The highness of the sky

After a MUCH needed sleep-in, the kids and I saw Sky High today. It's a pretty funny movie if you don't go in expecting too much. Lots of comic book cliches and general silliness that kept me laughing. The kids liked the movie, though Darby says it wasn't that funny. I disagree. I think in a few years she'll get more of the jokes and agree with me.


In other thoughts, it's SO great to be back in the land of "cheap" gas. When I left OKC, gas was $2.16, but now it's a surprising $2.07. I can't believe I'm calling that cheap, but it beats the $2.44 average over the duration of the trip by a significant margin.

Good to be not-away

While I can't say I was home-sick or eager to get back to work, it's definitely good to be not-elsewhere. There's something soothingly comfortable about familiarity and non-requisite mobile-living. Especially when considering the nearly mind-boggling stats:

• 4,145 miles traveled since we left, twelve days prior


• 71 hours 19 minutes "on the road" (includes rest stops, doesn't include sleep stops)


• 57 hours, 20 minutes of actual driving time (all stops factored out)


• 24 gas stops at a cost greater than $420 (Average MPG: 24)


• Major Trip Highlights (since not all the blog entries are complete, edited, and posted yet): Disneyland, Giants game, San Francisco touristy stuff, Aquarium on the Bay, the beach and boardwalk of Santa Cruz, Mt. Lemmon, Meteor Crater, and lots of family visiting in four different cities.


• Photos taken: 692 (some of which will be here soon)

Hotel switcheroo (six hours to go)

My gradmother leaves for work at 5:30am, so I had her wake us up to say goodbye and give us an early start for our departure. Even then, while I targeted an 8am departure, I secretly hoped to get out of there at 7am instead. That didn't happen. Eight it was.

A few days earlier, I decided to forego the quicker southern route home (via I-10/I-25/I-40 -- ~1000 miles) in favor of the longer northern route (via I-10/I-17/I-40 -- ~1170 miles) so that I could take the girls to Petrified Forest National Park. The trouble was timing. As our journey was coninually delayed by things like 9:30am Phoenix traffic (didn't think about that), and a longer than expected lunch break in Flagstaff (Shelby was being slower than usual eating), I was losing hope in being able to make our window.

On the fly I decided to take the kids to see Meteor Crater instead. It was closer and I didn't feel it would adversely impact the trip schedule as much as the PF would have. I think it was a good decision, as the girls could understand "big rock fall from sky, make big hole" better than my poor explaination of what petrified wood was and how it got that way. Plus there was a nifty museum filled with interesting info and some interactive exhibits for the kiddos. We'll have to hit the PF next time around.

Our timing was so off that I had to cancel the hotel reservation I had made for Amarillo, as it would have been after 4am before we arrived, leaving not so much sleep time before check-out. Via my travel service (who were kind enough to not charge me for the cancellation post-deadline) I had a reservation set for Tucumcari, New Mexico instead. It's only just over two hours closer, but those will become much needed sleeping hours.

The bad news? After all this freakin' time I still have six hours to drive before we're home. Ugh.

Multigenerational photo op

Today's main goal was getting photos made with the girls and their great-grandmother. That went pretty well. Though she wanted me in the pictures, too, so there would be three generations in the pic. Anyway, I paid for the pictures and grandma will pick them up in three weeks when they're ready and I'm long gone.

After pictures we had a big family dinner with all the aunts and cousins so that we could say farewell as we will be leaving early in the morning. We were out a lot later than expected, and then I learned that I left my key to grandmas house in my pre-photo-taking pants, so I had to wake up grandma to let me in.

I had Darby smack me in the face for being so stupid. She liked that a lot.


UPDATE, 22 AUG 2005
See the album for the photo (labeled "The Family, July 2005").

A day for visiting

Today was mostly a visiting day. We visited our aunts, uncles, and many cousins, including our newest cousin we'd not previously seen, as she was born in March. The girls hadn't seen everyone since our trip out here in 2003, but I had seen them last October when I was here briefly.

After all the visiting, I took my grandmother to dinner so we could spend some dedicated time with her.

Must... drive... more

Alas our time in California had concluded. I had to get on the road yet again for another all-day drive. We left Mountain View just after eight this morning, and just got into Tucson a short while ago. And again I am sans broadband (not that I've been able to get online much when I've had it). Grandma (with whom we are staying) has no broadband, and very few phone jacks at her place. I am simply going to have to seek out a wi-fi free-spot soon. We have a few days here in Arizona before we have to head back to the middle (of the country). While today's drive was quite tedious, I absolutely dread the drive back (though going AZ to OK is better than CA to OK).

Beach burn

Today was beach day. The one thing the girls would not have forgiven if we missed it, was going to the beach while we were in California. Back in 2002, they spent all day at the beach on the Atlantic coast, and they've been bugging me ever since to go back. Today they got to take a dip in the ocean on the Pacific coast, but first we had to get there. One thing I did not realize was that the bay area really had no beaches to speak of. What everybody does if they're so inclined is drive thirty minutes south to Santa Cruz, where there's a nice beach, lots of parking, and a boardwalk with rides and games. However, there's only one route in or out of Santa Cruz, which makes traffic somewhat of a deterrent to going. We got up early and headed down there, so traffic wasn't quite terrible, though we hit the awful traffic on the way back.

The beach itself was pretty nice (it's been since I was ten that I've been to the Pacific Ocean), though crowded. The water was cold, but the girls endured (I just took pictures). And we all got a nice dose of sunburn. I didn't put on any sunblock, so I got what I deserved, but we put sunblock on the girls, and while Shelby didn't burn, Darby got nice and crispy on her back.

Probably one of the coolest sights was seeing dolphins (or maybe they were porpoises) and sea lions in the wild. Early on in the morning, a pair of dolphins swam up and down the coast for maybe thirty minutes. They got REALLY close to shore, maybe within thirty feet, so we got a nice good view of them. Later we walked out to the end of the wharf and saw the sea lions sleeping on the rafters underneath.

After doing a few rides, everyone was tired and hungry so we fought traffic to get back to the bay area for dinner. Minus the burning sensation, it was quite the nice day.

City by the bay

San Francisco is fairly cool town. Not sure I'd want to live there, but it's a hoot to visit. We spent the whole day in SF today, mostly walking around and taking in the view down along fisherman's wharf, looking out into the bay, etc. We hung around pier 39 and visited the Aquarium on the Bay, which was very neat. First, there are two tunnels you walk through (called "Under the Bay"), one with sea-life found in the bay, the other with sharks, both of which are very neat. Then there is a "Touch the Bay" area where you can touch sharks, rays, and star fish. The girls got a big ol' kick out of that.

We decided to walk all the way across the wharf to the cable car stop, so the girls could experience the original San Francisco treat. But there was an hour wait (minimum) when we got there. We went ahead and waited while six or seven cable cars filled up and moved out, until finally we were next. And we waited. And waited. And... waited. What gives(?) we asked the operator. He told us that there was apparently a major accident on the city streets and that all cable car operations were suspended temporarily. So we waited another 45 minutes or so until I made a command decision to go elsewhere.

It was disappointing for the girls to have missed that, though we did have them sit in a cable car for a photo op. However it was more frustrating that we burned all that daylight for nothing. And that's why I decided to throw in the towel. By that point the sun was on its way down, you could feel the cool breeze coming off the bay, and our jackets were on the other side of the wharf in the car trunk. I knew if we stayed and waited much longer that everyone would start getting cold.

So we walked back to the car for jackets and jeans and then went to eat. Parking would have cost $30, but if we got our parking validated at one of a few places, it would have saved us $12. So we went to the San Francisco Hard Rock Cafe for a nice, non-quiet dinner that also saved on parking. By the time we got out of there, we knew we needed to get out of town, because there was a ballgame about to end and we wanted to beat the game traffic. Well, we almost made it. The Giants got stomped, so many people left early, leaving us stuck in traffic quite a while. We probably could have stayed longer and waited for the traffic to die down, but then again it was a Saturday night in the bay area. Plus the girls were pretty beat by that point from all the walking (and they wonder why I made them wear sneakers instead of flip-flops).

Considering how long we waited in traffic, we contemplated splitting up the group, with half of us taking the post-game express train, just to see who would get back to Mountain View first.

Bay area bliss (with a bad start)

About the worst feeling you can have when on vacation is when your burglar alarm company calls you to tell you your alarm has gone off and that they've dispatched the police. I can't tell you enough how crappy I felt when I got the call at 7am California time.

I eventually got the police on the phone and learned they cleared house, so apparently it was a false alarm. My father also went by and checked inside and out. I was relieved, but also puzzled, because that was my first ever non-self-induced false alarm. And the fact that it was a motion sensor that was tripped... strange stuff. Not that I'm complaining. False-alarm good. Real-alarm bad. Especially when on vacation, a thousand plus miles away.


After we got up and settled, I finally got broadband back. Our hosts (my children's aunt, or my ex-sister-in-law, and her husband) have DSL, so I'm finally able to catch up on posts. Most were composed or outlined offline and finished once I got connectivity back. Others may still come late as we are still quite busy.

Anyway, once we got on with the day, I took the kids to a nearby lake with a fantastic view of the mountains (I guess thus the name of the town). We had lunch at the lakeside cafe, did paddleboats for an hour, and played at the park. I (truthfully) told the kids if we lived here, we'd visit that place all the time. It also had a bike/skate trail we were unable to make use of, and in addition to renting paddleboats, you could rent actual sail boats and take lessons. Definitely a place I'd like to visit more.

But all of this was basically to occupy ourselves while our hosts, who are not on vacation, worked. We met them later in the day to pursue our real plans.

Our plans involved catching an express train into San Francisco, only that train departed the station as we watched. It's a short walk from where we were staying to the train station, but we didn't walk fast enough, so we had to catch a non-express train (MANY more stops) ten minutes later. It worked out okay, though, as we still made it to our destination just in time.

The destination was SBC Park (formerly Pacific Bell Park), home of the Giants. We watched a very good game (Giants won, having come back from behind), ate the requisite garlic fries, and experienced the real San Francisco in the form of 39,000+ screaming fans. Our seats were right among the drunk hecklers, so there are many stories to tell (oh the silly things drunk people do) that I'll save for another day. I also have some good pics that will be posted later. One thing I will say is that I got Darby in a little trouble. I sent her down to the outfield wall to bug an outfielder for a ball after he warmed up. She was told shortly thereafter by an usher that she couldn't be there. I only had her do that because earlier the outfielder threw the ball to a kid not fifteen feet from us in the stands. She didn't let me hear the end of it after that.

Stadium pics have been posted to the Picasa album.

After the game we booked to the train station and this time caught the express train back (only 7 stops, less than half). We made it back in very good time, to conclude an excellent day (considering how it started) in the bay (area).

Another day bites the (driving) dust

As if another day of driving was what I needed, it's what I took on today. It started with a short drive from Anaheim to Long Beach, where we had breakfast with relatives I hadn't seen since 1976. We spent a couple hours with them after breakfast, exchanged stories and photos, and promised to stop by the next time we were in town. It was a very good visit, and I'm glad we took the time.

Then we had to go BACK to Anaheim, to the hotel to be specific, because, though I asked the girls three times to make sure they didn't forget anything, I then went and forgot something... my digital camera charger and battery that were still plugged into the wall. Ugh.

That act alone hurt us with our standing in terms of traffic. I feel if we were able to leave from Long Beach, we would have made better time. Instead, what should have been a two hour drive to Ventura became a four hour drive, mostly due to what seemed to be inexcusable traffic.

Once we finally got to Ventura, the city my father was born in, the first thing we did was visit the cemetery. My great-grandfather, veteran of both world wars (who died before I was born), and my great-grandmother, who died when I was 14, are both buried there, and having been too young to go to the funeral at the time of my Nana's death, this was my first visit to her grave. I also took the opportunity to introduce my children to their great-great-grandparents, by telling them of my memories of Nana. Darby traced the letters of Nana's headstone, we paid our respects, and left (having to cut our visit short because the cemetery was closing.

We drove down the street to visit my great-aunt, who just recently turned 82, and who's health is not exactly holding steady. It's likely that was both the first and last time she would meet my children. But we took several pictures together, and I will send her copies. It will be a couple years minimum before we're out this way again, so hopefully she'll be around for another, longer visit.

We needed to get on the road again. We had at least another six, probably more like seven or eight, hour drive ahead of us. Our next destination was Mountain View, just outside San Francisco. When considering that we left the hotel in Anaheim (the first time) at 8am, and that it was 12:30am before we finally made it to the bay area, it had been quite the exhausting day.

1,813 miles traveled to date, though this is as far West as we get. Everything else will be "on the way back" so to speak. But don't be fooled, I estimate a 3,700 mile round trip on the short side. We still have a couple more days of driving and three more days of visiting to do in a whole other state.

Did I mention that gas prices suck? They were $2.16 in OK when we left. Here in Montain View they are $2.74. It's been mostly on the high side (above $2.50) the whole way here.

Fourteen hours of themepark hell ("Happiest Place on Earth" my butt)

As I told the girls last night, this was Disneyland day. I told them we had absolutely nothing else planned, and that we would stay the whole day if everyone could take it. However, it is supposed to be vacation, so we did slept in a bit. We made it to the park by ten, though, and most of the delay was due to shuttle waiting. Little did I know that we'd be there another fourteen hours, until the place closed, at midnight.

As noted, we caught the shuttle from our hotel so we wouldn't have to deal with parking and getting out of that place when it was over. That was mostly a good idea. However, I had planned on catching the second-to-last shuttle back at the latest, to avoid a rush, but that intent was not fulfilled. We got to the shuttle stop just as the second-to-last shuttle was pulling away. After a 15-minute wait, the LAST shuttle pulled in, and it was standing-shuttle-only. Plus we waited there many minutes to give others the chance to make the shuttle.

So have you seen what it costs to get into Disneyland these days? A bundle. For the girls and I it was $148. Yes, just to get in. Then we spent $65 to eat (2 meals for 3 people), and more than $100 on "stuff" (hey, I didn't want to short-change them on their first visit to DL). So it was a $326+ day, or more than $23/hr, for us. Your results may vary. On the plus side I was able to execute the day cashless. I forgot to hit the ATM just before the trip so I've had little cash. Thus far it hasn't hurt me too much.

The first thing we did at Disneyland was Space Mountain. Shelby doesn't like rollercoasters or fast rides, but I had to explain before hand that we had to be fair about the rides and do things both her and her sister liked, not just slow rides all day. I also expressed that I couldn't leave Disney and in good spirits tell everyone I DIDN'T have my kids experience Space Mountain. Plus it's not like I can leave Shelby behind while I ride with Darby, so... Anyway, Shelby was VERY scared of Space Mountain, and was screaming just before we left the "dock", so the guy stopped the ride and asked if she needed to get off. I explained to Shelby that we waited in line for 70+ minutes, hopefully not to just look at the ride. So she went through with it, and afterwards said she liked it, but that she didn't want to do anymore fast rides.

Speaking of lines... of the fourteen hours we were there, if you told me we spent half that time in lines, I wouldn't be surprised. The line situation was pretty bad. About six hours into the day, we hadn't done all that much (comparatively) and I was starting to worry. There are several "towns" at Disney (i.e. Toon Town, Frontier Land, Tomorrowland, etc) and we'd only been to two of them at that point. We did eventually catch up, and covered each of the areas. While we didn't do ALL the rides, we did get to most of the marquee titles (tea cups, small world, space mountain, pirates, etc). And of course, the kids met Mickey. For you long-time-no-Disney types, there's a new Buzz Lightyear shoot-em-up ride your kids will like.





Shelby may hate me for the rest of her life if she remembers her Splash Mountain experience beyond this trip. We neglected to inform her that the cool and refreshing water ride had a 50-foot drop at the end. She's very upset about that one.

A couple of tips for you prospective Disney go-ers... bring empty water bottles and fill them up at the plentiful number of water fountains. That'll save you $3.75 a pop for water. BEFORE you get to the park, buy each kid one of those portable AA-battery mini-fans. Once you're in the park, they're $10 each. Also, bring a mini spray bottle or two, maybe one for each kid ($0.93 at wal-mart). If they can spray themselves down to cool off while in line, they'll gripe less. Lastly, if you eat for three solid days before you hit the park, you can probably save a bundle on food. :)

So we just got back to the hotel, and all of us are beat tired. In the end, and despite our difficulties, the girls had a blast and were quite happy to have gotten to have the Disney experience. We have to leave town again already tomorrow and the cruel joke is on me. I cannot go to bed, as I must plan for tomorrow's driving route.

No Turning Back

Some thoughts from the road...


Flagstaff
The drive to this point was tedious, but once we woke up and decided to keep driving West instead of East, we sealed our car-ride-sore-butt-fates. So, there's no turning back now. One thing I will say about Flagstaff, though, is it's a beautiful place. Very beautiful. Not knowing much else about it, I'd definitely enjoy living there had my life taken a compatible course.

Mountain-fornia
California is way more mountainous than I remember. Ridiculously so. In fact, it's almost completely mountains (obviously except for certain coasts and valleys. Have I mentioned that I don't like to drive in the mountains? I can tolerate day time mountain driving. But night time mountain driving sucks big time (fortunately today was day time mountain driving).

How about that heat?
Driving through the Southern California desert, I watched my car's external temperature reading reach a whopping 114 degrees. Darby complained at one point that she wanted her windows rolled down so she could feel the breeze. I had to explain that I rolled them up some time before because I noticed the temperature was climbing rapidly, and that she should consider that her face might melt off if I were to have rolled it down at that point.

Barstowming (third grade full circle)
We rolled into Barstow, California with three agenda items: Fuel, Food, and... well, okay, two agenda items, but while we were there, I figured it wouldn't be entirely a waste of time to go looking for my old elementary school. Yes, folks, Shawn used to live here in the desert of California. My mother, step-father (a Marine), sister, and I moved to Barstow (the location of a Marine Logistics Base) when I was half-way through kindergarten. I finished out my kindergarten year and also attended first grade at what I remember to be Cameron Elementary, though I couldn't find it (probably my memory sucks). However, I did find Montara Elementary, where I attended second and third grade. What's cool about this scenario is that Darby has just finished her third grade year, so I thought it would be easier for her to relate to my story. I explained how we moved away from Barstow during the summer after third grade, and that this was the first time I had been back to this place since that time. I asked her to imagine, as we were far from home, not going back to Oklahoma until she was 31. Her eyes got pretty wide at that thought.

Unfortunately while we were there, a pretty big thunderstorm blew through. We got soaked just walking form the car into the local McDonald's for lunch, and it ruined the photos of my old school.

Bad traffic timing (that could have been worse)
We got into the LA metro area right around rush hour. Man, it's crazy zipping up and over and around the bends at those speeds with so many cars around. I hated it. Not being much of a speeder (the vast majority of the trip I didn't go over five from the speed limit), it was quite stressful just trying to keep "out of the way" on I-5/I-10. I had to go 89 in a 65 at times, just to avoid possible death. It was mad craziness, and never once did I see a "Chip". But it certainly could have been worse. The traffic in the opposite direction was at a stand-still for as far as the eye could see at one point (five lanes of traffic stuck on a steep mountain incline... ugh).

DDD
We did Downtown Disney for Dinner. Our hotel is less than five minutes from the theme parks and entertainment district. We checked out the shops and had some Rainforest Café for dinner. Yummy on the tummy (but not the wallet).

The truth (about Disney) comes out
I used the dinner setting to break the news to the girls. You see, I use information strategically when it comes to the kids knowing what's going on in a given scenario, and it just so happens that, even though we had just walked through Downtown Disney, they had no clue we were scheduled to spend an entire day at Disneyland the next day. You should have seen their faces light up when I let them in on the surprise.

Broadbandless (No Live-Blogging the Vay-Kay)
I've chosen poorly. In this day and age, I CAN NOT BELIEVE OR POSSIBLY FATHOM EVEN IN THE SLIGHTEST a hotel NOT having broadband internet service available to its guests. No wireless, I can deal with, but no broadband even? That's so telegraph-era. My broadband-spoiled butt couldn't stand but five minutes of dial-up speeds, so I'll not be doing much same-day blogging for this portion of the trip. Sorry.

The stats
Here are the Oklahoma to California travel stats: 24 hours 22 minutes "on the road" time (doesn't count hotel sleep/get ready time, about ten hours), 19 hours 8 minutes of actual drive time to cover 1,338 miles from Del City to Anaheim. Can't say I enjoyed it, but it was definitely cheaper than the seven to nine hundred dollars I would have paid to fly us out here (and then there's the rental car).

Are we there yet?

I am so ready to be not awake. After fifteen hours and thirty-nine minutes on the road, I could use some shut-eye.

We had to make it to Flagstaff tonight, because I made hotel reservations ahead of time (which required 24 hr notice to cancel or I'd get charged anyway). I made reservations because of too many experiences in the past of getting to a town and having to stop five times or even drive on to the next town before finding a place with rooms. In this case, the front desk lady tells me that they've been selling out every night lately and that tonight they were down to two rooms. But she said had I not had the reservations, I would have paid more (I guess the price goes up when supply is short).

Not too much eventful occured on the road thus far. The kids did lose their "fun packs" (backpacks with coloring books, books, toys, MP3 players, and DVD players) for a 175 mile segment due to a bit too much parental non-compliance at a rest stop.

I did have to stop for a power nap about 429 miles into the 872 miles we've traveled so far. I was delayed in my packing efforts last night, which put me a couple hours behind in sleep, which aslo put us a couple hours behind on departure time. Anyway, I was feeling very heavy-eyed, so I pulled into rest stop, had the girls listen to their music players, while I got exactly fifteen minutes of sleep. And it's amazing how far that went. Once I got up, I felt completely refreshed, and didn't have a single feeling of sleepiness the rest of the way. Now once we got to the room and I was able to relax, all that tiredness came rushing back, but those power naps (defined as an "intense" napping experience of less than 20-minutes) really do work.

Looking over the ledge (it's finally here)

I spent almost the ENTIRE weekend packing (and am not done yet). I dread these cross-country drives, but finally, the trip to California is upon us. We were going to leave on Friday, but we stayed so that Darby could participate in her softball trophy presentations. I think she's glad we stayed.

The trophy "ordeal" I call it, was at least a reprieve from my packing expedition (though arguably I could have used the five hours total time elapsed for more timely packing and a greater amount of rest). The cool thing about her presentation was that it was at the Bricktown ballpark just before a RedHawks game. After presentations, all 50 teams from Darby's organization were allowed onto the field for a "parade of teams". Here's a picture of Darby with her trophy.



Back in January, Shelby spilled a Sonic slushy all over my desk by carelessly poking a straw through it. Well, she did it again today. But not on my desk. We were at Sonic getting a bite between Darby's trophy presenation and the parade of teams when it happened. She was racing to be the first one to put her straw in her drink. I had to hold my finger over the hole until the server could bring me a new cup.

The coolest thing about today's trophy event was that the softball season went out with a ballgame. All the teams got to stay and watch the Redhawks game. It was a decent game (though they lost), during which I captured a homerun in progress.




Just before the game, we pondered the hugeness of Darby's feet. Below is a pic of Darby's shoe next to her mother's shoe. Can you guess which is which?



Here's a hint...



Give up? That's Darby's shoe being worn first by Darby, and then by her mother. For comparison, I asked around, and most of the girls on Darby's team wear between a size 13 and a size 2. Darby wears a size 4 1/2. I'm starting to think that girl might end up being taller than me.

Earlier in the day, towards the end of the trophy deal, Darby noticed a bowl of melted "Dippin Dots" ice cream sitting in a cup holder. She later, during the ballgame, made note that it was still there. I jokingly told her to go have a taste. Little did I know that it would actually occur, though on accident. Just before we left the game (~9pm) Darby kicked the bowl while playing around, and it splatered all over her (and me, and Steph). We're talking several-hours-old-melted-in-the-95-degree-direct-sunlight grossness here people. Talk about drinking warm milk before bed...

No, I can't hear you now.

Have you ever gone about your day obliviously not aware that your cell phone was off? That was me today. I have no idea when it died (it wasn't battery related, the charge level is good), but I later learned that several people had been trying to call me. I didn't notice it was off until I was leaving work (~6:30) and I looked down at it for a time check and... nothingness. Argh.

Free piece of history

If you're in the area, surely you've seen the press about the Vietnam Wall Experience that opens Friday here in Del City. Whether (or now that) you've heard, you should come and see it. It's a historically significant experience, and it's free. How can you beat that?

At least until next year, for many of you it will be the first good reason in some time to (go out of your way to) visit Del City. While you're here, eat, drink, and be merry. We could certainly use the tax revenue.

(Re)Balancing Act

The day seemed like two in one. I worked a half-day, but then jam-packed the rest of it with errands.

First, I had to pick up a wheel from a salvage yard. I'll elaborate more on that in a moment. Then I had to pick up the girls from Summer Camp. It was actually the best timing scenario I could have asked for because the girls were supposed to play in a mud pit today. They do this activity every year, and it's one of my most disliked days of camp, so it was cool that we missed it this year.

While picking up the kids I noticed, getting out of the car, that there was a Lunchable in the back seat. It was Shelby's lunch. Great, I thought. I'm not going to hear the end of this one. When I got inside I immediately asked Shelby what she had for lunch, and she said "My Lunchable." Hmmm. So we went to Darby's classroom, where I asked if she had eaten, and to which she responded in the affirmative. What the heck, these Lunchable things don't just immaculately multiply. Well, after further interrogation, it turns out Shelby stole some other kids' Lunchable "on accident because I thought it was mine." That just really great...

The reason I had to pick up the girls early was so that we could have Shelby fitted with her previously referenced glasses. Naturally, I took some pics. She had some initial trouble getting used to the glasses, so she was walking around very slowly with her hands out in front of her. It was pretty funny. Figures I didn't get a pic of that. I've already had to tell her half-a-dozen times to put her glasses back on and to stop messing with them. I predict near-term breakage. Most likely cause? No, not Shelby. Her "friends". I suspect one of them will coax her into letting them try her glasses on tomorrow and she will succumb. And then kaput. I look forward to being wrong.

I grabbed a bite to eat (the girls had eaten, so they got ice cream) between the optometrist and my next errand, which was routine car maintenance, in particular a 21-point inspection as I'm hoping to finally get that vacation in soon.

While in the waiting area of the dealership, I made a tech support call to my laptop company. I've been having optical drive problems. I feel bad because I was snippy with the girl for having to go through the first-tier hoops (I was mostly upset because I sent an email to support a week ago and never got a response). Turns out one of her first-tier hoops (seems to have) fixed my problem. I feel guilty because we got off the phone so quick I never had a chance to apologize. The truly sucky part is that if the problem isn't fixed, I will have to send MY ENTIRE LAPTOP back to them for drive replacement, which they say will take TWO TO THREE WEEKS total. The won't just send me a drive because it's not modular so the only way to replace the drive is to remove some screws from the case which they say will void the warranty. Darnit. This is my primary personal computer and it's just not even a tiny bit feasible for me to go three weeks without it.

Also while at the dealership I had to send several emails from my cell phone (Saturn had an encrypted wi-fi network that I asked if I could use, but it was for employees only... I have such a rant for this...) concerning some last-minute mortgage finalization issues for my mom's house. And, oh yeah, I had to write my mother a check for $500 so she could pay her half of a fence being put up by the neighbor to keep drug dealers from sitting on their shared step at 3am. That was a neat thing to find out about.

So after car maintenance I had to take the girls to my ex-wife's work, because she had to take Shelby to fencing tonight, plus it's her time of the week to have them, so that was the best way to handle it.

I went immediately from there to the nearest tire center to complain about an after affect of my recent four-tire replacement. I noticed soon after I left the place the last time that I had a balance problem (slight front-end shimmy at highway speeds), but I didn't have time to go back. This time around they confirmed that the tires weren't balanced properly and fixed it.

While I was there, I gave them the wheel I picked up earlier in the day, and the tire I saved in my trunk from my last set of tires, and I had them make me a full-sized spare. Since I've had so much trouble with tires, since my dad had two blow-outs on his recent vacation, and since I'm just not ever going to shake this paranoia, I figure it's best to not have my only-tire-hope resting upon a donut-spare. However, the trouble came with mounting the spare, which wouldn't fit where the donut is presently located. After some research, I had earlier in the week ordered a solution that was delivered to me today, so as soon as I got back from the tire center, I got everything setup.

My solution is not pretty, but it's functional. There are a few problems with it (can't open hatch-back, can't see license plate), but I think that with it in place, my nerves will eat at me less over the course of nearly four thousand miles.

So... so wrong...

Is it just me, or does the main photo from this article (PDF) seem so very wrong? I mean, give him some privacy, right?

And that title "Military Working Dogs" just doesn't help...


If anybody cares (and remembers the previous entry), it's been a "hell broke loose" parking day.

Reject(ed)

I spent a few hours this evening setting up DSL for my dad. So, to the great joy of my little brother -- who until now sat there most evenings insisting that he can suck more juice out of the dial-up than is actually possible -- my dad is now a full-fledged participant in the broadband era. Of course, it will help me also, as I'll be able to surf wirelessly from his living room now when I'm visiting. And no, freeloaders, his access point is not open or in the clear.


About half-way through the installation I had to pick up the girls from their mother's. On the way back to my dad's to finish the setup, I stopped at Best Buy to pick up the latest All-American Rejects album. This action was an absolute must, not necessarily because I was looking forward to the album (which I was), but to "recover" from a bit of Shawn-silliness that I experienced last week.


On Friday, while at my father's for another purpose, I was reading the newspaper as I often do at my dad's because he picks one up about everyday at work. Only his stack of papers is often in disarray, so I never really know (or pay attention to) which day's paper I'm reading.

As I was flipping the pages, something of interest from the entertainment section caught my eye. "This Week's Releases" it was labeled, and just under that was the listing for the new AAR album. Well, I was astonished and had an instant gut reaction... CRAP! I said (out loud actually), I missed it! Having noticed the time (about 8:30), I turned to my dad, who was still surprised at the fact that I had just stood straight up and yelled crap, and asked if he could watch the girls for twenty minutes, which I followed with a dash out the door.

As I got in my car I was verbally beating myself over the head. I can't believe I missed it. How could I have done that. I've probably missed the bargain pricing. Crap crap crap. You're losing it in your old age Shawn... etc etc etc.

Of course, my little exercise in course-correction was complicated by the fact that, when I finally got to Best Buy and went eagerly to the New Releases section, I found no such newly released album from the Rejects.

Imagine my surprise when I found, via the bestbuy.com kiosk, that the AAR album was not actualy due out until the next week. I litterally slapped myself in the forehead, which I'm sure caught the person standing next to me a little off guard. So I picked up a "suitable substitute" album as to not completely waste my trip, and headed back to my dad's with my mental tail between my legs.

When I got back to my dad's, I picked up the newspaper that was still laying where I dropped it thirty minutes before. I flipped it over to see the date, and it turns out it was Friday's paper, rather than an older paper as I had thought. Apparently the Friday paper's "This Week's Releases" section refers to the following Tuesday, not the previous Tuesday. And I did check that there was no date on the list itself (which there should be, a release date anyway). So I smacked myself on the head again for not having done something like kick my little brother off the dial-up so that I could verify the release date of the album before heading off to the store in a mad dash.

So you see, I simply HAD to pick the album up tonight, just so that I could somehow mentally erase the stupidity of my recent past. It sure made me feel better that the album was $7.99 instead of $13.99. That's pretty well a bargain, making at least this last trip worthwhile.

And the album? So far maybe not as good as their first, but not a bad selection either. I'm only on the second listen-through, though, so it's a little early to rush to judgement. About the album anyway. Not about my previous stupidity. You can rush to judgement all you want about that. I deserve it.

Yeah, Bobby

You show 'em.

"goose-pimpled quivers of awe"

Tearing up the track

Darby's end-of-season party for softball was tonight, at the new Incredible Pizza (link is not to the OKC site, but you get the point), which is basically a steroid-injected Chuck-E-Cheese meets SpeedZone. It's housed within an old WalMart building, so it's quite huge. For eight bucks you get an all-you-can-eat buffet and five bucks on a game card to play games or play mini golf or ride go-carts, or ride bumper cars, or bowl, or I'm not sure what else because the place was so huge... Anyway, the kids had a blast, as if they couldn't in such a place.

After they ate dinner I couldn't keep them in the party room to save my life. They (ALL the kids, not just mine) burst out of the there and headed for the game/ride area faster than I could keep up. When I first reached the game room, I couldn't find either child. While I did finally find Darby clamouring to the ticket-yielding games (she's into winning those "valuable prizes" like gross fake teeth), I still couldn't find Shelby at first.



Then I saw a bunch of parents gathered by the go-cart bleachers and I asked if any of them had seen Shelby. They pointed inside the go-cart raceway, where I saw that several of the girls had gotten in line, and there was Shelby, also getting ready to race.



I should have had someone take a picture of my jaw-dropped face, because I couldn't believe it. If it weren't too late I would have gone after her, because I thought for sure she'd freak out with all those other cars out there. But to my surprise she did quite well. She didn't crash once and handled the track and car like she'd done it before many times (she seemed way more focused than what is typical for her). I was amazed, considering how often she crashes when biking or skating. One of the parents suggested she had found her niche as the next Danica Patrick. I think that would give me a heart attack before the age of 40.

We were there close to three hours, which was far too long if you ask me, and of course the girls didn't want to leave. It is a pretty neat place, though I'm not sure I'd want to have a party there, as it is just so chaotic with all those kids running around (seriously, picture a WalMart entirely filled with kids running around in all directions, in many cases with food in their hands).

In fact, the one thing I really didn't like too much about the place was that they didn't stamp kids' and parents' hands with matching invisible ink patterns like the Chuck-E-Cheese does to make sure kids don't leave with the wrong adults. As much as I hate to admit it, there were a couple times when I just flat couldn't find my children in that huge place, and they would NOT stick with me (and couldn't/wouldn't hear me when I yelled for them it was so loud in there). I get very anxious about places that aren't child-tracking-friendly. Though I will say that the place was crawling with security personnel (both rented and local police) and there were security cameras everywhere. While I would never want it real-world tested, I'm sure they're prepared (or hope they are anyway) for counter-abduction scenarios.

Good-tastic

Darby and I saw Fantastic Four yesterday. While just about every reviewer in the country gave this movie a thumbs-mostly-down, as a comic-fan, and a movie enthusiast, I felt it was something I had to see for myself, even if it was difficult to swallow. Putting aside for one moment the very important, mythic lineage of the whole of Fantastic Four history-in-print, I walked away reasonably entertained (more on this in a moment). While I can see where the F4 fans will have issue with the film, I tried very hard not to let any of that get in the way for me.

As for film particulars, here are a few points (skip for non-spoilage):
They wasted no time having their accidental power-grab. That's probably a good thing because the film was already nearly two hours without the up-front, drawn-out character development (even doing it Spider-man style would have pushed it).

Much time was spent analyzing their DNA alteration after the accident, which was pretty neat. Though the whole stone-yet-still-functional-internal-organs point was odd because the Thing's eyes and mouth seemed quite non-stone. Plus, he was eating a drinking, so then I'm wondering what happens when he sits on the toilet (aside from it breaking). I mean, does the term "sh!tting bricks" apply here? Sorry, I've digressed, I know, but it's not THAT off topic.

Anyway, the two scenes where Ben "Thing" Grimm's wife reacts to his altered-state were definitely the most overdone parts of the movie for me. It just seemed out of character. I mean, they make a pretty big play on Ben's ability to read people, yet he doesn't see that his own wife is external-appearance motivated and internally shallow? I'm not sure I buy that.

The comedy bits worked pretty well. I thought they'd take away from the movie, but I really didn't find myself being too distracted by them. I didn't say they weren't hokey, but I expected that, since many of the gags were in the trailer.

The film nearly stalled towards the end of the "major full-team fight scene with fully realized bad-guy", but by then, you know it's winding down, and are a little tolerant of a slight tail-spin.

I did also have an issue with Ben Grimm going back into the "cosmic storm simulator" to become the Thing again. Not because he wouldn't have done so character-wise (because he definitely would), but because I would expect the results of a DNA-altering cosmic storm to be somewhat random. I'm thinking the next time he went in, he'd come out some other kind of super-something, not another pile-o-rocks, unless his genetic pre-disposition was "rocky" or something.

There were obvious problems with the Dr. Doom character. But I'm not even going to touch those. I wasn't expecting a deep, meaningful villian, so this was no shocker. In the context of the movie, I don't think the F4 uneducated will notice.


In near-summation, if the goal of a movie is to make us feel entertained and as though that six or eight or ten bucks we paid to get in the door (plus the twenty for "re-freshments"... you'd think we'd get "freshments" for that much cash) was worthwhile, then this movie did the job for me (and Darby agrees). I spent twelve bucks to get Darby and myself in the door that afternoon, another six for recycled freshness, and for that entry fee at least, I feel okay about my EROI (entertainment return on investment). However, if the goal of a movie instead is simply to summarize precisely a pre-defined series of scripts written over the course of forty-four years, by many different people, but still yet placed into a concise two-hour package, then this movie has failed. As have all other adaptations of works not originally conceived for the screen. Even the very best ones. Spider-Man, X-Men, Hellboy, Batman... we're forgiving in those cases. Personally, I've chosen to be forgiving here as well.

So, the die-hard F4 fan-folk will (probably) hate this movie. Either because they are simply destined to hate it, because they just really don't like it, or because they plain hate anything that isn't created in the image of their own imagination. The key thing, I think, to keep in mind here, is that this movie was not made by unfamiliar third-parties. It's not an "unauthorized biography" type of flick filled with speculation and hearsay. Marvel Entertainment made this movie. It's official. Who are we to say they're wrong about the story (even if we have it in black and white that they are)? It's a movie from the horses mouth, so live with it and integrate it into what you know to be the "continuity" of the Marvel Universe. It'll be more fun that way. For all of us.

But if all else fails, just remember that there's always Jessica Alba. She (and the rest of her) get enough screen time to make you almost forget that all those professional reviewer-types said you'd hate the movie. So then when people ask you how it was you can say, "looked good to me." And you'd be quite truthful. Ironically, she's the one thing you most want to not be invisible in the movie, yet it's her very purpose to lack visibility.

The final assessment? Maybe not fantastic, definitely not terrible, but probably good enough.


Side note: This site, which boldly rates the 100 Greatest Comics of the 20th Century, has a nice Fantastic Four #1 write-up (RURL Proofed). In some ways, after reading that write-up, I feel like the movie did not such a bad job of capturing the original intent of Mr. Lee and Mr. Kirby.

Extraneous protrusions

Mother called a short while ago. She had a doctor's appointment yesterday. They found a lump on her breast and have concern about her colon. Some tests were done, though results are not in, and she has more tests scheduled.

The trouble is mom is the stubborn sort. She's long said if she ever got cancer she wouldn't accept treatment. That if it was her time to go it was her time to go.

I actually understand her perspective to a degree. I mean, if I come down with something that's caught early enough, sure I'll get some treatment. But if I'm determined to have something Lance Armstrong serious (he was weeks from death and didn't know it, the cancer spread to his brain), then I'm more likley to succumb to the realities of probability, and instead put my remaining energies towards finalizing my affairs.

Hopefully we'll not have to be considering such issues for mother anytime soon.

The test/history blog has been updated. It has some potential.

Visions of London the day before

On Wednesday, I went to lunch with a former employee and her fiancé. She moved to England on me about a year ago, and was back for a visit. It was a pleasant lunch, filled with interesting conversation about the differences between living in the U.S. in contrast to the U.K. In particular, we discussed price differences for plane tickets, bus fare, trains rides, and the mass-transit systems in general. And while they don't live in London, the day before they departed, they spent the afternoon visiting London and taking many pictures. So during our lunch I looked through the many photos of London they had taken. They were quite nice, and made me want to hop on a plane and go see it all myself.

So as you might imagine, it was a very strange feeling when, less than 24-hours later, I found myself watching in shock the coverage of the terror strikes on the London mass-transit system. It's such a shame that my memory of that lunch is now tainted. I'll never be able to think of the meal and its pleasantries on their own merits without being reminded of the day following. Such a shame.

Olympic Irrelevence

(no offense to London, the newly annoited Olympic site, particularly in its time of grief)

If the Olympics ever had me, they've now lost me for sure:

Baseball and softball were dropped Friday from the Olympic program for the 2012 Summer Games in London.

Yes you read right. No baseball.

Baseball and softball are the first sports cut from the Olympics since water polo in 1936.

Did you hear me? I said NO BASEBALL!

The IOC will consider replacing them with two sports from a waiting list of five: golf, rugby, squash, karate and roller sports.

(I can see it now)
NEWS FLASH: BASEBALL REPLACED BY SQUASH, SOFTBALL BY ROLLER DERBY

If you're a baseball fan of any degree, I highly encourage a boycott, or at least heavy restraint, when it comes time for Olympic spectation. Especially since the IOC president finds us irrelevant and unevolved.

"The program isn't something that can be fixed for eternity -- it has to be evolving... we need to be relevant."


The full article is a jaw dropper. Be forewarned.

Unexpectedly kidless

The kids went with their aunt, visiting from Califoria, last night and stayed the night with her. I was expecting to get them back tonight, but instead they went to their grandmother's another night or two.

So did I go home and relax to enjoy the unexpected solitude?

Nope. I worked late. Sounds like fun, huh?


Maybe tomorrow I'll try to squeeze a bike ride in, since, when I get the girls back, I'll have them almost a solid week before they go visit their mom.

surprise surprise

What do you know, my little brother has a blog (technically two). It's shocking in a few ways. But I guess not unusual for his age (15). I've told him I won't tell dad about it, but noted it would be a better blog without the language.


UPDATE, 6 JULY
Hey, there's hope afterall. Knowing that his big brother is watching, he cleaned up his main blog (language wise). Either I've had a positive influence, or he's going to kick my butt when he sees me next (he's 6'1" +, I'm 5'9").

Eaten alive

There's a mosquito lingering around my desk or something. From the time I got in today to the time I left, I got at least eight bites. I've yet to see the thing, but now I'm paranoid as heck, smacking myself near-constantly thinking I'm being bitten again. So if you happen to see me as I smack myself, it's probably not just because I've done something stupid.

Eleven score and nine years ago...

...our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation...

I was going to title this entry "51 Sodas", but it just didn't seem to go. Though that's apparently how many cans of soda it takes to put on a couple of small ID BBQs.

I was tasked to bring 36 cans of cheap soda to an evening 4th event at a friend's place. But when I went shopping I couldn't make up my mind as to what flavors to get, so I bought a 12-pack of each flavor available, for a total of seven 12-packs (or 84 sodas). So it was a few more sodas than I needed, but it worked out. I ended up providing sodas at an early afternoon event (at my dad's) as well. And I only have 33 of the 84 left after the two events, so it wasn't so terrible to have gotten so many, though I'll be drinking cheap soda at home for awhile to come.

I did learn, statistically, what flavors moved best, so next time I need to get sodas for a social gathering, I'll have some measure. Though my results are children-skewed. There were a lot of kids at the evening festivities, so I'm sure that had the most to do with the fact that Orange and Fruit Punch were the best sellers. This was followed by Root Beer, Mountain Dew (I only had 2, so it wasn't me), and Sprite. Cola and Dr. Pepper (the big surprise) were the least consumed carbonated beverages.


The girls had a good time watching the fireworks brought by one of the other guests, as well as the sparklers, strobes, smoke bombs, and party poppers I got them, and the snaps from their mother. But I think they had the most fun swimming. They played in the pool a few hours, right up until it got dark, and still didn't want to get out.

Probably the most interesting (non-festive) event was the slowed-departure of one of the other guests. Fortunately there was a tractor on-hand. Had that happened to me, there wouldn't have been a tractor.

Festive (if not wacked-out) 3rd, hoping for a laid-back 4th

The day started with an early lunch with my immediate family (dad, step-mother, brother, etc), though the girls were away for the weekend with their mother. After lunch we caught a movie (War of the Worlds).

The movie was good, but I'm still debating if it lived up to the hype. There was a lot of build-up throughout the movie about how grim the planetary situation was, but then the end seemed a bit abrupt. I'll claim slight ignorance here as I've never read the book and it's been since I was a teenager that I saw the original movie, so it may just be that all was as it was supposed to be. With the exception of the Tim Robbins character, I thought everything was done well. I don't mean to imply Mr. Robbins did a bad job. I just felt that character seemed out of place and took way too much main-plot time from the movie. Again, maybe I've just missed something here. Lastly, parents, don't be fooled by the PG-13 rating. With the amount of swearing and killing and blood in the movie, it should definitely be an R rating instead. As Darby has done well recently with PG-13 movies (ROTS and Batman) I thought this one might be okay and I let her go see it with her mom the day before. Having now seen it, I realize that was a mistake (Update: Darby concurs). If I had seen it first, there's no way Darby would have then seen it (oops).

After the movie we had a couple hours to kill before then going to the ballpark. We had decided at lunch to go see the ballgame and the fireworks thereafter. We came up with this seemingly great idea of having my aunt leave her car at the ballpark (i.e. good parking for the game) while we all jammed into my dad's minivan. The idea was that my dad (not a [non-automotive] sports fan and so skipping the ballgame) would drop us off at the game directly, and that, since we had good parking, we would get out of there quickly.

The ballgame was pretty good (brought back memories of having to do this back in high school at the Vet in Philly) except for the fact that the home team lost. And the fireworks were decent. There was more than 13,000 in attendance, which is interesting because I'm under the impression that the capacity of our ballpark is 12,000. But then, I've never seen the left- and right-field grassy knowles quite so packed. It's also interesting that all the people in the restaurant (also where we had lunch) and on the adjacent parking garage (this pic was taken before several floors were packed with people) were not factored into the 13,000+ figure, so I wonder how many actually saw the game.

My remaining curiosity about the game lies in what, exactly, the third-base coach said to the Redhawk, because he sure got motivated and scored. Or crossed the plate anyway. Or maybe both, but we're not going there. Though I wonder if she does consulting. My third-base skills could use some work.

As it turns out, our great parking idea was a travishamockery. We waited in absolute stillness-of-traffic for thirty minutes before deciding to abort. We re-parked and went to get some ice cream. Trouble is, the ice cream place had just closed. So we went to Sonic instead. Only we nearly got killed.

Being oblivious apparently runs in the family, as we all walked right into the Sonic and sat down at the only empty table left in the place. It wasn't until AFTER we sat down that we noticed there was a (rather lengthy) line for free tables. For the next ten minutes at least we got rather dirty looks from those that were waiting for the table we took from them.

But we got our due. We ended up being in Sonic for more than an hour. They were so busy and behind that the wait was something like 20-minutes minimum (and we just ordered drinks and ice cream), but then their computers went down so they had to walk around and re-take everyone's orders by hand, which lengthened the delay. They ended up giving everyone in the very packed facility their orders for free! Cool for us, but that has to suck for their bottom line.

While Steph got to laugh at me via text-message (she was at the same game, but beat us home... and she lives farther), at least the whole ice cream ordeal kept us from sucking gas fumes in traffic. Though there are definitely things I would have done differently in retrospect.

More perks

Turns out that, in addition to working next to a runway, it's also not so bad to have your father live just a mile outside the base. The Thunderbirds performed while I was at my dad's for a little this afternoon, so I got a few more pics.



After the visit to my dad's, I took the girls to their mother's, and got in a ten-mile bike ride around Lake Hefner.

On the way back, I got lucky and was near the base when the baddest bomber on two wings was doing its part in the air show. So I pulled over and got a few pics of the B-1 as it made a few passes over the base. Meanwhile, the dinner I had just picked up got cold on my passenger seat.




There are higher resolution versions of these available, too.

Runway perks

I work at Tinker AFB (unfortunately, it hasn't yet made me a millionaire), in a building right next to the main runway. The perks about such a location are usually limited to seeing various aircraft come to the base for maintenance/repair/overhaul ("MRO"), aircraft performing operational flight tests before returning to home station, or during the hurricane season, when squadrons of F-15s scramble up to Tinker from bases in Florida. On this day, however, the treat was extra special, as the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds have come to town to do a 4th of July weekend air show, their first in Oklahoma since 1987.

Yesterday, I missed them practicing in the afternoon, but saw them flying around later, just after dinner time. In neither of those cases was I able to get any pics, but today I stepped outside with my camera and actually got of a few decent shots (use this link for full resolution versions).





This one is my favorite.