Night at the Museum

The kids and I saw Night at the Museum tonight, and the kids LOVED it. While completely unrealistic to mom and dad, this is the sort of film that validates every imaginative thought any kid has ever had. If you have kids that are old enough to appreciate such things, you should take them to see it.

It's all about Ju(Co)

JuCo, I don't know you (like, at all), though we did literally just meet. And I have it on reasonably good authority that you're quite swell (and not capable of getting lost). But today was all about you, so I hope you eventually come to appreciate the end result of our efforts.

Songs for the seminarians

The girls had one last church choir performance for the season this evening. Not something they've had to do before, tonight was for the seminarians. Seriously. A room full of seminary students were on hand at the church for a dinner and the pastor, on short notice, asked the choir to perform. It was a very brief performance, though, and so not an inconvenience to participate.

Memories I never knew I had

Back in the late 1991 time frame (yes, we're going way back) I had just moved to Oklahoma from Philadelphia. I was rather homesick, not that I've ever really gotten over that, but I've made due. Anyway, as a coping mechanism, I made a video tape. Two of them actually, for two of my best friends in Philly. I barely remember doing it, but basically I let them know how it was going and showed them a little of my environment out here. This much I knew, and so far as I knew for the last fifteen years, that was the end of it.

But much more happened. And I was completely unaware, until only recently.

You see, my friend Jen watched the tape with her boyfriend Dan, also one of my very good friends, who was then inspired to make a tape of his own. Only he went all-out, just for me. He walked around his college campus introducing me to people, AND he went back to our high school where he walked around and got people I knew to say a few words for me. He also went to a couple band events, getting even more people on tape for me. It was an awesome effort. Except for a couple important points. He never sent me the tape. He never even told me about the tape.

For the last almost fifteen years since he made the tape (in March of 1992), it just sat there, unviewed and unknown to me. Until the reunion. At our fifteen year high school reunion in November, he broke the news to me. And not so gently. I about had a conniption just knowing that there were these memories I was supposed to have, that were not taken from me, but rather simply omitted from my experience. But it was much more cruel a revelation than that. He revealed that he still had the tape, had just watched it a few days before, and was going on about how much I would have enjoyed it. ARGH.

So since the reunion I had been hounding him to send me the tape. At all costs. I would not rest until that missing piece of my past was restored to its rightful place in my memories. And finally, he sent it. What an EXCELLENT Christmas gift, even if it was a tad late.

Once I got the tape, I didn't watch it right away. To fulfill a promise I had made to Dan, I dubbed it to a DVD, made him a copy, and sent the tape back along with a DVD. But I have since watched it, and I feel whole again. Mostly.

The tape was filled with kind words to me from SO many people. Some who I haven't seen or heard from since. And so of course I feel guilty, as I would have sought those people out to specifically thank them for the lifeline from home at a time when I would have needed it most. But particularly sad is the fact that even if I tried, I couldn't thank some of those people right now, because they are no longer with us. Since that video was made, at least two students that greeted me on that tape have passed, and also one instructor who was particularly crucial in my development into the person I am today.

I don't regret getting the tape by any means. I am, of course, extremely appreciative that it was made and at long last sent to me. But I expected only happy memories from its viewing, and not so much the sad ones, making the impact that much stronger. I should have known better. But I will say that, knowing what I know now, I'd gladly take the memories again, sad ones and all, if I were given that choice up front.


For all of you on the tape, thank you so much for the memories. It's not likely I'll get the opportunity to say it to you in person like you deserve, but the world should know that my thanks and appreciation are unwavering in this regard.

Thank you, Santa Eagles, for the best (intangible) Christmas gift ever

I couldn't have asked for a better end to the Christmas holiday than for the Eagles to stomp the Cowboys.

So very awesome. Thanks guys!


Your generosity has not gone unnoticed.

First solo

The girls had their customary church choir performance at Christmas mass this evening, during which Darby had her first solo (terribly-grainy-due-to-flash-avoidance photo is from shortly after the solo).



She was quite nervous about it, but did VERY well. Surprisingly well, actually. Had I not been visually observing and only listening, I might not have been able to tell it was my own daughter I had been listening to. Perhaps putting her in the honors choir at school wasn't a bad move.

Santa came early

Well, my family held our Christmas gift exchange today. The girls made out quite well as is typical, and so far they seem pretty pleased with what they got.

On my part, the prize for coolest gift is a close one. I pretty much have to give it to the Cannon SD600 digital camera from my dad, but my sis' gift is, literally, pretty rockin', too. She got me a couple tickets to the Taking Back Sunday concert in March. Anybody want to go?


Oh, I finally got a picture of Shelby riding a bike without training wheels, since I missed her last effort. She's still having trouble getting going and with her landings, but by next summer, trail riding should be much more fun than the last few years.

No sleeping in for me

As a consultant for a local business, I was invited to their Christmas party last evening. It was decent enough for what it was, but the real adventure came afterward when a bunch of us hit a local dive, I mean bar. As is typical in such scenarios, I was a designated driver. And I'm quite certain that my services were necessary.

After plenty of good and bad karaoke, we hit IHOP before calling it an evening somewhere around three. I wouldn't have minded that so much, but I knew I needed to do one more Christmas thing before picking up the kids at their mom's in the morning, so sleeping in wasn't an option. AND I expect it to be a VERY long day. Ugh.

WHAT(!) was that?

About five to ten minutes ago the entire house shook for just a brief moment. It felt like something dropped onto the house from the sky. Upon going outside, I noticed almost the entire immediate neighborhood was outside with the same look on their faces... WTF was THAT!?!

Being not that far from the Air Force Base, my first thought was that perhaps something happened at the base... maybe a plane crash, a sonic boom, an explosion... SOMEthing. So I called base security and asked if they knew of anything going on, to which they replied negatively.

I've since been flipping around the news stations and checking out the news sites and NOTHING. Something is wacky here...


Update: Apparently, we had an EARTHQUAKE (PDF)! It was tiny (2.6), and we've had bigger quakes while I've lived here in Oklahoma (up to like 4.0), but I've never felt them here before, they've been so small. And let's face it, this state is not exactly known for earthquakes (hint: Tornadoes are our thing). But this time around, I REALLY felt it, as strange as that may seem. Maybe it's because the epicenter is estimated to be only 3.5 miles away from here (according to TV news, not the linked article). I don't know why this one was so different, but it sure perked up an otherwise uneventful night.

RIP Fidget

Mom is VERY close to her cats. She treats them like children, all the way down to feeding them table food. She talks to them, they keep her company. So it's no wonder mom is devastated upon the passing of her oldest cat, Fidget. She had not been feeling well the last week, but the vet had not been able to determine the problem, and mom found her, deceased, in the house this morning.

Mom's taking it pretty hard, so sis and I are having to tread lightly in discussing the matter.

Snow-tubing into second base

I must say, if there were ever a better use for a ballpark in December (aside from Fall-ball for those with the privilege), I haven't seen it. The last couple years they've been converting our downtown ballpark into a snow-tubing facility, and while it's not a cheap adventure, it's quite a lot of fun. The manufactured snow-hill slides you right into second base (and I have to wonder if that was by design), so I can't say I've ever slid into second in such style.

The girls had a blast, though Shelby was frightened to tears (literally) at first because of the height of the hill. I sort of guilt-tripped her into going through with it, but she led the way on subsequent attempts since she liked it so much. We continued our tubing fun for more than an hour before walking a half-mile to the Botanical Gardens to check out the Christmas lights.




The whole deal (and more) is part of OKC's "Downtown in December" events, which I highly recommend. If you live in the area and haven't partaken, shame on you. You can catch more pics of our adventures in the album.

Springlike adventures in the fall

It was such an awesome day. Seventy something degrees in December. Cannot complain. AT ALL.

We started out the day with a faux choir practice. The girls were supposed to have a church choir rehearsal, but we were the only ones to show up, so who knows what happened with that. Instead we went to an earlier showing of a movie we had already planned to see later in the day. Charlotte's Web. While it wasn't exactly spectacular from the adult perspective, the girls of course really enjoyed it, being big fans of the book and animated movies.

After the movie we grabbed some lunch nearby and then did a lot of walking at the girls' request. We stopped at the park for more than an hour, only to experience a traumatic event at the end. Shelby, in her keen ability to get herself into trouble, got her head stuck under a slide. Here's a marked up picture for some context.



Basically she was trying to tag her sister, who was on the platform at the top of the slide, so she stuck her hand and then her head into the gap under the slide trying to reach her sister.



When she tried to back out, she could not, and she screamed. So when I got there, her feet were on the bottom part of the slide and her head was stuck in the gap at the top. My big fear at that time was that her feet would slip and she would damage her neck. I got there pretty quickly to support her from falling, but Shelby is a bit of a panic-er in such situations, so it took much calming to finally get her head out. That girl is going to kill me if she doesn't kill herself first.

So after that incident we went for another walk, and the girls wanted to go to the library, which we were about a half-mile from. Instead of walking a half-mile back to the car, and then driving a mile, we went ahead and walked the half-mile to the library, where we spent a good hour and a half. However, walking the mile back to the car afterwards was not something the girls were thrilled about.

After all the work we were hungry again, so we grabbed an early dinner and followed it up with slushies for dessert. We could definitely use a few more of these Spring-like days in the fall, but I already know we've only got one more day of decent weather on the forecast, so I'm glad we stayed out the entire day to enjoy it.

Song and dance

Darby had a choir performance today, and both girls had their first "school dance" type of event. Their mom attended and is probably sheltering me from the gritty details (like the names and addresses of the boys that danced with my daughters).

Three hours and not even a kaboom

So I got to stand outside for three hours this morning due to a threat to my facility (PDF). The linked article is the only decent story I could find, as everyone else is using a highly inaccurate and non-detailed AP story. But even this article has inaccuracies. Though it's not my place to clear up those inaccuracies here. Either way, standing outside waiting for a nearly-1-mile-long building to be inspected is not exactly something you plan for when you get up in the morning, so it pretty much killed productivity for the day.

Fiber makes us regular

While they started to run a new fiber line yesterday to repair our little issue, they didn't wire it to the demarcation point until this afternoon. But even once they finished and left, we didn't have the right type of patch cable to connect the fiber to our switch, so I had to drive across town to pick-up the proper cable.

But now we are patched-in and back online. It's so good to be regular, or, back to normal again. Thank goodness for fiber!

Signs your network is having a Monday

I could be wrong. I mean, I'm wrong about A LOT of stuff. And I'm no expert or anything. But the last time I checked, dangling your ethernet switch from the ceiling by its cables was a bad idea. And highly discouraged due to its potential impact on network reliability. But I guess when the fiber optic cable supplying that switch with backbone connectivity is lying cut on the floor, a dangling switch is the least of your problems.

The contractors performing our office remodel, who were told specifically and on more than one occasion to leave the switch and its cables alone, apparently got a little demolition-happy when they were tearing out our old telephone and LAN drops to make way for the new ones. Clearly this was a poor choice, and made for a stereotypical Monday for us server admin types. Needless to say, the customers are highly displeased.

Eight hours of shopping

I was at the mall for a punishing six hours today. And then spent two more hours at other stores. And I spend what can only be described as a ridiculous amount of money. Not my best plan ever, but I was trying to nip this whole xmas shopping thing in the bud once and for all. I was largely successful with regard to my children, but I still have a few family gifts to get. It's those impossible to buy for people that remain. Why can't you people have wish lists (he said grouchily).

My feet are SO very tired. It's my own fault for slacking after getting an initial early start and then being worried that online purchases wouldn't make it in time without extra shipping charges. I can't wait until this time next month. It will all be over. Sure, I'll be complaining about another quick year change, but that will be better than complaining about the holidays.

Holiday parties

I had my second holiday party in as many days this afternoon. Yesterday was the company party, during which we had the best food of the past ten years of parties. I am a meat eater, and there were several varieties of meat, of which I had some of each, so I was quite satiated by the variety. It wasn't the best door prize year (that would be 2002), but they tried real hard, literally giving everybody a little something, which is probably the better approach. So, very good (and free) food, decent door prizes, and a shorter than usual party makes for a top-five party year.

Today's party was a customer party, and decent, but not one of the best we've had in that regard, I think mostly because of a last minute location change. Our original location was double booked, so we had to move on short notice. I chose to split my time between the farewell lunch of a departing 10-year company employee and the holiday party, which I don't regret, but it turns out I then missed out on a little recognition.

We recently had a unit coin design contest, and my design was chosen (a surprise to me... I didn't feel like mine was the best design). So, during a brief award ceremony (for several awards, i.e. employee of the quarter, etc) prior to the party starting, my design was unveiled and my efforts recognized... only I wasn't there. I was at the aforementioned lunch. Figures.

Back-to-back due dates

I learned today that I will be down two people in June due to back to back births. We have a team spouse and a team member that are pregnant and due one day apart. Ugh.

Twelve miles to push a button

In this day and age we have wonderful technology. We have the ability to remotely control computer systems to save ourselves travel time and associated trouble. So say if we simply need to reboot a computer after hours, instead of driving into the office to perform said reboot, we can do a remote logon, perform the reboot, and be done with it just moments later.

The only thing is, it is highly discouraged that you actually turn anything OFF remotely, lest you find yourself having to actually travel to the office simply (and aggravatingly) to push the button that will power that system back on. But, of course, no one I know would do something so... idiotic, eh?


(he said knowingly)

Choir weekend

Darby had a school honor choir performance on Saturday afternoon. It was a pretty darn good show considering they've only been rehearsing the particular music they performed for less than three weeks.

I'm a little disappointed with the way the performance was advertised, as I didn't think it was billed as a particularly family-friendly event, so I didn't invite anyone. Turns out I think many family members would have enjoyed the show. Guess I should have invited them anyway. Because of this, I have already added her next performance to the calendar. Family members, if you're interested in going, please let me know and I'll give you further details.


AFTER Darby's choir performance, Shelby let me know that there was also church choir practice on Sunday. And then strangely, we ran into the church choir teacher when we went to dinner Saturday night (also strange... she is a bartender). This afternoon, after church, the girls both attended practice, so it turned out to be a weekend full of song.

Holiday pictures are here (and Christmas cards will soon be on the way)

I picked up the pictures we took a couple weeks ago tonight, and I must say that I'm disappointed in myself. While the girls look great, I look half-asleep in the family photo. Can't believe I didn't notice that when we were ordering.



Anyway, I've updated the album to include the new photos, including more poses. This time around I ordered electronic access to the photos as well, which allowed me to also post in the album a copy of the photos we did not order physical copies of.

Several days ago I bought some Christmas cards (the girls picked the designs), and I have already addressed them. So for family wondering when the heck they're going to get their pictures, I'll be putting them in the cards this weekend, so they should be heading your way first thing next week.