Blast. Basically it's a 48 hour, around the clock tournament. They play all night and all day. It should be fun and really tiring all at the same time.

Wednesday Softball Update & More

2007-04-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

The results from our Wednesday night game were much better than the Monday game. We won something like 19-3. It was 2-0 for much of the game, and then we had a big inning and it was all over. Personally, I had a couple of hits and scored a couple of runs, but my body was still feeling the effects of the Monday game and I wasn't moving around too well. My arm also hurt so that didn't help. I have much respect for professional baseball players who can play games virtually every day.

Yesterday (Thursday) was "Take Your Daughters and Sons To Work" day. I brought Irene with me to work and she hung out for most of the day. I showed her some of the games I'm working on, let her play around with Photoshop (which she already can do pretty well) and showed her how to model interesting 3D objects in Lightwave. When I had actual work to do, she sat in my cubicle and did homework, played with my Star Wars Mr. Potato Heads, and listened to music on the iPod. I spoiled her with all kinds of snacks and hot chocolate. I think that's the real reason she enjoys coming to hang out with me at work!

Kristen had to come and pick her up at 10:30 for a dentist appointment. While she was gone, I went on a pretty agressive bike ride with my co-worker, Ian. We did almost 11 miles in some of the rural areas west of IGT and averaged a little over 16mph the whole time. I'm not Lance Armstrong by any means, but that's a pretty good pace for me. I was pretty pooped after the ride but I felt a pretty good sense of accomplishment. I was so tired that I fell asleep that night next to Rhys as I was putting him to bed!

This Sunday I have the 'tryouts' for the IGT Corporate Challenge softball team. I've been assured by the coach (who plays on my league teams as well) that I'll make the team, but I'll play hard nonetheless. I don't think I'd like the feeling of making the team only because I was grandfathered in from last year's team or because I know the coach.

Monday Softball Update

2007-04-23T21:30:00.000-07:00

One word...ugly! I think the final score was 38-16. Ouch. They had a combination of young guys and old guys. The old guys hit the balls through the holes or dinked the ball just over the infielder's heads, and the young guys hit the ball way over the fence. There wasn't much we could do but turn and watch...

I did OK at the plate. I had two doubles, a sacrifice fly, and drove in three or four runs. Small consolation...

At the least the weather was nice.

Good News

2007-04-21T22:13:00.000-07:00

I received a meeting invitation on Friday at around 2:45. The invite came from my supervisor and HER boss (my manager) was also attending the meeting. It would be just the three of us. The last time I received an impromptu meeting invitation on a Friday in the late afternoon, I was laid off from my job at Industrial Light and Magic and my whole life was turned upside down. Needless to say, a knot the size of the World's Largest Ball of String immediately coaleseced in the pit of my stomach.

The meeting time came and, knees quivering, I made my way to the conference room. I opened the door and my supervisor and my manager were sitting there waiting for me. I sat down, swallowed the lump in my throat, engaged in a few pleasantries, and held my breath. My fears were immediately put to rest when my two superiors smiled and proceeded to tell me that I had been promoted!

Whew! A great weight lifted and I was rendered virtually speechless.

I'm no longer an Associate Video Production Artist, I'm now a full-fledged Video Production Artist. Along with the new title there is a bit of a bump in pay as well. My job description hasn't really changed. After all that we have been through in the past few years, all of the changes, the moving, the uncertainty and the crappy job at the TV station, this was a really good sign that I was moving in the right direction. I don't think I had ever received quite such a positive affirmation in all the time I was at ILM. It felt really good.

I called Kristen and had her and the kids meet me at the local Chinese restaurant. I also invited her mom and stepdad. They were the ones who had pointed me in the direction of IGT and, just after I had been laid off, put me in touch with an employee there whom I could call and talk to about the company. I figured I owed them a big 'Thank You" as well. So, I treated the whole gang to dinner and we reveled in the good news.

I'm on Cloud Nine right now, but on Monday I go back to work. But now my title has been reduced to only three words instead of four. As my dad observed when I called to give him the news; you know you're moving up the ladder when your title gets shorter.

Softball Video and Photos

2007-04-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a short video of me getting a hit in our game Wednesday night. Kristen is right; I do look funny when I run. What's strange is that I feel like I'm a graceful gazelle when I run - ha!!

And here are a few photos as well:

He swings!

It's a deep drive to center field....home run!

The crowd goes wild!! Well, maybe not quite so much.

Now what do I do?

Wednesday Night Softball Recap

2007-04-19T08:11:00.000-07:00

Last night at 6:30 was the first game for our team in the Masters A division. It was cold at game time (high 30s) but at least we had a little sun to give us the illusion that it was warm. I had on my long johns, sweats and several layers of long sleeved shirts.

Our team got behind by quite a few runs early, but we stormed back in the middle innings with a twelve run rally started by a three-run home run by...me! It was actually the first time I'd hit a ball over the fence. It was a shot to straightaway center field - probably 300+ feet. Not bad. I had two other hits in the game as we built a big lead and held off a rally by the opposition in the last inning. Despite the cold it was a fun game. I never really felt like I got loose and my arm felt like a limp noodle, but at least I was hitting the ball well.

Kristen and the kids braved the cold and came out to watch the game. They were all bundled up and had bags of food from A&W. Rhys insisted that eating french fries would keep him warm. Hey, whatever works.

Kristen took some pictures and some video that I'll try to post in the next couple of days.

Monday Night Softball Recap

2007-04-16T23:36:00.000-07:00

Tonight was the opening night of softball season...and we had to forfeit. A couple of our guys were on vacation or had 'excused absences', but ten guys had said they would make it and only eight actually did. This is not a situation that is taken very lightly. Some folks drove from quite a distance (Fernley, which is about 20-30 minutes east of the softball venue) AND it was a 10pm game!!! I'm normally getting ready for bed at that hour so *I* certainly didn't want to be out there if I wasn't going to play a meaningful game.

Well, since we made the effort to be there and it was such a lovely night (55-60 degrees with no wind) we grabbed a couple of players from the other team so we could field enough guys and we played anyhow. It didn't count in the standings, but it was good practice. It was especially helpful for me since I had several chances in the outfield (all of which I caught) and my arm felt very strong. I even picked a guy off at second who was straying too far off the bag.

When I was a kid and even into my 20s, I always had a very strong arm. I was a pitcher in high school and also a reserve left fielder. I played lots of softball in my 20s and 30s and could always make strong throws from the outfield. But then I hurt my arm at some point (I never had it diagnosed so who knows what it was) and I totally lost my arm strength. When I first started playing in the leagues up here in Sparks last year, I had lots of pain in my arm and I was relegated to playing catcher for a while. But then, I turned the corner, my arm felt better, and it's felt great ever since. I've had some shoulder pain this winter, and even right now it's a bit sore, but it's not affecting my throwing at all. Hooray!! My legs and knees also feel pretty good and I'm moving around in the outfield pretty quickly (for me...which is slow for most people!)

I have another game on Wednesday night in the Masters A division. 'Masters' is another way of saying 'over 35'. The 'A' part means it's the best of the 'over 35' crowd, so it should be quite competitive. There's snow in the forecast for tomorrow, and the temperatures on Wendesday will top out at 49 degrees. It'll be cooler than that at game time. I''ve got my long underwear ready!!! Stay tuned for the recap...

Flashback - Rhys is Born

2007-04-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

One of my ongoing projects is to copy all of our home video footage onto DVDs. The reason I'm doing this is because A) watching DVDs is more convenient than watching tapes (you can jump around quickly from scene to scene and you don't have to hassle with hooking the camera up to the TV), and B) DVDs will last longer than videotapes. Yes, I know DVDs have a limited lifespan as well. But at some point down the road I can easily copy my DVDs onto NEW DVDs and start the clock all over again on their lifespan. I'm making two copies of each DVD (one for viewing and one for archiving) and storing them carefully so they'll last as long as possible.

As I sort through my dozens of tapes and digitize them into the computer I occasionally come across some intersting video clips. Here's one I found from the day after Rhys was born. Irene was holding him and was being very cute as she sang to him. Enjoy!

Children's Museum

2007-04-11T08:27:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of videos of the kids playing at the Children's Museum in Carson City. Compared to the Bay Area Discovery Museum, this place is pretty sad. But the kids enjoy going there so that's all that really matters. Reno is in the process of building a super-awesome children's museum so we have that to look forward to. It'll be a MUCH shorter drive, that's for sure! Anyhow, enjoy the videos.

Road Riding

2007-03-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

Spurred on by one of my co-workers, I've gone on two lunchtime bike rides this past week. On Wednesday I went along with the aforementioned co-worker on a 10+ mile ride. It was still a bit chilly, which was especially cruel when we were riding into the slight breeze. Brrrrr!!! It didn't help that I had shorts on...

Ian, the gent with whom I rode, is a transplant from England. He manages the team of prototypers here at IGT. Their job is to do game simulations in order to test the math and make sure the game works the way it should...mathematically speaking. Really, I don't know exactly what they do except that it involves lots of programming and coding.

Ian is training to do the mountain bike race for the Reno Corporate Challenge, a kind of area-wide corporate olympics. I participated last year in the softball tournament (which we won) and I'll be doing it again this year. I had also planned on doing the softball throw and the shot put, but there was a chance I was going to be in Austria the weekend of those events so I backed out. I'm not doing those events THIS year either because I've been having problems with my left shoulder and I don't want to aggravate anything.

Anyhow, back to the bike riding. I followed up the ride on Wednesday with a 14+ mile ride today. This time I went by myself, and the weather was much nicer. I tried out some new routes here in South Reno and actually ended up in some areas that reminded me of my old bike-riding stomping grounds in rural Sonoma and Marin. Lots of pastures, winding roads, and big houses.

Sparks is Growing

2007-03-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Like most of Nevada, Sparks is growing by leaps and bounds. When I lived in the Bay Area and first started coming up to Reno, this little town was just kind of an afterthought. It was that little place next to Reno, and my only exposure to it was the annual rib cook-off that took place downtown. Things have certainly changed...

Most of the new growth in Sparks has happened to the north of the downtown area. Sparks was initially a railroad stop; the last waypoint before the trek across the Nevada desert (to the east) or the climb over the Sierras (to the west). The area along the freeway corridor is still home to lots of warehouses, truck stops, railroad sidings, and industrial buildings.

However, there has receently been a renewed effort to revitalize the downtown area. Victorian Avenue splits the main drag and it runs parallel, and within arms reach, of interstate 80. The Nugget hotel and casino, which towers over the landscape and serves as a beacon to show the way to downtown Sparks, actually sits on BOTH sides of the freeway and has an entrance right on Victorian Ave. During the summer, and at times during the winter, there are weekly events that close off the downtown area. Hot August Nights, Mardi Gras, The Best in the West Rib Cookoff, the Christmas parade, the Thursday Farmer's Market...to name just a few.

Construction has started on a giant new restaurant/shopping complex that will include a new casino/hotel as well as (hopefully) a baseball stadium that will be the home of a AAA franchise. This complex will sit on the shores of the Sparks Marina (a big lake that used to be a quarry until it flooded about 15 years ago) and should add some glitz to an area that used to be the home of an abandonded outlet mall.

The residential growth has been unbelievable as well. We know because we live right in the middle of it!! It's just amazing to see so many houses sprouting up out of the ground. It can be frustrating as well (lots of dust, construction noise, getting stuck behind trucks and tractors on single lane roads, etc...) but in a few years it'll all be over and the end result will be a nice little suburban community with lots of parks, shopping and trails.

All of this residential growth has taken place far north of downtown Sparks, far away from the freeway corridor and close to the hills and open space. Sure, it takes quite a while just to get to the freeway from our house, but there's a certain advantage to being far away. Our house sits adjacent to the Red Hawk golf course, one of the nicer golf courses in the area that boasts the longest 18 hole course west of the Mississippi. The folks who are designing the community have done a good job of including lots of trails and parks to offset all of the suburban sprawl. In fact, at the moment the city of Sparks is in the process of building a huge sports complex just about a mile from our house that, when completed, will be one of the largest in the west. It will have all kinds of baseball and softball fields as well as volleyball courts and, in the future, an equestrian center. It will be adajcent to lots of open space and BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land and there are plans to create lots of trails in the nearby Pah Rah mountains. I've been mountain biking up in those hills (they're very close to us) and I think it'll be nice to be able to hike up there too. Somewhere up there are lots of petroglyphs left behind by the Paiute indians.

So, while we miss terribly our friends and family in the Bay Area, it helps a bit that in the next few years we'll have all of these wonderful opportunities to enjoy our immediate surroundings even more than we do now. When we want a little more action we can always drive to downtown Sparks (or even the casinos in Reno!) and do it up in style.

So there you have it...a brief look at Sparks, Nevada.

New Baseball Gloves

2007-03-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

I went to the store on Sunday and finally invested in a new softball glove. While I was there, I picked up a micro-glove that Rhys and Irene can use. Here's a short video of me and Rhys testing out our new gloves.

And here's a slightly comical version of the same video. I call it the 'Keystone Cops' version.

Irene's Painting Class

2007-03-16T08:27:00.000-07:00

Network Problems

2007-03-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

Out network is down here at IGT so I have some time to post. Fortunately the problems don't extend to the internet connectivity, so I can surf away while the IS guys try to fix the problem.

I think I'll just post some random thoughts. I don't really have anything significant to jot down.

The weather has gotten really nice here (mid 70s). I haven't ridden my bike nearly as much as I'd like in the past two weeks. Softball practice starts in two weeks and I need to buy a new glove. My existing glove is being held together by plastic zip ties. My left shoulder has been giving me problems lately which makes me a bit concered about my ability to throw a softball. I might be playing catcher most of the year if it doesn't get better. I haven't done much geoacaching the past few weeks. I need to get out more. I've been watching old episodes of "Northern Exposure" on DVD and they're as good as I remember. The transfers to DVD look really nice. We trying really hard to rejuvenate the lawn in our back yard. It's trying to come back! Baseball season starts in a little over two weeks - hooray! They've started work on a HUGE park near our house. They're also building six new houses in the vacant lot across from our house. Too bad...we were hoping it would stay empty. I feel like I haven't had a decent night's sleep in months...yet I'm not that tired.

That's all for now...

Some Photos

2007-03-06T13:42:00.000-08:00

A few photos from this past weekend...

Rob and Irene looking for a geocache in downtown Sparks.

Rhys and Irene sitting in front of a train in downtown Sparks.

Rhys in action!

Rhys in action again! Does he ever stop? No!

Rhys sliding down the slide with ice cream on his face.

Rob and Irene arrive at the park after riding all the way from home.

Rhys spent quite a bit of time pretending.

Rob and Kristen self portrait.

More of Rhys pretending. He felt that doing this was very important. I believe he was referring to the sign as a map.

Rhys at the Park

2007-03-05T08:09:00.000-08:00

We went for a little trip to the park yesterday and Kristen captured this piece of video. Rhys was doing quite a bit of pretending that involved "Pac Man World 2", his pretend friend Harry, and a map. On a side note, Irene and I rode our bikes to the park - a 3+ mile round trip!! That's the longest ride Irene has done yet. Enjoy...

What's This White Stuff?

2007-02-28T08:34:00.000-08:00

After a relatively dry winter, we finally got a significant amount of snowfall on Monday night. The Sierras are getting absolutely hammered...to the point where I-80 has been closed off and on to all traffic going over Donner Pass. They've gotten something like 7 or 8 (or more) feet of snow. Good for the snowpack (a.k.a. our drinking water) and good for the ski resorts.

Down here in the valley we got a few inches around our house. It was strange how quickly the conditions changed. When I got in my car to leave from work, there was a wet, slushy snow falling. It wasn't sticking so it just made everything wet. About halfway home, things started to change as the snow began to stick. By the time I was a few miles from home, the driving conditions had gotten a bit treacherous and folks were going really slowly. Crazy! The next morning we had a white blanket all around, Irene's school was on a two-hour delayed start, and I had a long, slow drive to work.

Some friends (Matt and Ann) from the Bay Area who were visiting Reno came by for dinner on Saturday night. Right as we were sitting down to eat, the power went out!! To this day we don't know what caused the outage, but it was dark outside as far as the eye could see. The bottom line is that we had a wonderful, candle-lit dinner. Good food, good company (and a bit o' wine) can brighten up even the darkest nights.

Because of the impending snowstorm, it took our friends twelve hours to get back home to the Bay Area on Sunday. Normally it's a four hour drive. Ick!

Here are a few snow photos to enjoy. Click on the thumbnails to get larger images.

Trip to Lodi

2007-02-20T10:40:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I took the kids down to visit my folks in Lodi, CA. There were two reasons for this trip: To give Kristen some time to herself and to satisfy my parents' need to see their grandkids. For those who don't know, Lodi is about a three hour drive from Sparks, NV and is located between Sacramento and Stockton. Lodi is mostly a farming community but is gradually becoming quite a hotspot for wine growing and wine making.

The kids and I packed up the car and started our drive on Friday afternoon. We hit rush hour traffic in Sacramento and, after a stop at McDonald's, we finally made it to my folks' house around 7:15pm.

The next morning the kids were treated to pancakes for breakfast. Then we played for a while with a little remote controlled car that my dad bought. Rhys thought it was great fun to make the car drive into the dirt and crash into things. I would've expected nothing less from the three and a half year old boy.

After a quick trip to Best Buy to purchase a web cam for my dad's computer (he can do video chats now!) we all piled into the car for a trip up to Murphy's (my mom couldn't come since she's still recuperating from her broken ankle). Murphy's is the home of my dad's cousin Paul and his family. Murphy's is located just outside of Angels Camp which is where they have the big frog jumping competition each year. Mark Twain wrote about this in his short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog on Calaveras County." But I digress...

My dad's cousin (who I guess is also MY cousin) Paul Quyle and his various family members all live on a sort of compound and run a variety of businesses. They have a pot shop where they sell pottery that they make. They also manufacture their own clay which they sell to various vendors. The have their own wine label and there's a tasting room on site. Paul is a master blacksmith and he teaches his craft in a shop just up the hill. There are all kinds of metal working tools, a wood shop and blacksmithing equipment. The kids enjoyed exploring the grounds and playing with the dogs. Paul and my dad (who visits often) showed me a lot of the equipment and taught me about the clay making process. We tasted a little wine, bought a couple of bottles (gotta support the family business!) and the kids received a gift of a 25 pound brick of freshly made clay!!

A big pile of metal shavings from the lathe.

Paul Quyle.

Chain

Paul and Bob in the pot shop.

A press used in the clay making process.

Pots drying in their molds.

The tasting room with Irene in the foreground.

In the tasting room. Paul's daughter Dolores is behind the counter.

Notice Rhys in the lower right corner talking to the dog.

After a nice stay in Murphys, we returned to Lodi. My sister Connie and her daughter Alana came up from Berkeley for dinner. Rhys had a brief bout of homesickness (more like mamasickness) but he rallyed and a nice time was had by all.

On Sunday, my dad, the kids and I drove to Sacramento to explore the train museum in Old Sac. This is the old part of town right along the river. We also visited a big paddlewheeler, the Delta King, that's tied up at the dock. We stumbled upon a mock gunfight as well. Very fun...and loud! I grabbed a couple of geocaches that were nearby (of course!) and then it was on to the museum.

The railroad museum has a great collection of restored steam engines and other train-related exhibits. Rhys and Irene LOVED it. They had some old train cars that you could walk through. They even rocked the cars, had sounds playing, and had lights flashing by the windows to make it feel like you were really moving. Upstairs, they had a collection of model trains. One even had a camera mounted on the front that was connected to a TV monitor so you could see what it looked like to go through the minitiature landscape.

I couldn't take any photos of the railroad museum because the batteries on my camera died, but my dad had HIS camera so I'll have to wait until he sends his photos to me so I can post them.

Eating lunch in Old Sacramento

On the Delta King.

Paddlewheel at the stern of the Delta King.

After grabbing some candy for the kids, we drove back to Lodi, had a quick bite to eat, packed up the car, and then the kids and I drove home. The weather was clear over Donner Pass, but the second we crossed over the state line into Nevada it started snowing!! It snowed off and on during the rest of the drive, but it never got to the point that it made the drive difficult. The kids slept almost the entire way.

So there's the trip recap. Kristen got a lot of quilting done while we were away and the kids had a great visit with their grandparents.

Back on the Bike

2007-02-14T10:39:00.000-08:00

I've gotten back into the bike riding routine again...for the moment. The warmer weather we were having around here a couple of weeks ago inspired me to get back in the saddle. This past weekend I did a 13-mile ride on Saturday and then a 21-mile ride on Sunday. The ride on Sunday was a pain in the neck because: A) It was super windy and it seemed like I was always riding INTO the wind, and B) I fell at the top of a hill (see post about clipless pedals and falling down) and banged my knee on the frame of my bike. Still, it felt good to get in some good mileage.

When I got back from my second ride and stepped on the scale before taking a shower, the readout told me I was at 179.6 pounds. Wow. I haven't been below 180 pounds in quite a long time. A lot of it was due to water loss from the long ride, and I've put a couple of pounds back on since then, but as of this morning I was another notch lower on my belt and I'm right around 182. Not bad!! My ultimate goal is to stay right around 180. Now that summer is around the corner and I'll be bike riding and playing softball, this seems like an attainable goal. After that, I may shoot for 175...

Rhys at the Park

2007-02-11T10:52:00.000-08:00

Rain?

2007-02-09T09:30:00.000-08:00

After several dry weeks, it looks like we might actually get some rain here in Reno this weekend. If you look at the image from the camera on the right side of my blog (you may have to go down a little) you might actually see some clouds and/or drops on the lens. We've had a few drizzles already, but in my opinion you can't really call it rain until there are puddles on the ground.

The ski resorts here in the Sierras are really suffering from the low snowfall amounts. Some have even closed already. Here in the Truckee Meadows, we rely on the snow melting into the Truckee River for our water supply. We don't get a whole lot of actual rain or snow here, it all falls up in the mountains and we reap the rewards. It's called a 'rain shadow'; all of the moisture falls on the western flanks of the Sierras and then there's nothing left for us. So, it goes without saying that we're happy for any rain/snow that we can get.

All is right with the world again since 'Lost' came back from its hiatus. Even though the show has lost its way a little bit, I still enjoy the fact that watching it makes my brain go into overdrive. Why are they on this island? What brought them here? Who are the 'others'? What do the numbers mean? Why are there frickin' polar bears on the island? Who's the guy with the eye patch? So many questions!!! It's fun.

If anyone out there is or knows an artist or an engineer, IGT is desperate for people with those skill sets. Go to www.igt.com and click on 'jobs' for more info. You can also e-mail me or leave a comment. I can't say enough about how great this company is.

Falling Down

2007-02-05T16:49:00.000-08:00

Falling down is what you do sometimes when you're learning to use clipless pedals on your road bike. For the uninitiated, clipless pedals are the kind that require special shoes that actually clip on to the pedals. You're actually stuck to the bike. The advantage to this is that you can actually pull UP on the pedals and use different muscles and increase your power. The disadvantage is that you're physically stuck to the bike. It takes quite a bit of a sideways twist to unclip the shoes from the pedal, and when you can't do it quickly enough (or you forget) you fall over sideways and land pretty hard on the ground.

So, I got the pedals installed and got the shoes all set up, then I went for a short test ride (13 miles) on Saturday. No problem. Then I went on a 10 mile ride yesterday without incident...until I pulled into the garage at my house. Even before I came to a stop I had dislodged my right foot. But the problem with being ambidextrous (like I am) is that different things work better with different sides of your body. Strangely enough, it seems easier and more natural to twist my RIGHT foot sideways to get it out of the pedal. But, oddly enough, it feels more natural to lean to the LEFT when I come to a stop. This is what I always did before I got the new pedals. So you can imagine how funny is must've been when I DID have one foot out of the pedal, but then I leaned the OTHER way. WHAM!!! I fell straight onto the concrete. Oh sure, I laughed like crazy when I realized I wasn't hurt (wearing a helmet is good!), but man was I glad that nobody had seen me. Lesson learned - hopefully.

I'm glad the Colts won the Super Bowl. What a sloppy game!!!

Photoshop Fun

2007-01-31T08:52:00.000-08:00

I've been playing around with some new techniques and got this result. I cut myself out from the background, replaced the background with something I created in Photoshop, and added a shadow. Voilá!

The Weekend

2007-01-29T09:07:00.000-08:00

It all started on Friday evening with a trip to Costco for groceries and for dinner. Irene and Rhys always love going to Costco for hot dogs and pizza. Kristen and I love going because it means we'll have food for another week or so. Later that evening, I ventured out for my geocaching adventure (see previous post).

Kristen took the kids to gymnastics on Saturday morning while I did some computer work and cleaned up the office/spare bedroom a little bit. Then, after a two month hiatus, I went for a short bike ride. I explored some new roads in the neighborhood that had recently opened and also tried to snag a geocache (no luck). After the bike ride, we all went and played at the park. Photos and a short movie are below. You can see Rhys still wearing his yellow gymnastics belt.

On Sunday I went on a hike in the hills near our house. The goal was to find a place to hide a geocache. I found a spot on a rocky outcropping up a steep hill. On the way up, I ran into this:

It's hard to tell from the photo, but it's at least four feet long. It's was fairly obvious that something had either killed it or had snacked on it post-mortem since there were other parts of it scattered around. I think it was from the deer or cow family because I also found this nearby:

As a result of this find, I named my cache "Highland Bones".

After hiking a bit further and dodging shotgun pellets from the recreational shooters in the hills (gotta love Northern Nevada hiking!) I scrambled back to my car and returned home. I quickly put together a small geocache and hid it by a new trail near our house, adjacent to the golf course. It's a nice spot because it's pretty close to our house and I can check on it fairly easily.

Upon returning home, it was off to the bike shop to get my road bike in for a tune up and to get it fitted for clipless pedals (thanks for the gift certificate Connie!) They were also having a sale on the special shoes you need for the clipless pedals so I bought some of those too. I will doubtless be posting a story in the not-too-distant future about falling over on my bike because I couldn't get my shoes out of the pedals.

I grabbed a couple of geocaches that were near the bike store; ones that would've been too hard to get during the week because they were in busy industrial areas. One of them was right next to a police impound yard. Nice.

So, that was the weekend in a nutshell.

First to Find

2007-01-27T08:52:00.000-08:00

In the geocaching world, getting a 'First to Find' (abbreviated 'FTF') is quite a feather in one's cap. People list their FTFs on their geocaching profile pages like awards in a trophy case. Well, I got my first FTF last night.

While I was at work I noticed that a new cache had been published just about a mile from our house. I could tell from the location and the description that it was somewhere around the big water wheel that marks the entrance to part of our development. The pond that is in front of the water wheel has been drained and all that's left is a shallow pool covered with an inch of ice.

I figured that someone else would surely rush out and get it before I had a chance to grab it on the way home. I kept checking the cache logs periodically to see if anyone would post. Nobody did. By the time I left to come home there were still no new posts. So, on my way home, I stopped to check it out.

The problem with this location is that it's right by a busy road. And, seeing as it was rush hour, there were lots of cars driving by. The other problem was that it was starting to get dark and the lights that illuminate the water wheel at night were already on (you can see them in the photo above in the lower left corner.) I think they borrowed these lights from the British army where they were probably used to illuminate German bombers during WWII air raids. In other words, they are BRIGHT! And since the water wheel and the area around it is hardly a public place, I decided not to risk getting arrested and thrown in the pokey. This one would have to wait...

I went home, we all went to Costco for groceries and a quick dinner, and then we came home. Still nobody had logged that cache. We put the kids to bed, Kristen fell asleep in Rhys' bed, I watched a couple of TV shows, and just as I was heading up to bed at 10:30 I decided to go and try to snag the cache. I figured it was late, there was less traffic, and maybe the lights would be out so I could sneak around. I put on my shoes and headed out.

Alas, the lights were NOT off. But, there WAS much less traffic so I was able to dart over to the water wheel and take cover behind some rocks and the water wheel itself whenever a car DID come by. I searched EVERYWHERE...no luck. I was about to give up when I grabbed a piece of wood that I had already grabbed once before (at the base of one of the structural posts just to the right of the 'T'.) This time instead of dismissing it and throwing it back down, I looked at it more carefully. Sure enough, there was cache! It was a 35mm film canister that had been inserted into a hole bored out of the end of the piece of wood. I'll be!! I opened it up, checked the log, and sure enough I was the first to find it. Yeehaw!!! I signed it and put it back, hid from a few more cars, and then made my escape back to my car which I had parked about a block away. Whew! It was 11:30pm.

So there you have it - my First to Find story.

Oh yeah, I also got the official word that I was not chosen to be in the Prius commercial. Oh well...

Quick Update

2007-01-25T08:52:00.000-08:00

Still no news about the commercial I auditioned for. I'm getting the feeling that no news is bad news. Ah well - it saves me an extra trip down to the Bay Area (glass half-full mentality).

I had a bunch of work dumped on me lately so I've been busy.

One of the TV shows I've been watching lately is "Dexter". It's a Showtime series. It's not for the faint of heart (violence, blood, etc...) but it's a good show. Check it out if you get a chance.

Random Post

2007-01-23T09:07:00.000-08:00

Not much to report today. No news one way or the other about the commercial. My weight was down to 184 today (184.2 actually, but I'm rounding down.) If I can just get motivated to get back on my bicycle I can drop those last four or five pounds to achive my goal.

Here's a photo of Rhys that I retouched yesterday. I think it turned out pretty well:

And here's a short video I did with Irene last night. I was experimenting with some video filters and techniques, but the video is cute in and of itself.

I don't normally do these, but this seemed like something I could handle.

Getting To Know You - “Best and Worst”

1. What’s the best place you ever lived? The worst?
Probably the house where I spent most of my childhood in San Rafael, CA. We had an acre of land with a creek and lots of trees. My best friend lived right across the street. We would play in the creeks, climb trees and invent games and we had a ton of space to do it all in. Since we lived on a private street there was hardly any traffic. We could ride our bikes up and down the street, play baseball and football, and almost never have to stop and yell, "Car!"

The worst place I ever lived was probably the first apartment that I shared with Kristen. It was small and dark and the landlord was a bit of a pain in the neck. We had to clean the place to the point where it was almost sterile when we moved out. This was also the same period of time when Kristen was doing overnights so we hardly saw each other.

2. What’s the best place you ever visited on holiday/vacation? The worst?
Alaska. I've been there three times but my two favorite trips were when I was on small boats that could explore all of the little inlets and channels and could visit some of the smaller villages. I'll never forget seeing humpback whales up close, seeing a pod of orcas up close, the blue-green color of the water, the majesty of the mountains, Tenakee Springs, Ford's Terror, snatching glacial ice out of the water for our cooler, and drinking shots of tequila at the Alaska hotel.

The Elk Cove Inn comes in a close second.

I can honestly say that I can't think of a 'worst' vacation. I've certainly had some bad experiences on my vacations, but nothing that has soured the whole trip.

3. What’s the best job you ever had? Worst?
My best job is probably my current one at IGT. It came along at a time when I really needed it, and I've been enjoying it ever since. I'm virtually unsupervised, I've gotten to learn to use lots of software tools that I enjoy a whole lot better (Photoshop, After Effects, etc...), and we get these perks that I havn't seen in past jobs... like bonuses! I also get my own workspace (which I hadn't really had in the past) and I'm surrounded by a team that thinks of itself as a small family. Very nice.

The worst job I had was probably the one just before this one at the TV station here in town as a master control operator. I worked three or four 12-hour shifts each week with no breaks (not even lunch or dinner!) I had to time my trips to the restroom carefully lest I miss a commercial break. There was a constant feeling of stress since I was dealing with live TV. The pay was lousy, I worked in a room without windows, and I had little or not contact with people throughout the day. Ugh.

4. What’s your best talent or ability? Your worst?
My best ability is probably my reponse to pressure. I tend to stay pretty even keeled and level-headed in a crisis. Sometimes that's good, but sometimes it can be bad because I don't know how to go into panic mode when I should.

My worst ability is probably my lack of openness. I've been burned pretty severely in the past by exposing too much of myself so I tend to stay pretty closed up. If you've gained my trust then it's a different story. Even Kristen will tell you that I'm far from an open book. Sometimes I do better when I put thoughts down on paper (or computer, as the case may be.)

Bonus: What’s one good thing about you that isn’t covered in the questions above, but that you’d like to share with the world?
I'm a very loyal friend, even to those I hardly know. If you need me, I'll be there. Need help moving a couch and you live 100 miles away? I'll come and help. Want some help moving dirt in your backyard? Point me to a shovel and a wheelbarrow. Just need someone to talk to for a while? Give me a call.

Weekend Update

2007-01-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

We made it safely to and from the Bay Area this weekend, although the 'safely' part was a bit tenuous. You see, on our drive down on Saturday there was a HUGE and nasty accident on I-80 that happened just minutes ahead of us. The emergency vehicles hadn't even arrived yet. We're talkin' fire, fatalities, closed freeway (for six hours), life-flight helicopters....the whole shootin' match. It took us about 20 minutes to get around the accident and back onto the freeway. Kristen and I were shaken up quite a bit after seeing such a horrific accident. Here's a link to the story so you can read all of the details. I also took a couple of photos as I drove past on the frontage road:

A motor home that was in the crash.

One of the life-flight helicopters that landed on the freeway. There were two of them.

After all of that excitement, we finally made it to Oakland for our nephew's birthday party. It was a Willie Wonka themed occasion at the decorations and activites were all really creative and in line with the movie. I couldn't stay at the party very long because I had to dash out to my 'audition' for the Prius commercial (see previous post).

The 'audition' was in Concord which is about a 30 minute drive from Oakland. I drove over, found the location (a Toyota dealership) and met the casting agent. I filled out a form and then went out to my car where they took some still photos and then shot some video of me while they asked me some simple questions. I guess they just needed to see how I looked and acted on camera. They seemed to be quite excited by the fact that I'm into cycling and that I often threw my bike into the back of my Prius. They also asked if my family would be willing to be in the commercial too. Sure they would!! That was all I had to do. There weren't a lot of people there, and I was number '41', whatever that meant. I'm supposed to hear back today or tomorrow. If they choose me then I go down to shoot a week from today (although there's a slight chance I'd have to go down to meet the director before then.)

I grabbed a few geocaches that were in the area by the car dealership and then headed back to the party. We all spent the night at Kristen's sister's house in Oakland and then drove back home on Sunday. I managed to grab a geocache just past Donner Summit (see photo below) so that was neat.

So, all in all it was a great trip. I'll post more about the commercial when I get the news.

A shot of Donner Lake from the spot where I got the geocache.

Random cute photo of Rhys in case you were still slightly bummed out from reading about the accident we saw.

Me in a Commercial?

2007-01-19T08:35:00.000-08:00

It could happen. I answered an ad on Craigslist yesterday looking for Prius owners to be in a commercial. I sent some info about myself and a photo of me and my car, and now the casting person wants me to come down in person. I have to go to Concord to meet her (a 3+ hour drive from Reno) but since Kristen and the kids were going down that way this weekend anyhow it just means that I'll tag along. I have no illusions that I'll be the only one there. I'm sure it'll be a 'cattle call' of sorts with dozens of Prius owners and their cars, but I just have to hope that I've got the face and the personality they're looking for.

The payoff for being in the commercial is a $500 check plus residuals. Residuals can sometimes add up to a decent chunk of change so I think it's worth the effort. Besides, it would be fun to be in a commercial talking about a car that I truly love.

If they want me to be in the commercial then I have to drive down again (probably to some scenic spot in San Francisco or Bolinas Ridge in Marin Country where they film so many car ads) a week from this Monday. How exiting!

Busy, busy...

2007-01-18T10:21:00.000-08:00

After a flurry of posts last week, things on the ol' blog have been pretty barren of late. It's a direct result of being slammed at work with deadlines. We have a couple of big projects that we're showcasing at a big European gaming show (ICE) so things leading up to the show have been a bit hectic. After these long and work-filled days, the last thing I want to do when I get home is post to the blog. In fact, I've fallen asleep whilst putting Rhys to bed the past two nights in a row!

Not much to report on the home front. The weather here has been sunny, but quite cold. We can't complain given the icy mess that has befallen the mid-west and the south. Ick. Due to the chilly weather in these parts I haven't gotten out too much. No geocaching of late, no bike riding, just lots of sitting by the fire, watching football, noodling around on the computer, and falling asleep while putting kids to bed.

Speaking of noodling on the computer...I've been trying to think of a way of marketing my services doing freelance photo restoration and digital photo manipulation. If anyone has any ideas or thoughts I'd love to hear them. Heck, if you have any photos you'd like me to play around with I'd be happy to do it for free. We're talkin' dirt and scratch removal, background removal (like if you want to cut someone out of a photo and put them into another background), color correction, adding titles....almost anything! I've gotten pretty good at it, but I'd like some more practice. Send some photos my way and I'll play around with 'em (handmadedv@gmail.com).

Here's a quick little sample of a couple of photos of the kids I've practiced on...

For this photo Rhys was isolated from the background. Then I desaturated and tweaked the colors on him and added some rosy cheeks. I also added a subtle highlight around him. Then I made the background black and white and blurred it a bit more than it already was.

For this photo I cropped out a lot of the undesireable stuff around Irene. Then I cut her out from the background, applied some blurring and glow effects, and desaturated and blurred the background.

Gymnastics and Geocaching Milestone

2007-01-14T08:42:00.000-08:00

I captured some more video of the kids at gymnastics practice yesterday. Most of the video was shot from the viewing area which is way up high. Thus the extreme overhead angle.

I also managed to snag my 200th geocache last night. It was 6:45 in the evening and I was watching the Saints/Eagles game after a splendid dinner. Then, the phone rang. It was a co-worker from IGT who needed me to come in and take care of something. We're approaching a deadline on one of our projects and folks are working around the clock to get it done. I had forgotten to do something on Friday; something that would take all of three minutes to do. So, I grabbed my GPS receiver, talked Irene into coming along, and we headed out. I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to grab some geocaches down near IGT that are hard to get during the day because there are so many people around. Under the cover of darkness, Irene and I snagged FOUR geocaches in busy parking lots. Below is a photo of our 200th find. This one was hidden under the 'skirt' of a lightpost - a very common hiding spot. In fact, all four of our finds last night were lightpost caches! One of them was particularly tricky because it was in front of a Starbuck's. We had to be extra stealty for that one!

Irene puts the cache back under the lightpost

Approaching Zero

2007-01-13T11:42:00.000-08:00

That's what the temperatures are doing around here. This morning when Kristen woke up it was 5 degrees. By the time I got in the car to take Irene to gymnastics at 9am, it had 'warmed' up to 9 degrees. Hey, at least it's sunny and the roads are clear! Here's a brief video I took in my Prius of the temperature gauge.

Belated Photos

2007-01-08T14:53:00.000-08:00

Rhys scooter-ing in the snow last Thursday night

Rhys and Irene trying to slide down the driveway on a fine layer of snow

Irene and some of the girls from her brownie troop volunteering at the tree recycling place. The biggest part of the job was pulling all of the tinsel off of the trees before they went into the pile. Tinsel is evil!!

Irene Doing Gymnastics

2007-01-07T12:02:00.000-08:00

Quick video of Irene at gymnastics practice yesterday. The flash card in my digital camera only stores a little over a minute of video, so this is all I could get. Enjoy!

An Interesting Drive Home

2007-01-05T11:23:00.000-08:00

Last night I had my first real taste of driving in snowy/icy conditions. I've had to do it a few times already, but these conditions were the worst yet.

It started snowing pretty heavily about the time that I had to leave from work. After warming up the car and de-icing the windshield, I headed home. There was enough snow already on the road that it was hard to see the lines and the curbs. There was also enough snow falling that it looked like you were entering light speed in the Millenium Falcon.

It was all good until I hit one particularly icy spot. Traffic was moving really slowly (as it should in these conditions) when suddenly the guy in front of me just totally lost traction and started spinning off of the road. I resisted the urge to slam on the brakes and just kind of gently swerved around him to avoid taking out one of his taillights. Fortunately, my little Prius grabbed onto the road nicely and I completed the manuever without wiping out myself. Whew!!

I saw one other car get squirrely on the drive home before conditions improved closer to home. This morning things were hardly better. It was cold overnight so things were icy on the way in to work. I saw one car slide and recover and I lost traction accelerating from a stop at one point. I learned that the Prius has a power distribution system that helps with these condtions. I also learned that it has a gear that makes it so the engine compression is used to slow the car down. Much better than having to tap on the brakes and possibly lock 'em up!!!

It's sunny this afternoon so hopefully some of the ice will melt and evaporate before I have to head home.

Rhys' Jibber Jabber at the Dinner Table

2007-01-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

Rhys has been playing lots of Pac-Man lately (actually it's a 3D version which bears no real resemblance to the 'classic' Pac-Man, but he doesn't know the difference.) Many of his conversations of late have to do with Pac-Man as well as Sonic the Hedgehog. I captured a couple of clips of him talking about Pac-Man at the dinner table last night. He went on and on for quite some time. These clips represent only a fraction of what he talked about!

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

Here's a video I uploaded yesterday. I shot this in our back yard back in April of 2000 when I Irene was only about four months old. It was a lovely Spring day to relax out on the back lawn. Enjoy!

A Good Day

2006-12-30T22:19:00.000-08:00

It was, indeed, a good day. Kristen, the kids and I enjoyed a sunny Saturday in Northern Nevada by going on a family outing. The focus of the outing was to do some geocaching, but the end result was a fun day together that ended with a two hour stay at a Reno playground.

Our first stop was a geocache that I had looked for two times before but had never found. After all of us looked for five or ten minutes, Kristen finally spotted it. Her first find!! We found two more at the nearby Sparks Marina and then we headed west towards Rancho San Rafael park. We grabbed a couple of caches along the way, and then a couple more inside the park, and then let the kids play in the playground. It was a 'balmy' 38 degrees outside but the sunshine made it seem warmer. The kids had a great time on the swings and the slides, and then we all had fun watching the Canada geese and some Mallard ducks trying to land on a frozen pond. What could be more fun!!

Rhys, Rob and Irene watch the geese.

Notice the goose landing on the left. I also like the "DANGER THIN ICE STAY OFF" sign in the upper left.

Short video of geese trying to land.

We grabbed two more caches on the way home making for a total of ten found for the day. My heart swelled as Irene told me that she wished we could do the same thing every day. Me too sweetheart, me too.

Have a Happy New Year everyone!! Oh, and a happy birthday to my good friend Mark. I'll always thing of the Grateful Dead on this day.

Happy Friday

2006-12-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

I've been on a geocaching frenzy of late. Only 21 more to go before I reach 200 (see the stat bar on the right for up-to-date info). I found one yesterday morning and one at lunch. I got up a little earlier than usual this morning so I could go out and find a new cache that had just been hidden yesterday afternoon. It was COLD (18 degrees?) but I found it. I was the second person to get to it. Usually when a new cache is hidden there's a rush to be the first to find it. Someone had come by last night in the dark and had beaten me to it. Ah well...

IGT is letting is go an hour early today ahead of the New Years weekend. Maybe that'll give me enough time to go out and grab a geocache before I go home!! I'm a sick, sick man...

Here's a video I recently digitized from our trip to Disneyland in November. It's from It's A Small World which had been all decorated for Christmas. We were at Disneyland on a super-busy day, and all we wanted to do was ride It's A Small World. After finally pushing through the crowds to get there, we found that it was broken down. So, we waited...and waited...and waited. Finally, it opened up again and we managed to get a really good spot in line. When we got in our boat and got into the ride, the sound wasn't working!! It finally kicked in about halfway through, but because of the malfunction they let us stay in the boat and go through a second time. This video is from the second trip. It's very shaky and 'home made', and it's also about 8 or 9 minutes long, but may you enjoy it nonetheless.

Christmas

2006-12-27T10:07:00.000-08:00

First off, check out my new blog template. Nothing fancy, I know. But at least it's new!

We drove back home yesterday from a wonderful Christmas celebration with my folks in Lodi. My mom's ankle is doing well considering it has some new hardware installed. She moves around slowly with the aid of a walker, but at least she CAN move around.

The kids seemed to enjoy the gifts they received. Rhys loved his new scooter, his giant trash truck, as well as his little Star Wars toys (he took them to bed) and his wooden dinosaurs. Irene got lots of fairies and fairy-related toys.

I mananged to snag six geocaches in the Lodi area so that made me happy.

Our drive home yesterday was kind of interesting. The wind ahead of the approaching storm was so bad that at one point (right around Truckee) I couldn't see the road from all of the blowing sand and dust. Just after we got home, two big rigs were blown over on the freeway just outside of town. Yikes!! The wind howled at our house until around 10:00 in the evening. The lights flickered but never went out. While I was upstairs in my office, the house was literally shaking as the wind gusted. It's nice today, though!!

Pictures and movies to follow at some point...

Thanks Papa and Gramma!!

2006-12-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

Pac-Man Fever

2006-12-23T07:34:00.000-08:00

Mom Update

2006-12-22T13:38:00.000-08:00

Mom is back home from the hospital after surgery. She's in quite a bit of pain, but hopefully the pain pills will do their job soon.

On a brighter note, IGT is sending us all home early today. We get to leave at 2:00. Hey, that's in 20 minutes!! Irene will be surprised when it's me picking her up from school instead of Kristen.

Happy Birthday Irene!!

2006-12-22T08:17:00.000-08:00

Today is my little girl's seventh birthday!! That can't be possible. Has it been seven years?? Anyhow, here's a little video clip I happened to have handy from her second birthday. Enjoy!

Ouch!

2006-12-21T08:57:00.000-08:00

My mom broke her ankle in two places last night while running to answer the phone. Let that be a lesson to y'all that there are these things called answering machines that will actually answer the phone for you so you don't need to run, jump, slip or slide to the phone. Anyhow, she's having surgery on her ankle today to insert a plate, some screws, wires or some other kind of hardware. Merry Christmas!!

Check out our friends' video on YouTube of her daughter. Very cute!

COLD!

2006-12-19T09:38:00.000-08:00

Temps here were in the single digits last night and the night before. We had some snow over the weekend and it's hardly melted. Lots of icy spots on the roads, but fortunately my drive to and from work has been uneventful. I've seen lots of other folks who were not so lucky...

Tamale Day Re-cap

2006-12-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

This past weekend we participated in a wonderful annual family tradition - Tamale Day. This is a tradition practiced by Kristen's family in Redlands, Ca. In a nutshell, the whole family (and often many friends) gets together for one weekend and makes tens of dozens of fabulous tasting tamales. Then they cook them and have a big feast. Santa Claus comes to bring presents for the kids too. It's a fantastic holiday tradition that my stomach and I are happy to be a part of!!

Here's the blow-by-blow account:

Last Wednesday, Kristen and the kids flew down to Redlands to stay with Kristen's dad (Nick) and stepmom (Moni). They went early so they could spend a few extra days visiting. I flew down on Friday afternoon. Fortunately, the insanely strong winds that hit the Truckee Meadows were much lighter by the time I was in the air. Otherwise it would've been a very bumpy ride!

We visited and relaxed a bit on Friday evening. Then on Saturday morning the fun began. We headed over to Kristen's gramma's house (where the tamale making always happens) and got all set up in the garage. Most of the time the tamale making takes place outside, but there was rain in the forecast so we moved under cover.

I should probably go back a bit and mention that all of the ingredients for the tamales are made from scratch. The meat is cooked a few days ahead of time, then it's cut up and shredded by hand - all 30 or 40 or whatever pounds of it! The masa (the corn meal mixture) is mixed by hand. The chile sauce is made by hand (from scratch) and is added to the masa and the meat. The ojas (corn husks) are cleaned and soaked in water ahead of time so they're soft. All of this is done ahead of time, so before we even assemble the tamales there have been hours of work put into them.

Now, back to the assembly process. We all donned our aprons (this is messy work), grabbed our masa spreading knives and our spots at the table, and got to work. There is definitely a heirarchy when it comes to the division of labor. There are the spreaders who are responsible for spreading the masa on the corn husks. This is harder than it sounds and there are generally more spreaders than any other types of workers. The masa has to be spread just right; not too thick, not too thin, on the proper side of the ojas (there are two distinct sides) and not too low or high up. Then there are the assemblers - usually made up of two people. These are the more experience tamale makers. They stand on either side of the table and put the meat and the olives into the prepared ojas. Then they fold them properly and stack them for the counter. The counter is reponsible for keeping an accurate tally of the number of tamales that have been completed. This is a post generally reserved for a younger family member. Inside the house, there is a crew that is resposible for cleaning the ojas and soaking them in water. They also take care of opening the cans of olives, cleaning pans, and other general support work. Then there are the members of the quality control crew. Their job is to spot check the tamales to be sure the masa is being spread properly, that there are enough ingredients to keep the tamale assembly happening efficiently, and to be sure folks are working and not taking too many beer and/or snack breaks!

I have been to almost a dozen tamale days and I am still a lowly masa spreader. That tells you how long it takes to move up in the pecking order!!

The assembly of the tamales takes several hours. The whole process is quite fun, with lots of time to visit and catch up. There's also lots of good-natured teasing that goes on - usually relating to an individual's talent (or lack thereof) for spreading masa properly.

Once all of the tamales were assembled and set aside to cook, we sat around outside by the fire pit and visited. The clean-up crew stayed inside and took care of most of the mess from the assmebly area. Between rain showers, I stole away with Irene and a few other family members and grabbed a quick geocache that was within walking distance.

At 6:00, Santa and Mrs. Claus came to visit. This is always a highlight since it's so fun to watch the kids sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. He brings each of the kids one present that they get to open right then and there. Some of the grown-ups get to sit on Santa's lap too (for some reason I escaped this year!) Once everyone had their turn, Santa went on his way with a few tamales to share with Mrs. Claus and the elves.

Then it was time to eat!! Everyone formed a massive line in the kitchen and served up heaping portions of tamales, beans, rice, tortillas and salad. Card tables and folding chairs were set up wherever there was space and everyone ate until they were stuffed. After the kids finished eating, they played for a while with the toys Santa had brought them. I sat on the couch, and before I knew it Rhys was sitting next to me. I dozed off and Rhys followed suit. Irene curled up next to me and SHE fell asleep as well. The next thing I remember, Kristen was shaking me awake and telling me it was time to go. We carried two tired kids into the car, said our goodbyes, and headed back to Nick and Moni's house.

All four of us flew home on the same flights on Sunday morning. One of our suitcases was so heavy with tamales and tortillas that we had to pay a few extra $$!! The flights were smooth as was the change of planes in San Jose. When we got home, we were treated to blue skies and a thin blanket of snow covering the Truckee Meadows!!!

There are some photos posted here. You'll have to have an account with Snapfish to see them, so if you'd rather wait I'll have some of them posted sometime soon on our regular photo site.

Silly? I think not...

2006-12-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

Check out this story to see how our troops in Iraq are using Silly String. I mean, seriously, we have the most technologically advanced military in the world. Do our troops really need to be using Silly String?? I think there's a subliminal (or not so subliminal) connection between Silly String and the silliness level of our involvement in the civil war in Iraq. Enough said.

My apologies for the long gap between blog posts. I've been spending my down time here at work getting Christmas cards sent out. Kristen and I seem to have a problem with this particular holiday tradition. We always have the greatest of intentions, but the execution falls short. I had a great idea for a photo that I was going to do. It involved clever Photoshop work and a humorous theme. Did it happen? No. Instead we have a cute and fairly normal family portrait. Still very nice but not what I had planned.

And then there's the letter (or lack thereof). Normally we try to write a nice year-ending summary. We compose several drafts, add things, remove things, change the font, make copies on colorful paper...and then never send them out. You see, by the time we finish all of the steps necessary to complete the letter it's early January. I can't tell you how many stacks of un-sent letters we have in various nooks and crannies in our house!

So, this year we ended up keeping it simple in an effort to just get the darn things sent out. Most of the folks who received cards already know most of what we did the past year. No need to summarize it, right? The bottom line is that we're happy and healthy - the picture gets that message across. If folks want the details they can read our blogs or go to our picture site on the web (hmmm...I should put those links in the card as well. Aw shucks.)

May you summon the resources to get your cards sent out as well!!

Snow Flurries in Reno

2006-11-28T08:42:00.000-08:00

First off, go here to see some new photos I've posted from October. Coming soon, photos from November!

I was in the middle of several small snow flurries as I drove to work this morning. It's really weird how these flurries work. You can have blue skies directly overhead, but there will little snowflakes blowing all around you.

These same blowing flakes were present last night when we made a family trip to Costco. It was basically an excuse to have a cheap and easy dinner (pizza and hot dogs - woohoo!!) but we managed to spend $100 on other stuff as well. It's all stuff that we need and use, but we're normally lucky if we get out of that place for less than $200. This was a small trip.

Costco is fun at 7:00 in the evening because it's virtually empty. There was a guy demonstrating a karaoke machine. He was just singing away the whole time we were there...slightly out of tune. He let Irene and Rhys have a go at it and all they did was giggle and laugh.

We moseyed through the store, looked at new wireless phones for our house (they had better deals through their website), bought some food items that we needed, perused potential Christmas gift ideas, and then sped through the checkout which had NO line. That's my idea of a great trip to Costco - no lines!!!

I think the reason Costco was virtually empty was because it was miserably cold outside. We stepped out of the store and into the wind and the blowing snowflakes. Irene tried to catch some of the flakes on her tongue, but since they were blowing sideways it was a bit tricky. We threw all of our Costco swag into the car and sped back to our warm house.

It's supposed to be colder today. The high will be around 35. The low tonight should be in the teens. My Prius is performing nicely in the cold weather. The mileage has suffered a bit. I'm down around 48.5 mpg instead of my usual 52 or 53. Still not too bad.

Stay warm wherever you are!!!

Windy in Reno

2006-11-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

Man, it is REALLY windy out there today!!! I know because I went out to do some geocaching at lunch and almost got blown away. Why would I go out and brave the tumbleweeds blowing across the roads? Because there are less people out braving the elements and I don't have to be quite so stealthy in the places that normally have more human traffic.

Lately, I've been doing more geocaching during my lunch hour at work because it's been so slow. I can take a longer lunch than usual and do lots of hunting. Today, I ventured out towards Arrow Creek, a posh neighborhood in the highlands at the foot of Mt. Rose. I would definitely like to live up there some day. The views are nice and there are lots of places to hike and bike.

Two of the caches I found were along a little creek (Thomas Creek, I believe) that was just babbling away for all it was worth. As I was walking back to my car, I came over a little rise and was suddenly face-to-face with a massive dog. I froze for a moment, trying to determine its intentions, when thankfully its owner came walking up. In tow, she had ANOTHER massive dog. Turns out they were Great Danes and they were very friendly. Once I walked over to them they were practically begging me for attention. They had absolutely beautiful markings; one was a marbled black and white and the other was a marbled brown and black (I believe these are known as a brindle coats.) The owner and I chatted briefly and then I went on my way.

150 Geocaches Found!

2006-11-17T14:38:00.000-08:00

I've been busy lately - trying to beat the winter weather and get as many geocaches as I can.

Disneyland Recap - Part Deux

2006-11-17T08:51:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the wait, but a trip to Las Vegas for the gaming show put a kink in the plans for a quick day-two Disneyland recap. Now I have some time so here goes...

We awoke bright and early on Friday, got everyone showered and dressed, and headed out towards Downtown Disney. We stopped in at the Rainforest Cafe for a nice breakfast. The Rainforest Cafe is (surprise!) decorated like a rainforest, complete with fish tanks, trees and vines, and thunder, lightning, and 'rain' (actually only the sound of rain) that goes off every fifteen minutes or so. Near our table we also had an animatronic gorilla that would shake a bush and beat his chest every once in a while. The kids thought it was neat the first couple of times and then grew tired of it.

After we ate we dashed into Disneyland. Holy cow, there were a lot of people! We got in fairly quickly and headed down Main Street. I stopped by the shop that does the little cut-out silhouettes so I could get the kids' profiles done. It was just my luck that I was stuck behind the Brady Bunch who were getting profiles done of each kid...three times!!! We waited, and waited, and waited...and then waited some more. Rhys and Irene were very patient and finally we got our chance. Their silhouettes turned out nicely, thank you.

While I was doing that, the rest of the crew went into Frontierland to check out a store near the Pirates of the Caribbean. The kids and I pushed through the crowds and eventually found Kristen, my mom and dad sitting on a small island in the sea of people. The line for Pirates of the Caribbean was HUGE and was getting even HUGER by the second. I've never seen such a crowd. Only an idiot would wait in such a long line!!

We evaluated our options and decided that we would check out It's a Small World. It was opening that day after being closed for quite some time while it was decorated for Christmas. We knew there would be a long line but figured that we would give it a shot anyhow. When we arrived, we found that it had broken down and they were turning people away. We decided to wait it out, and hopefully if it opened we would be able to rush over and be among the first in line. While we waited, our friends Judy, Dustin and their daughter Abby met up with us. They were staying at a nearby hotel and it had taken them something like an hour just to drive a half mile and get into the parking garage. Crazy!!

It's a Small World finally opened and were indeed among the first to get in line. We hopped in our boat, cruised inside...and it was strangely quiet. No music. All we could hear was the clicking and clacking of all the mechanical parts. About halfway through the music finally kicked in. We we got back to the dock, the cast member said we could go through again since we didn't get to hear all of the music. So, as the folks waiting in line glared at us, we circled around again!! It was very fun to see it all decked out for Christmas and to hear carols instead of 'It's A Small World'.

Our next plan of attack was to leave Disneyland and head over to California Adventure. The crowds were big there too, but not quite as bad as Disneyland. We headed over to Soarin' Over California to get Fast Passes so we could come back later. Irene really wanted to ride on it with her Grammie and Gramps. It was about 12:30 and the return time for the Fast Passes was between 6:00 and 7:00 in the evening. Ugh!

Since it was past lunchtime, we walked over to the Fisherman's Wharf area and got some lunch. We had to wait in super long lines just to get some food, but it wasn't too bad. After lunch, it was obvious that Rhys was wiped out and needed a rest, so he and I went back to the room along with Irene and my dad. The rest of the crew went back to Disneyland to do more shopping.

Rhys fell asleep in the stroller on the way to the room. When we got there, I put him on the bed and asked my dad to keep an eye on him while Irene and I went to the pool. The pool at the Paradise Pier has a cool water slide. Irene went on it several times by herself while I hung out in the main pool. The water was warm, but the temperature outside was cooling down so it was a real bummer to have to get out!

After our water hijinks we headed back to the room. Rhys was starting to stir so I thought we'd be heading back to the park soon. Well, it turns out that the stomach flu was still lingering and Rhys was not feeling very well. Hmmm.... He went back to sleep and I called Kristen to let her know the status. Irene was anxious to go back to California Advenure. So....Kristen, Judy, Dustin and Abby came back to the room to hang out with Rhys. My mom waited in Downtown Disney (so she wouldn't have to walk) while my dad, Irene and I went back to meet her.

The four of us (me, Irene, my mom and dad) went back to California Adventure to use our Fast Pass on Soarin' Over California. The wait wasn't long and the ride was wonderful. I think my folks enjoyed it tremendously so it was worth the wait. Irene, who had ridden it before, loved it as well.

Earlier in the day we had made dinner reservations for the WHOLE group. Since our group was now only four people (the rest of the gang were eating dinner in the room) we went over to the restaurant and informed them that we would be needing a smaller table. Since we still had some time to kill before dinner, Irene and I tried to bang out another ride. She chose the Jumpin' Jellyfish ride, which basically just lifts you up really high and then lowers you down. Pretty tame but it fit the bill for Irene just fine. My folks sat this one out and after we finished the ride we went to dinner.

I had told Irene that after dinner I would stay with her at the park as long as she wanted. I felt bad that the huge crowds had kept us from riding lots of rides so I wanted to make it up to her. She thought that was a great idea.

We ordered our food, Irene took a few bites, and then proceeded to fall asleep with her head on the table. Not even ice cream would wake her up. She was wiped out!!! My folks and I finished our food and then I scooped up Irene and we walked back to the hotel. Irene weighs about 55 pounds but she felt like 100 as we slowly meandered back. How I wished we had the stroller!! We finally made it back to the hotel and the two kids (and their parents) slept soundly.

We woke up the next day, packed up and checked out, and started our long trek back to Lodi. The kids were feeling much better so there were no unfortunate 'incidents' in the car on the way back. We spent the night at my parents' house and then drove from Lodi to Sparks the next day. The highlight of the drive was stopping at Donner Summit on I-80 and playing in the freshly fallen snow!! The kids hadn't brought any snow clothes, so we improvised by putting socks on Rhys' hands. They threw snowballs, built snow creatures, and had a great time. I tromped off through the snow on a trail off of the rest area to grab a geocache. Everyone was happy!!

So there you have it. Kristen's blog has photos so go there if you want more visuals. I'm tired of typing for the moment so I'll send a recap of the gaming show in Vegas sometime next week.

Have a good weekend!!!

Disneyland Recap - Part One

2006-11-13T14:25:00.000-08:00

The Disneyland trip is in the books and we all survived...barely. It was an interesting trip, but in the end everyone had a great time despite the bumps in the road. Here are the highlights:

We left late on Tuesday afternoon to drive down to my folks' house in Lodi. I guess I should backtrack a bit and start with Monday morning. As with any long trip involving children, this one started with an illness. After I left for work on Monday morning, Rhys promptly came down with a serious bout of the stomach flu. He spent most of the day either on the potty, with his head in a bowl or sleeping. Not fun. I returned home from work at 6:00 and he was still feeling pretty lousy. We got him into bed close to 10:00 and were hoping that he would feel better in the morning, when Irene walked into the room and pronounced that she wasn't feeling well. After we fetched her a bowl she refunded her dinner and Kristen and I could only hope things would be better in the morning. She slept with Rhys and Irene slept in our bed with me (although to say Kristen and I slept would be a great exaggeration.) The next morning the kids seemed to be doing better, but little did we know that this would be a recurring theme for the trip.

We arrived in Lodi in the early evening, had some dinner and put the kids to bed. They passed out pretty quickly because whatever their bodies were fighting had made them pretty tired.

We awoke on Wednesday morning and got on I-5 for the long drive to Anaheim. Things were going pretty well until Rhys christened my new car with the McDonald's pancakes he had eaten shortly before. Actually, Kristen's computer bore the brunt of the damage (it survived) and thankfully the kids had a blanket over them. We turned off at the nearest gas station (which was miles down the road) and cleaned up Rhys, the computer and the car seat.

The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful save for the interesting odor in the car. Traffic was relatively light approaching Anaheim and we arrived at our hotel at around 5:00.

We stayed at the Paradise Pier hotel adjacent to Disneyland. One side of the hotel overlooks California Adventure and the other side overlooks the pool. I assumed our rooms would look out over the pool since I hadn't paid the extra for a 'view' room. To my surprise, our room and my parents' room (we were next to each other) BOTH looked out over California Adventure!! WOW!! We could see quite a bit of the park including California Screamin' (the big roller coaster) and the Boardwalk area. The kids' faces were glued to the window and they perked up immediately.

We headed down to the cafe for dinner. Rhys took a turn for the worse so Kristen took him up to the room and I got her dinner 'to go'. The rest of us had a nice meal and we headed upstairs to turn in for the evening.

The next morning we once again went down to the cafe for breakfast. I had forgotten that the cafe did a character breakfast so we pleasantly surprised to see Lilo, Stitch, Minnie Mouse, Pluto and Daisy Duck wandering around. The kids were delighted and many pictures were taken.

The next order of business was to make the relatively short walk into Disneyland. The weather was pleasant and the crowds were light. We got through the entrance gates and were delighted to see that the whole park was decorated for Christmas! There were wreaths and Poinsettias everywhere. They even had a GIANT Christmas tree at the beginning of Main Street. Very cool.

We hit Pirates of the Caribbean first and practically walked right on. Irene decided she wasn't quite ready to go on it so she stayed outside with Gramps. Kristen, Pat, Rhys and I rode together. Rhys was a little apprehensive, but I think he enjoyed it. All of the additions based on the recent movies were pretty cool.

Next we went to Fantasyland where we rode Peter Pan and the Carousel. Then we went over to Tomorrowland where Kristen, Bob, Irene and Rhys rode on the rockets that spin around (I can't remember what they're called.) While they did that, my mom and I waited and snacked on a fruit tray.

After the rocket ride, Irene started feeling lousy so she and Kristen headed off for the hotel for a breather. The rest of us started heading to Toon Town. Along the way, I got a call from Kristen. She had left her wallet with me and wante to meet near Alice in Wonderland so she could retrieve it. At some point on the way to meet us, Irene rallied and decided she didn't feel so bad. So, instead of going back to the hotel, Kristen and Irene came with us to Toon Town!

After spending some time in Toon Town, we tried to catch the train that goes around the park...but it was broken down. Hmmmm..... We decided to head over to the Haunted Mansion, but Irene insisted that she would rather ride Alice in Wonderland. Soooo...Kristen, Bob and Rhys headed for the Haunted Mansion while Irene, Pat and I got in line for Alice. By the time we finished our ride and made it over to the Haunted Mansion, they had JUST gotten off. It just so happened that we were by the train station in Frontierland and it was now operational. So, we hopped on the train and took a ride around the park. It was also a good opportunity to rest for a little while.

After we made one trip around the park, we got off the train and made our way to the Tiki Room. After hearing the birds sing words and seeing the flowers croon, we split up again. Bob, Pat and the kids went on the Jungle Cruise while Kristen and I went on the Haunted Mansion. Every year around Halloween they completely make over the Haunted Mansion to the theme of 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. It has a Halloween/Christmas feel to it. If you've ever seen the movie then you know what I mean. Everything, and I mean everything, inside and out is re-done. There's Jack Skellington, Zero and other characters from the movie all over the place. I think it was definitely one of my favorite rides on this trip.

We met back up with Bob and Pat and made our way to a Mexican cafe for dinner. Afterwards, Kristen and I hopped onto Big Thunder Mountain Railroad which had just re-opened after being broken down. The line was short so we rode quickly while Bob and Pat watched the kids.

Next, we wandered over to the parade route and got a nice spot on a bench along the parade route. We still had about an hour to kill before the start of the parade, so Kristen and I ran over to Space Mountain and Rhys and my dad went over to ride on the paddle wheeler. Irene and my mom waited and saved our really good seats.

Space Mountain was awesome, especially since they've refurbished it and made it faster and darker. They've added some rockin' music as well that adds to the experience.

We made it back in plenty of time to watch the fantastic parade. Afterwards, we staggered back to our hotel and the kids passed out. Then, while my mom sat in our room and the kids slept, Kristen and I ran back to the park to go on more rides. We hit Splash Mountain (where Kristen sat in the front and got drenched), Indiana Jones and Space Mountain (again!) We also scoped out some of the stores.

We got back to the hotel at around 11:00, thanked my mom profusely for babysitting, and then collapsed!!!

Stay tuned for Day Two....

Vote!

2006-11-07T12:55:00.000-08:00

I went and cast my ballot on the way to work this morning. Our polling place is at the fire station about a quarter mile from our house. I like to vote on election day even though they have early voting here in Nevada. It just seems more exciting doing it that way.

What wasn't was the big crowd rushing to vote early in the morning. I've never had to wait in a line like that. It wasn't too bad (I've heard stories of much worse) but it was a bigger crowd than I've ever seen when going to vote. The area where we live is growing rapidly so that might have something to do with it. Or maybe it's the overall interest in this particular election. Or maybe it was just the right time of day with everyone trying to vote on the way to work. More likely it was a 'perfect storm' of all three things coming together at once.

Anyhow, I touched the screen on the electronic voting machine and voted for the people and things I wanted to vote for. The poll workers were helpful, the folks waiting to vote were patient, and all of the electronic voting machines seemed to be working properly. The only problem was that there wasn't enough parking at the fire station for all of the voters!! Those pesky fire trucks, which had been pulled out of the firehouse to make room for the voting to happen, were taking up several precious parking spaces in the driveway. The nerve of them!!

Oh BTW, I had my one-year performance review here at IGT today. I got very good feedback from my bosses and a little bump in my salary. Not bad!

We're off to Disneyland today.

Up For a Breath of Air

2006-10-31T09:41:00.000-08:00

Things have gotten crazy here at work with the impending Global Gaming Expo. This is a huge show for the casino gaming world where manufacturers show off their latest products. I'm working on several games that IGT is exhibiting at the show so I've been busy. Lots of last minute tweaks, reviews, more tweaks, meetings, etc... But, it's all coming together so I'm looking forward to the payoff of being able to see these completed games at the convention.

That's right, I get to GO to the convention. A whole group of folks from our group is flying down to Vegas for a day trip. We'll spend a couple of hours looking at our games as well as the competitors' games, and then we'll goof around. I fly down at 8am and my return flight is at 8pm. It should be lots of fun. Our group is all hooking up for dinner at Gordon Biersch before we fly back so we should all be in a good mood before we hop on the plane!

The weather has chilled considerably here. It was 28 degrees out when I got in the car this morning. I purchased chains for my Prius the other day. We're driving down to Disneyland next week so I needed to have them in case there's snow over the pass. I got these cool Spider-Spike chains that are good for a Prius because the tires don't have much clearance. They're also super-easy to put on so we won't have to pay one of the chain monkeys to do it for us.

I've gotten my weight down to around 187 or 188. It was in the 186 range for a day and then it went up. I blame it on the Halloween candy that has appeared in our house. I started at 196 and I'm trying to get down to 180. I know, I know...it's not a huge amount of weight to lose. But I have a big frame so if I get down below 180 I start to look emaciated.

That's all I have time for right now. Stay tuned for a trip report from Disneyland as well as a recap of the hijinks in Las Vegas.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!