Rhythms and movements

Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to kill me before the softball season is over. 12 miles from work to pick up Darby from school. Another 12 miles from school to softball practice, 15 miles from softball practice to her mom's house to pick up Shelby. Then 11 miles to get home. And, of course, that doesn't count the 8 miles to school from home and the 12 miles from the school to work in the morning. But it's not the distances, it's the bloody traffic. Which I know is nothing compared to Philly or Dallas traffic, but in particular the traffic to get from school to softball is among the worst in the this city, and I've tried ALL the routes just about. Usually, with all the highways in this town, you can find some sort of alternate route that isn't as bad. But so far that is just not the case. In nearly all scenarios, I have to traverse downtown to get to softball practice, so we're always hitting terrible traffic. I mean, today, I picked up Darby with more than an hour to spare, and we barely made it to practice (we did stop for dinner but that was less than ten minutes as we ate on the road).

Anyway, softball practice was decent. Darby did a little better fielding today over Tuesday, and she had a few solid hits into the outfield. But defensively they stuck her in the outfield most of the practice, which is semi-understandable considering how solid the girls they have playing the infield are, but it's frustrating for me to see her standing around so much. My opinion on the matter is that your least solid infielders should get 50% of their time in the infield during practice, or they'll never be as solid as the others.

On the way from softball practice to drop off Darby at her mom's, Darby informed me that they had their first rhythm and movement class today, and that she LOVED it. Her exact words were, "Dad, I LOVE rhythm and movement class." She says they learned ballroom dancing, the waltz, a country music dance, and a few others. She said it was SO much fun, and basically couldn't shut up about it almost the whole trip. Which is good, but I get it already. :)

When I got to her mom's, I was informed that fencing went MUCH better today than Tuesday, and that they wrapped up their practice tournament, in which Shelby earned second place in her age group. I guess our talk on Tuesday night about maybe removing her from fencing because she seemed disinterested had a positive effect.



Update
Forgot to mention that the softball season starts 11 Sep, and there's a pre-season tournament the weekend before. The calendar has been updated, though we won't have the actual season schedule until after the tournament.

Summer hotness has broken in OK

I've probably ruined it by mentioning it, but it looks like the 90-100 degree days are over, here in Oklahoma, which means it's MUCH easier to bear outside than it had been for many weeks. In fact, the last couple days it hasn't broken 90, and I'm not sure I remember the last time we had a sub-90 day. Yesterday, I neglected to mention at the time, was a nearly perfect day weather wise. The right balance of temperature, humidity, and wind made for a VERY comfortable time at softball practice. The forecast for the next week, depending on where you look, shows mid-80 highs, with the possible exception of tomorrow. We may reach 90 tomorrow. Even so, this is the best part of summer. Not quite so hot, but not yet fall, so still plenty of baseball to play, and still plenty of nice days before we have to start toting jackets around.


As good as it has been, I must disclaim that it still has nothing on Tucson in November. "TiN" holds my personal record for the most comfortable I've ever been outside. Crystal clear blue sky, mid-70s, gentle breeze, zero humidity. Better than Honolulu (IMHO), and I've lived in both places.



Update, 1 Sep
Okay, so I ruined it. The last two days have exceeded ninety. But tomorrow isn't supposed to exceed eighty, and they say (again) that today was the last day of noticeable hotness.

Lots of softball potential

Darby attended her first full softball practice of the season tonight. I'm feeling pretty good about the team, as almost all of the girls are quite good. I mean, I'm proud of my daughter and all, but she isn't anywhere near one of the best players on this new team, so I have pretty high expectations about this season. Not only from the chances of winning perspective, but from the my-daughter-having-to-rise-to-the-next-level perspective as well. Darby's a very good player, but she's always been just shy of being a great player, and I'm hoping that being around so much talent will push her above that line. In the past, she has been on teams that didn't have a strong record (except for the baseball team last season), or many other strong players. Now, being on a team composed of nearly all strong players, the potential is there for her to learn much and come out better for it, which is what I really want from this season. I'm hoping for this season to be a watershed for her full potential.



On the flip side, Shelby had a practice fencing tournament while Darby was at softball practice. Her mom says she didn't do so well, getting beat by a far younger and less experienced fencer. Her head wasn't in the game and we had to ask her quite seriously if she wanted to continue fencing. She was kind of wishy-washy about it, but decided to stay with it. We'll see how that goes on Thursday.

First drop-off

I've always walked the girls into school. Always. No matter how late I've been running in the past, I've always parked and walked with them into school either to their classroom or to the cafeteria. We're talking seven years worth of doing this, since Darby's first pre-K class through her fourth grade year, and including the beginning this school year.

Since the second day of this school year, Darby has been wanting me to drop them off at the circle drive instead of walking them into the cafeteria. But Shelby hasn't been comfortable with that, so I've continued to walk them in. Today we were running a few minutes behind, so I asked Shelby how she felt about a drop-off today. She said it would be fine. So I dropped them off and watched them walk into the building.

Won't be long now before they want me to drop them off a block away.

Big birthday bash(es)

While we typically have the kids' birthday parties and family dinners on separate days, we decided to have Shelby's party and dinner on the same day this year, which I'm not entirely certain was the best plan, but it certainly could have gone worse.

Shelby's birthday party was this morning and, up until near the end, went largely (and unusually) smooth. I attribute this to the fact that the kids were "locked in a room" for nearly half the time playing laser tag. I think the best thing about the party was the turnout. Historically we've inexplicably had turnout issues at Shelby's parties, so I was glad to see an above capacity crowd. I think Shelby had loads of fun. Not that she has any trouble having fun in general.

We did have some technical snafus parentally. Most of them mine. While I got plenty of plates, flatware, cups, napkins, and candles at the store this morning (at 6:30am), I didn't get enough juice or order enough pizza (maybe). I had to leave the party briefly to acquire more juice for thirsty kids. And while all the kids got pizza, not all the parents did, so one more pie would have been just right I think. My biggest blunder of the day was a time management problem, related to my misinterpretation of the room instructions I was given. I thought we had the party room until 1pm, but that was when the next party was due in the room. So, when our hosts told us we had five minutes left and Shelby hadn't yet opened presents, well, I knew the smoothness had left the building. That was definitely the fastest present opening session we've ever pulled off, and also the most rude evacuation of parents from a party room in which I've ever had to partake.


The family dinner actually had lower than expected turnout. At first because some folks went to the wrong place (we went to the same restaurant chain as Darby's dinner in January, but a different location, and I may not have been completely clear on this in my invitation), and then because some others that had previously committed couldn't make it. But, minus a cake-forgetting issue early on, things were otherwise smooth. I was annoyed at myself for poor memory card management, as I ran out of space on the two cards I had with me, and my other cards were out in the car, but I couldn't exactly go get them as it happened as Shelby was opening gifts, which I didn't want miss. Subsequently I don't have nearly as many photos as I typically would. A few photos should make it to the photo album some time this week.

Shelby made out like a bandit, literally. I mean, not only did she get plenty of goods, but she got more than a hundred bucks in cash, AND a fifty dollar gift card. I'm pretty sure I didn't get anywhere near that much cash for birthday and Christmas combined when I was her age.

And now for my most embarrassing moment of the day... a daring, running leap to rescue a balloon from perceived ceiling fan peril. Pretty much everyone laughed at me. Thank goodness no one was filming.

You'll have to cut me some slack. It was a VERY long day. More than twelve hours elapsed from when I got up until both of Shelby's bithday events were concluded.



Update, 10 Sep
Finally got some photos uploaded to the album.

Invincibility is in our nature

Some of the best stories about invincibility, real or imagined, come out of Philadelphia (American Independence, Rocky, Unbreakable, etc), so it's no surprise that the movie Invincible hails also from the streets of my former home town. Ideally this movie would have been released a couple weeks sooner so that I could have seen it while I was in Philly nearly two weeks ago. But my timing has never been that good. Nonetheless, as a transplanted Philadelphian, I considered it my sworn duty to see this movie as immediately upon release as possible. So, tonight, I went straight from work to the theater (with my Eagles shirt on, of course). And I wasn't disappointed. At all.

The movie was quite awesome. The story, while not unfamiliar, was largely well done, of course. And I also thought the camera angles during the football scenes were amazing. I don't know what it was about those shots, but I don't recall seeing football scenes done quite like that in any recent football movies. Not that I know anything useful about such things.

My only very very minor and likely not noticeable to ANYone outside Philly issues were of a technical nature. Their version of Veterans Stadium had a natural grass field. Having personally spent many days of my youth AT Veterans Stadium, some actually ON the field, I couldn't help but wince every time I noticed the turf. There were a couple of other technical issues as well, such as the Liberty Bell sign, which just didn't look right, and also didn't seemed positioned right, though I know it was moved a few times in its history, so I could easily let that one go. As mentioned, no one else will notice, and it in no way detracts from the overall film quality. So don't mind my detail oriented rants. Go see it for yourself!

Busy day

After work I had to run across town to pickup Darby from school to get her fed prior to "Back to School Night" at her school, basically an orientation for new students and parents. When I got to the school, Shelby had already been picked up by her mom for fencing practice, while I was to take care of Darby, because she also had softball practice (which I didn't find out about until after 3pm).

So Darby and I went to the first half of orientation, and we passed her mother and sister on the way out the door to practice while they were returning from fencing to attend the second half of orientation. Darby actually missed about 3/4s of her practice, but we really needed to make an appearance attempt.

It was her first softball practice of the season. But not only that, it was the first with her new team, as her old team appears to not be fielding a team again this year. She only attended about a quarter of the practice, but I think she made a good impression. I have high hopes for this season, as the new teams looks decent.

After practice, I took Darby to her moms, where I encountered a sobbing Shelby. Her gerbil had died of old age. They only live 2-4 years and this one was at the upper end of that range. She was crying worse than I had ever seen her cry, as other than whining about something, she doesn't really show much emotion in general. So, we had a little burial service in her mom's back yard, and had to do much consoling.

When I got home, there was something waiting for me. It was a certificate. My jaw about fell off, but apparently, I passed the test. So, now, on top of everything else, I am officially an ISSEP. One of (I'm told) less than four hundred on the planet. That's fairly good news. My how different the day turned out compared to how I thought it might go when I got up this morning. I need another half day off...

SAVE THE PLANET

I don't know about you guys, but I'm rather miffed about this whole "Pluto isn't a planet" thing. I don't care about the technicalities here. And while some degree of my concern is in good fun, there are real issues here. For example, should our public school system really have to dish out millions of dollars to change textbooks because some snobby scientific types took their stargazing just a bit too seriously? It's not that I'm doubting their accuracy. I just feel they should have saved us all a little trouble by grandfathering Pluto into the solar system and applying their new planetary determination system to all future candidates for solar system membership.

In the very least, from the practical standpoint, they should have reserved judgment until AFTER the New Horizons probe reaches Pluto in 2009. Why rush to judgment when we'll soon have eyes on the target?

Is it just me? Am I the only one that wants my kids to grow up in a world with nine (or more) planets? Well, maybe it is, but either way, I decided to do something about it. I've started an awareness campaign. Maybe it will work, maybe not. But I have to try. Call it what you want... People for the Restoration of Pluto. Society for Nine Planets. The Anti Solar Contractionists. Pick a name. But either way, we're going to save the planet. So, help me out. Buy a t-shirt. Raise awareness.

We've got a long way to go on this effort. The website and storefront were put up in half a day, so come back often and see how we're doing. Or volunteer. We're thinking about having some rallies.

The site: RESTOREPLUTO.COM

Time to hire again

Ugh. One of my team members resigned today. No, I am not a slave driver.

So, looking for mid-level java programmers with 1-2 years of experience. Struts, XML, CSS, XSLT, Ant, SVN all very important as well. Hibernate and AJAX gets you extra points. Please don't contact me if you've only ever done javascript and not java. Especially if you don't understand why I make that distinction.

So far, so good

Ignoring the first impressions of yesterday, I figured the second day ought to give me a better idea of how things are going for the girls at their new school. I'm glad to report that there are no red flags thus far. Though Shelby wanted me to stay longer with her this morning than I did.

The girls had homework even yesterday, but so far that's going okay as well. What I find cool is that this school gives out all homework for the week on Monday, and you work it at your own pace. If you get it done early, fine, or if you just do that night's work, that's fine, too. That's going to be very helpful for Shelby, who doesn't do well in high pressure environments.

Since I stayed with the girls until class started yesterday, and since we went out after school for Shelby's birthday, today was also the first full test of traffic along all of my school/work travel routes during the times of day I'll be there. And it's all a very close call. As I have to do some back tracking to get from the school to work, I see the nasty traffic I'd be in on the way to school if I were just another ten minutes behind. So, I CAN'T run late AT ALL this year (if that's possible). Also, leaving school at the end of the day, I have to take a REALLY round about way home in order to avoid what has to be the worst Oklahoma traffic anywhere, the mass evac from the state capitol complex at 5pm. I don't ever want to end up in that stuff. And, really, I'm not sure why others continue to put up with it.

First day and birthday, too

As you can tell from the photo, the girls had a great first day of school. But that doesn't mean there aren't adjustments. MANY adjustments. Way too many to go into here.

In brief, it's their first experience with public school... so no uniforms, no disciplinary enforcement by paddle, and no firm structure to every aspect of the day.

We got to school close to seven-thirty, so plenty of time to check things out. We went to the cafeteria to get the girls some breakfast, but they were having none of that. They were way too nervous. The nerves did calm down a bit when they met up with a friend of theirs that explained some of what was going on to them.

When class time rolled around, Darby was pretty well adjusted, mostly thanks to her pre-existing friend that is also in her class and was introducing the other students to her. Shelby, on the other hand, was a little squeemish because she didn't know anyone in her class, and she didn't really know what was going on. She's the type that easily frays when things aren't precisely spelled out. I left the classroom about five after eight, not comfortable that it was difficult to get Shelby to crack a real smile.

But when I returned to the school to pick them up, they were both VERY excited about how their day went, to the extent that neither of them could really shut-up about it. A big relief, but there are still questions to be answered. Hopefully all will be answered by Thursday, when the school is having an orientation type of pow-wow.


Shelby had a pretty good birthday, I think, considering we haven't even had her party yet. She got flowers from her mom, I took her to dinner/ice cream at a place of her choice, and she got at least a half dozen phone calls from relatives with birthday wishes. So if today was that good for her, this weekend has big things in store.

Just in time for the first day of school

Darby gave herself a hickey. In plain view on her arm, so there's no hiding it, at least not in the summer. How great is that?

--
Update, here's a pic.

Too soon, but not too safe

I got up at eight. Yes, on a Saturday. We had many things to do. First on the block was a couple of errands. The post office to pick up a package, and then the bank. I thought my post office opened up at 8:30 like on weekdays, but no. Not until ten. So we were too early. Wasted trip.

Next stop was the bank. Also too early. They didn't open until nine. So we sat there and waited the fifteen minutes for it to open. True, the drive-thru was open, but I had a different sort of transaction to make. Today, I rented a safe deposit box.

Ever since the burglary of late 2004, I've been rather concerned for the safe keeping of certain documents and other items. I contemplated getting a safe for the house, but proper and effective installation requires mounting to the floor. Even then, a determined crook (thinking there's something of greater value than papers inside) may eventually get in. Then there's the fire threat. Even high dollar home safes don't stand up infinitely well to certain kinds of fires. So when I learned how incredibly cheap it was to rent a safe deposit box, holy moly I was all over that idea. I looked it up on my bank website on a whim, and at first I thought the rate was monthly. $40/month is a bit steep for such a service. But that much annually is a freakin bargain. So within days of learning of the feasibility of that option, it is now a reality, and my important documents are safe (pun intended).

It didn't take long at the bank (maybe 20 minutes), and we then had breakfast with the girls' mom, since our late morning plans involved school clothes shopping. Much to my dismay, we spent at least a couple hours (if not a few, didn't pay that close attention) at the store spending a ridiculous amount on not as much clothes as I would have liked to walk away with. Granted the single highest dollar item was Darby's gigantic shoes (size 8.5 on a ten year old!), I was rather shocked at the sticker price when it was all totaled up. Man I hope this stuff makes it through the fall in tact.

The girls said bye to their mom and we grabbed some lunch before heading off to a movie. The girls were a bit disappointed that we didn't see a movie last night, so we took care of that today. Material Girls. How on-topic after that shopping spree. Of course the girls loved it. Especially Shelby, the biggest material girl in the house. She already wants to see it again.

After the movie, we walked around Bricktown for a bit, before catching a boat ride. Almost every time we're down there, the girls ask to ride the water taxis, but I always say no because there's always (conveniently) a huge line. Today, for reasons I'm unsure of (oh, yeah, I remember... it was a hundred degrees out), there was NO line. In fact, we were the only three people on the boat. But it worked out well. Mostly. We got a very personalized tour guide presentation, so that was cool. I'm annoyed that I forgot my camera (I almost always have it), and so had to take pics with my disappointing-when-compared-with-my-real-one camera phone (did get a couple shots, below, AND, a video of Shelby having happy birthday sung to her).

I'm also a bit peeved that I knew more about Oklahoma City economic development than our tour guide. He cited several inaccuracies, and somehow missed the news about an Oklahoma City investment group buying the Seattle Supersonics. What rock has he been living under? Tour guides are supposed to have inside info, not staler-than-Philadelphia-street-pretzels info. Sheesh. Don't get me wrong, he was a nice guy, but not so informed as he should be. Don't worry, I still tipped him, so I'm not such a bad sport about it.

Now, at least, I'm off the hook with regard to Bricktown boat rides. Following previous denials of that activity, Shelby has stopped her feet to a statement containing the words "we NEVER get to...". Now that we have, no more of that. I do have some regret about our timing. It was so freakin hot out, that we were all quite literally dripping sweat when we got off the boat. Time for some AC!

And AC we got. Another first for us in Bricktown (because of previously intolerable waits), we had dinner at Toby Keith's restaurant. Not bad. Price-wise or as far as the ambiance. And only a fifteen minute wait to get seated. Though, when we left, I noticed there was a huge crowd at the door, so our timing was good.

So now I'm just way tired. We did a lot of stuff today. I wanted to do something else this evening, but the heat has just caught up with me. I was hoping for a grander send-off for our last pre-school-year Saturday. Well, we still have Labor Day. And Shelby's birthday party next weekend. Ugh.

Hiking for pizza

Our division commander bought us pizza for lunch for our efforts a few weeks ago with server and desk moves. That was all well and good until I had to work for it (again). A co-worker and I went outside (in the hundred-degree weather) to wait for the pizza guy to show up "any minute". But twenty minutes later we knew something wasn't quite right. After checking several times on the status of the grub, our biggest fear was confirmed. They wouldn't let the pizza guy on the base. Keep in mind that pizza guys deliver on the base every day. But every now and then you get a gate guard that likes keeping people hungry.

So we decided to go meet the pizza guy at the gate. On foot. It was determined to be too much wasted effort to walk to a car, drive to the gate, drive back, drop off, park, walk in, etc. Well, it's close to a quarter-mile walk from my building to the gate. And the walk out to the gate was mostly tolerable. Then we learned that the co-worker forgot his badge and so couldn't get back in the gate if he exited the base, which left it to me to obtain the ten pizzas from the pizza guy.

Fortunately, I convinced the co-worker to wait for me inside the gate instead of heading back to the office, because ten pizzas is more cumbersome to carry a long distance than one might think. So we split the pizzas for the walk in, but over that distance (and in that heat), it was a less comfortable walk than I think we imagined when deciding that driving was not convenient. Someone did offer to give us a ride, but we were already about half way back, so we stuck it out (plus it wasn't our pizza to share should he have wanted as much).

Of course, it would figure that not only did we have to walk all that way to get to the building, but we had to take the pizzas to the furthest point in our office area where there was a free table. Free pizza is almost always worth a little extra work. But today I think we were pushing it.



Following the pizza lunch, it didn't help my tiredness any that I held a three hour staff meeting with my team. I know, what was I thinking. Well, I only intended for it to be an hour, but we had MUCH to talk about, with three products nearing a major milestone. We hardly even went off on any tangents.

Dry run and minor trouble at fencing

This morning we did a dry run to the girls' new school to get an idea of what to expect on Monday. It went better than expected, only taking 15 minutes vs. the five minutes to their old school. Not a bad trip considering it's like eight miles further. I expect it to be a mad-house on Monday, so I figure I can tack another ten minutes onto the trip, but if everything else is as it went this morning, I should be able to get them to school on time and then get myself to work at a decent time.


It's not a new problem, but Shelby had some trouble at fencing today. She got "spoken to" by the instructor for celebrating after scoring points. She was additionally advised not to argue with the referee. There were several occasions that she blatantly argued with a scoring call. You know, like, "Nah-uh! He missed me!" Her instructor explained that she could get ejected from a match for such behavior.

Fastport

After all the trouble, I was surprised to find my brand new passport in the mail following my trip. In half the projected time! Holy more-efficient-than-expected-government. And, as hoped, I didn't get an e-passport. It's the good old-fashioned kind, so not as susceptible to digital fraud.



Update, 22 Aug
I'm SO glad I acted when I did. Per this article (PDF), I only made the cut-off by something like a week. Whew!

Must... have... sleep. Must...

It's been thirty six hours since I've had any REAL sleep. Because I'm quite certain that airplane sleep doesn't qualify. I'm very fuzzy, but have much to do to "catch up" with... well, everything.

The girls start school on Monday and Shelby's birthday is next week, so there's much to do during the remainder of the week (we still have to send out invitations, etc). First thing after landing, I went and picked up the girls to see them, but also to take them to their school with me while I took care of a few things in that regard (school lunches, aftercare sign-up, etc). After those errands I took them to lunch, then back to their mom's so I could get to work and caught up on some issues I know are waiting for me there.

I ended up at work until about six thirty, and then picked up the girls for good. Now laundry and more catch-up. I hope there's some sleep in my future.

Bass ackwards searching

I don't know about you, but I would have expected a massive search effort going out of Philly and into Atlanta. As you know, that wasn't the case in PHL. But who would have thought there would be six TSA inspector types waiting to search our bags quite thorouhly going into OKC at ATL.

While I was glad to have not streamlined my back pack for nothing, I thought it was a bit backwards the way it went down.

What is with the freakin fees?

This trip has been big on the fees. First there was the $35 re-booking fee on the way out here, then there was the $50 fuel fee because my lame butt didn't make time to put gas in the rental car. AND, I just paid $25 because my suitcase was 6 pounds overweight.

But that's not even the best part... two bags of 50 pounds each for a total of 100 pounds is A-Okay, but one bag at 56 pounds is bad and worthy of fees. The kicker is that the only reason my bag weighs that much is cause I took everything out of my back pack (carry on) except my laptops and digital camera and put them in my suitcase. The premise was that it would save time with security. Afterall, they've been advising that we should reduce clutter in our carry-ons to deter lengthy visits with the TSA.

So just how much time did that effort (and the fee) save me at security? Zero.

That's right. None. At all.

They X-rayed everything like normal, but didn't touch my bag otherwise. Oh, and it was only 20 minutes of waiting in the security line. So not only were my fees in vain, but my earliness (and complete lack of sleep) were also apparently not entirely necessary. Considering that I left mom's at 3am and that I still have an hour until my flight departs, that is.

Have I mentioned that I'm tired, hungry, and thirsty, or that my vision just went blurry, making it so much more fun to type this on a thumb-board? Well, it's true. And it doesn't help that I took my magazines out of my bag to save clutter. Now I'm also bored. But I'm fundamentally too tired to do anything about any of my issues. I also now have this big fear that I'm going to crash hard and totally miss my connecting flight. Can you believe I intend on reporting to work later today?

So glad I sacrificed my sleep

So here I am at the Philadelphia airport. It's 4:15am local time, and I've been here for forty minutes in preparation for my 6:10 flight. The line is very long and growing, but it's NOT moving. The ticket counter apparently doesn't open until 4:30. While I'm glad I'm not at the BACK of this line, I'm not so pleased about foregoing sleep to be here so soon. I was so worried about not getting up in time that I didn't go to sleep last night, opting to stay up to chit-chat with mom... so glad for that. The not sleeping I mean. Or not. Actually not all that sure what I mean at this hour.

Chores and Game

Today was all about the chores for mom. Well, okay, and a ballgame, but mostly it was about mom. We went to home depot and got her some concrete, some parts to fix a broken toilet, and extra house keys. Afterward we took her to the "Honk Kong Market", which is not in Chinatown as it turns out, but she says it's bigger and better. We were in that place forEVER and got her well stocked for a few months until the next time my sister and I come down.

This evening I had the pleasure of attending one of the best Phillies games I've been to (though it's hard to beat the 1994 season-ending 16-inning game won by a John Kruk walk-off homer). I had low expectations for the game, since they were playing the Mets, who had a 15-game lead on them in the division, but I'm always enthused in general about a Phils game. I knew undoubtedly before the first inning was over that I had no reason to be disappointed in the game, as the Phils led 6-0 at the end of one. By the time the night was over, the Phils had taken Pedro Martinez out, smashed the Mets 13-zip, and we got to see three Phillies homer (though very very slightly disappointingly we didn't get to see Ryan Howard homer as he struck out four times). Don't buy my version of the story? Read the write-up. Anyway, I also got a new Phillies hat to replace my aging, sun-worn previous Phils hat.

The one truly bad thing about the evening? Having a rental car with New York plates parked at a Phillies game against a New York team. I'm certain it could have been worse, but there were bumper stickers stuck all over my rental car when I got out of the game. I took them off and proceeded to drive back to mom's, when someone honked a horn at me at a stop light. We rolled our respective windows down, and I was informed that there was still a bumper sticker on my license plate that read "I'm naughty... SPANK ME!" Of course, then the light turned green and I was getting on a highway, so I didn't have the opportunity to remove it until I got to mom's... I knew there was a reason I wanted Jim to pick me up instead of driving myself.



Stadium pics have been posted to the Picasa album.

Sunny in Philly

While I won't say it's ALWAYS "sunny" here, so far it's been not so bad this time around. There's plenty not to like, but most of that hasn't been too noticeable. Getting here from Bushkill was rather unpleasant (had to drive back to Allentown -- and the traffic was unexpectedly terrible -- turn in my work-paid rental car and check-out a self-paid rental car that I can leave in Philly), but once I was here, things were much smoother.

Last time I was here, back in late 2004, things were in disarray with mom and her divorce, so we didn't do a lot of hanging around the house. In fact, it's been quite some time since coming home felt like home. But this time was much different. Mom's divorce has since been finalized and she has completely (and that is like the biggest possible understatement -- you'd simply have to see before and after pics, which I don't have) remodeled the house. And she has partially turned the house into a shrine to her children (something it hasn't been anything like in many years for former husband related reasons), which has been interesting as I haven't seen some of these pictures in YEARS. And, mom found a way to keep everything my sister and I made or gave her as kids, so that stuff was interesting to see. She still has my old Haro BMX bike, old karate trophies (crazily on display even), and ALL the knick-knacks she had when we were kids (that had long been in deep storage) were out in force. So this was strangely the homiest homecoming I've ever had in all my years of coming home. And, it's been strangely satisfying.

I had previously talked my sister into coming down from New York, and she arrived shortly after I did, making the old home feel all the more homey. We took mom to a nice dinner of her choice and we reminisced about old times and old haunts. Then we took her shopping.

We stocked her shelves with groceries, but we had fun doing it. I'm pretty sure this was the first time my sister and I have both been grocery shopping with mom since we were kids, so we were having a blast with it doing things like saying "mommy mommy, can we get fruit loops?" and asking to push the cart, etc. I'm pretty sure we embarrassed mom a couple times, but this time we meant it. And it was fun. Afterward we rented a movie and watched it huddled on the couch like when we were kids.

Today is errand day. As she doesn't drive and so has to only run light/close errands for herself typically, we're taking mom on every imaginable heavy-duty errand she can come up with. Chinatown, home depot for an 80-lb bag of concrete, might get her a new dryer, you name it.

And tonight? The Phillies are in town so there is no doubt where I'll be, and with old friends to boot. Mom doesn't want to do that one, but I'm trying to talk her into it so it will be like when we were kids and she'd take us to ballgames. If there's one thing I owe to my mom (aside from the obligatory things), it's baseball. Dad isn't the sports buff in the family, but mom is, and I owe my love for baseball to her, for taking us to games and making us watch games on TV back in the day.

Tomorrow I do not look forward to. Long lines at airports, going back to work. Sure wouldn't mind staying "home" a bit longer.

Big test, big pressure

After three days of jamming government regulations and systems engineering processes into my head (and sometimes missing), I am in my final hours of study before having to take a three hour test tomorrow.

I've learned much, but I am not ready. My confidence in success is low. Passing the test is not a requirement so much as the having the knowledge, but failing the test certainly has no benefit. However, it doesn't help to know that the testing writers (systems engineers and pscychometrists at the National Security Agency I'm told by the instructor) design the test around a non-high pass rate. Meaning they don't want low pass rate, but they don't want a real high one either.

They really only want the most subject knowledgeable folks passing, and I knew the day I walked into that classroom that I was at the bottom of the pack. That class was full of a bunch of REALLY smart people, with MUCH more experience than myself.

So, wish me luck. If I pass this test it will likely be more due to excellent deduction rather than true smarts for the topic. But it would certainly be nice to be among the few hundred people in the world to have passed this same exam (so says the instructor).

Next, next stop... Philly.

UPDATE, 25 AUGUST
Unbelievable. I passed. I am now an ISSEP. And one of less than four hundred. Crazy.

My head hurts

Seriously. Only, from the inside out.

I had SO much crud stuffed into my head today, it's just not funny. And the beautiful thing about that is that it's only day one, AND, we're told that tomorrow will cover about 40% of the information we're supposed to learn. We went from 8am to 7pm and I've been studying ever since because I did terribly on my quizzes. I'm taking an email break right now because my room doesn't have connectivity, but I'll probably be studying otherwise until midnight or one or so.

Of course, it doesn't help my head pain to consider the impact of this morning's events on my travel plans back to OKC.


UPDATE, 11 AUG
So I was up til two. I'm VERY tired AND getting my head further stuffed with info.

Oh, and here's a sneak peak of how my Tuesday morning will go. FANTASTIC.

Bushkill... is that like buzzkill? Cause someone killed my Cincinnati buzz

Arrival in Allentown was largely uneventful. I did my typical rush-to-the-rental-car-counter thing so that by the time I was done getting my car, my bag would be showing up on the conveyor, which was the case, so I found myself getting out of there pretty quickly. Unfortunately, that also meant being out on the highway at about ten 'til five in non-trivially populated metro area (Lehigh Valley), which then meant come rush hour, not only was I trying to make sure I got on the right highways, but I was also fighting "the flow". I was trying to keep to within ten MPH of the speed limit, but that was rather difficult to do lest I be squashed.

After more than an hour of driving, I rolled into Bushkill, PA, my destination. It took me a few wrong turns to find my "hotel". On a map, I'm further North than my sister, who lives in Manhattan, and I'm so far East in PA, that if I went a mile further, I'd be in New Jersey.

So my quandary is this... the training center I'm attending is in a mountain retreat. So my "hotel room" is technically a "villa" (hint: there's a jacuzzi [which I'll NEVER get the opportunity to use] in my bathroom). It's VERY pretty (evident in the view from my room). There are lakes, pools, beautiful mountain views, and SO much more. But I'm slated to be in a training room during all of the daylight hours, which means I'm not going to get to enjoy ANY of the niceness. So, while it's quite swell, this place, I'd kinda rather be in downtown Philly or something, because at the expected rate of exposure to the outside world, what's the point of being in a place this nice? They say there are fewer distractions, but I say, are you sure about that? Is it fewer distractions or just different distractions?



Which leads me into my next point; One of the supposed nice things about a place such as this would be the fact that one is to be "disconnected". And that I am. But I hate it. This is no vacation, so I NEED contact with "the world". I have ZERO cell phone coverage here. There is no internet access from my room, except the phone line, but they charge outrageous fees to make any outside connection (yes, even to "toll free" numbers), and there are NO local access numbers for any national ISPs here. So, about as disconnected as one can get.

I DO have wireless broadband in the training center, BUT most of the time I'm there, I'm in class. So at night, my choices are to go to my room and get away from that freakin place, OR, stay there even longer so I can catch up with the world.

(UPDATE: Prime example... no one in my class had ANY idea there was a terrorist incident Thursday morning until almost lunch time when someone told us.)

All I can say is... thank GOODness for Skype. Since they opened their SkypeOut service earlier this year to free outbound U.S. calls, I took full advantage of that to call my dad, mom, sister, and a few others, mostly to let them know that I'm disconnected and can't be easily reached. I've "dinked" with it plenty before, but this was the first time that service saved me real world cash.

So I'm here for some very technical training. And I am unprepared. I had two full months to read seven "pre-class" documents, many of which were actually government regulations, so while I did make several attempts, they all ended in sleepy failure. I tried again on the plane, but learned how bad an idea it is to try to read such things via a PDA on an airplane. Public sleepy failure.

Almost perfect in Cincinnati

For as bad as things went in OKC this morning, they couldn't have gone much closer to perfect in Cincinnati this afternoon. We arrived late, so I was weary, but then pretty much everything went right.

At first, I only had forty minutes until the scheduled departure time of my connection. That seemed tight until I learned that my connecting flight was departing from the same terminal I arrived at (that almost never happens to me).

Even with that bit of good fortune, I didn't think I had enough time to grab a bite to eat before boarding began. But then there was a fast food place with no line right next to where I needed to be. So I got myself some lunch and had time to finish it and kick back for a few minutes, because as it turned out, my connecting flight was a little late getting to the gate, so they still had to clean-up the aircraft.

Boarding was smooth, and I got a little bonus out of it. A cute girl sat down next to me for the 70 minute flight. Not that anything came of that, but it's something that NEVER happens to me in all the flying that I do, so it was not unappreciated.

Funny,this doesn't LOOK like Atlanta

Oh yeah, that's because I'm still in OKC after practically watching my flight leave.

Being VERY familiar with how the OKC airport works, and having been here 2 hours, 1 hour, and thirty minutes before my flights on various trips, I know that the only difference between the three is how long you wait in the terminal.

So, while I woke up at five for my 7:30 flight, I kind of dilly-dallied around, and didn't even get to the airport until about ten til seven. I've done this before without issue. But apparently, today is issue day.

I (stupidly in retrospect) opted to park in the airport parking garage and walk to the terminal instead of my typical ground parking/shuttle to terminal routine thinking the timing wouldn't be much different. By the time I got to the check-in counter and through the line, it was 7:04, which is a bad thing as it turns out.

I was told bags have to be checked by thirty minutes before departure. I tried to insist that with 26 minutes to go, the bags would make it. But the counter guy would have nothing of it, and directed me to the courtesy re-booking phone to change flights. That's right, he wouldn't even re-book the flight FOR me.

So I called the re-booking line only to be told that the next flight out was at 10:20, but that they couldn't re-book flights earlier than three hours in advance, so I'd have to hang up and call back at 7:20. That was in eleven minutes at that point. Can you believe that?

After waiting the requisite eleven minutes, I called and got my flights re-booked, for the low-low cost of $35 in re-boking fees, all due to my four minutes of time misuse.

The beautiful thing about all this is the fact that I've gotten to sit around the OKC airport for three hours (while everyone else on my original flight is in Atlanta), and so could have just not gotten up at five this morning instead. On top of that, I got to listen to my original flight board and leave without me. What a great day this has turned out to be (he said knowingly)!

To shine SOME positive light on the matter, most of the waiting has been front-loaded, so my layover (in Cincinnati now) will be much more tolerable than Atlanta would have been (only in terms of time and terminal size/transit issues). Also, I arrive in Allentown at 4:33 instead of 4:01, so there's not a great deal of difference in overall travel time. Though as I type this my new flight's departure time has come and gone, so hopefully it's not an indicator of further (unexpected) travel nightmares to come. Fortunately, the Cincinnati airport is not so big that you can't run across it in short order to catch a nearly departing connection (ignoring the luggage issues for a moment).

Packin' Brok-a-lay

Well, I'm packing. Finally. My least favorite travel activity. I should actually be sleeping. But I procrastinated the packing, so here I am. Not sleeping. Or packing in the Zs.

This time tomorrow I'll be... not here anyway. I'm headed to PA, upstate at first, and eventually to Philly. I have a bit of an unpleasant trip ahead of me initially, though I'm feebly attempting to reserve judgment until I get there. As though flying four hours in two segments wasn't enough, my layover is three hours. And then, once I get "there", which isn't really where I need to be, I have to drive my rental car more than an hour (on non-interstates) to get where I'm supposed to be. There's basically just no easy/direct way to get there. More dreadful will be the trip from there to Philly, but I'll go into that part later. Right now I'm just festering over tomorrow's literal full-day of multi-modal travel.

Demolished

In case I haven't been terribly descriptive, they're renovating the office space where I work. They've divided the area into four quadrants, they move people out of a quadrant, renovate the area, then move them back. Well, in the last couple weeks, the first quadrant was completed, and I got to move out of my old desk, and into my new desk. We only had last week to get moved out of our old areas as they were set to start work on the next quadrant.

So early this morning I was told in passing that my old desk had been torn down already as they prepare to renovate the second quadrant. I didn't think much of it, and I continued to work. As the morning progressed, two or three more people came by to let me know that my old desk was gone. Still, I didn't really let it phase me. But on the way back from an after-lunch break, I decided to stop by my old area to see what all the fuss was about, and, well... all I can say is, what old area?

My old desk wasn't just taken down, or torn down, or disassembled. It was demolished. Destroyed. Flattened pretty much literally. It's way gone, and there's no going back. All day I had been under-interpreting what people had been telling me about my old desk, and so I was quite flabbergasted by what I saw when I finally got around to checking it out.

Oh, iggles...

You came out strong and showed you mean it, but then... well, it is pre-season. And it wasn't the starters that lost it, so...

BUT, I'm worried about the depth.

And I was so hoping to be able to go into work without having to face the inevitable "Eagles suck!" taunts. Thanks for helpin out, guys. Couldn't come through with, like, a last minute touchdown or something. I understand.

Bye bye Steph

I met the Steph-meister for (a VERY freakin early, especially for a Saturday) breakfast this morning. She brought her house with her. Or more specifically, the moving truck that contained all the contents of her once-and-former house. She's insanely taking off to the blazing hot surface of the sun to begin her career anew. Okay, so it's Phoenix, but that's almost as close as you can get to moving to the surface of the sun. So I thought I'd say good-bye and thanks for the (mostly) good times. And... see you in 2008!

L'Italia, qui vengo

If you recall my recent passport acquisition exploits, you might have wondered to yourself, however briefly, what the heck does Shawn need with a passport?

At the time it was mostly a just-in-case kind of thing, but now it's official.

You see, my high school alumni office has put together a nice little trip to Italy for what seems to be a decent price (everyone tells me it is anyway). I toiled about going for some time, but have since turned in my registration fee, so it's as official as it gets. I held off on mentioning it because they were waiting to get the minimum number of people before committing to the trip, which they have now done, so it's pretty much a done deal, aside from dishing out some cash, of course.

I feel very guilty about spending that kind of money on myself, as I don't usually do that. Aside from the necessities (house, car, computer, major appliances), I've never spent more than a few hundred dollars on myself, much less a few thousand. I don't have a big screen TV, or riding lawn mower, or a motorcycle... I just don't splurge like that generally (not that I don't drool over that stuff and heavily desire having it). Until now. I just hope the kids don't flip out that they don't get to go, because spending ten grand for the three of us to go is just not practical much less possible.

The justification for spending the money is that, when the kids are grown, I plan to do a good deal of international traveling... you know, visit all the cool European places, Australia of course, hopeful my country of birth... so it seemed like a good idea to get a "structured start" to my international adventures by going on semi-guided trip such as this. And what better place to cut my traveling teeth than Rome?

Now, if I could only get one of my high school buddies to pony up, it could truly be an adventure... If I can't, then I'll have to dish out a little extra money for the single-occupancy rate, not to mention the fact that it will be a slightly less memorable trip on my own. Come ON guys!

Home sweet laptop

After fifteen days of goneness, I finally got my laptop back today. It's so good to have it back all nice and repaired. Nevermind the fact that it was sitting around at "the shop" with completed repairs for the last four or five days without anyone calling me to let me know and that I wouldn't have it now (or for who knows how long) had I not called out of concern this afternoon. I'm ignoring all that because I'm just glad for the moment to have it back. Sorry, but it's like taking the bus all week while your car was in the shop. When you get your own ride back you just want to go for a drive...

Painted Shelby

Wasn't expecting a painted Shelby when I picked up the kids today, but that's what I got.

Moved out, but not moved in

Well, I'm all moved out of my old desk. But I'm not yet moved into my new desk if that makes sense. So I have a nice new desk with boxes all around it until I find somewhere to put nine years worth of crap in this new desk that has more surface area but technically less drawer space...

Found and slightly less sick

So Darby's off the hook. She found her cell phone today in the school office, though it wasn't there yesterday.

Today was better for me from the runny nose perspective, but I'm still stuffy and generally not well. But I'm glad I got well enough to not be a distraction at a meeting I had this afternoon. That was the big worry.

Still not done moving all my crap to the new desk, which has to be done before the week is out.

Sick and lost

Like what I needed was to be sick today. I've gone through three boxes of tissues. I had to leave work to fetch several more boxes to make sure I had enough and to replenish tissues I had borrowed from others. So I'm moving stuff around and having to stop every other minute to blow my nose.

Clearly my mood is not a pleasant one today, so imagine my level of upsetness when I arrive to pick up Darby at summer camp only to learn that she has lost her cell phone. Grrr. She is in much trouble, because I'm constantly telling her to keep it on her hip and stop laying it down in various places. I knew they were going on a field trip today so I particularly looked her dead in the eye this morning and said keep track of your cell phone, do NOT take it off. Well, guess what she did?