Meritless expectations... without merit?

My aforementioned "promotion" that contained no promise of an associated monetary reward (at the time) has, in fact, been rewarded after all, and moreso than expected. Yay, me, I suppose, though I'd rather make this about being thankful to those that made this possible (the promotion and the raise). The TEAM.

Thanks guys (and gals)!

Another tragic ending

"I have recently become a secret connoisseur..."

...of tragic endings.


Even so, one is never eager to experience, witness, or be otherwise impacted by yet another tragic ending. Especially when children are involved. If you live around here, then you know what I'm referring to (PDF), probably.

If not, you may have noticed the reference on the front page of CNN: "Three dead in military base standoff".

Such a shame.


About 3:30pm we got an email that said all gates are closed due to an "incident" on the base. I didn't really think much of it then, because such things have happened before in my nearly eleven year employment at the base. But when I tried to leave at 4pm to pick-up my daughter from her school softball practice and saw that every square inch of asphalt on the streets and parking lots was covered by cars trying to leave, I knew there was something bigger going on. I had to call my ex-wife and ask her to pick up my daughter instead, as it was impossible for me to leave.

It took another few minutes before possible details began to emerge, and not much longer before the tragic ending revealed itself. While I don't mean to trivialize the tragedy of others with the inconvenience to my own day, it took about another hour, from when they opened the gates, to when the traffic was manageable enough for me to make another attempt at departure. A lot of time to think about the tragedy itself.

The loss of life, of children. The resources expended to surround and storm the home after the shots were fired. And the subsequent direct impact to the lives of several thousand people. Such an unimaginable result for a single act of selfishness. And, like all tragic endings, there is still the aftermath.

Heroic?

The girls have been bugging me to get Guitar Hero III for the Wii for them since it came out (my little brother has it, so they've been heavily exposed). The pressure picked up after they started playing it more with friends, but I said I refused to spend more than $100 on a single game.

So when the price dropped last week to a more reasonable $70, and the point was made about the extra fun of having two guitars when playing with friends, I was further conflicted. In particular with getting them something so costly out of the blue, though my argument was somewhat nullified by the two upcoming holidays (Valentine's Day and Easter) which I could knock out in one purchase for both girls. So I closed my eyes and asked the question, what would "cool dad" do? (a name by which I'm seldom known)

The answer? Well, he would do the heroic thing, of course. And? He would ROCK.

Better (very) late than never

Sure it's been six months since we returned from our Summer vacation in Philly and New York, but I've finally gotten some pictures in the album. It has been so long because I took over a thousand pictures over the course of our time back East and I needed to get around to selecting and cropping a reasonable sample of pictures (preferably something shy of a hundred), which I finally did today. Why today? Well, the kids were away with their visiting Aunt, I was procrastinating some work, and, well, I kinda wish it were August again. For many reasons.

Softball season is upon us

Today was the beginning of a very busy softball season for Darby because she will be on two teams. One in the league she played for in the Fall, and the other is her school team. Tonight was a league practice and Monday is her first school team practice, so things are really picking up rather all the sudden. She has like five practices a week between the two teams. But the school team starts playing games in a couple weeks and the league team doesn't start for another month. We've already told the school the league is more important and will win out in a conflict, and they're okay with that, so we'll see how it goes.

Birth of a star?

Shelby had her first "professional" audition for a TV commercial today. For Seven Eleven. Will this be the first of many? Or the birth of a performance career for her? Well, she's got to get the part first (and there were more than a hundred trying out). So, we'll see what we hear in the next couple weeks. I had to make a resumé for her. Can you believe that? A resume for my ten year old.


Update, 4 March
Unfortunately, Shelby did not get a lead part. BUT, she will still be in the commercial as an extra. So, something else for the "resumé" at least.

Let's get physical

Darby's school requires student-athletes to get a physical before participating in school sports. Not something she has had to do before, so that was an interesting experience. She complained the entire time in the waiting room about how much she hated physicals even though she never had one. Then it turned out to be a piece of cake. Well, right up to the part about getting three shots. As she recently turned twelve, it was time for more vaccinations and boosters.

Her arms were sore the rest of the day, so she asked to skipped piano lessons. I said no, but fortunately for her, less than an hour later her piano teacher called off the lesson due to her being sick. I have to say, it was nice to be able to relax on a Monday night instead of having to run from work to piano lessons.

Another spring tease (oh, and happy new year)

Last Monday it got up to 74 outside, but it was wasted on a long workday, being dark by the time I left the building. Depressing, huh? (you'd say yes if you knew it was 30 the next day)

Fortunately, today we were blessed with another nice sunny day, the last for several days probably, and we took advantage. Well, somewhat. It started as a lazy Saturday. We slept in. Watched a TV movie (don't ask me which), and didn't get our butts outside until after two. But, we got our share of sun. The girls and I played outside on the apartment's recreation deck. Shelby got some skateboarding in. We all played some basketball, and Darby and I had a lengthy catch (okay, so that was slightly in preparation for softball, since practices for Spring start next week).

While we were out, we heard a lot of drumming and fireworks off in the distance. Turns out it's the Chinese New Year (and we live near the Asian District of OKC). So, of course, when dinner time rolled around the girls wanted to go to the Asian Buffet a short walk away. And that was the catch, it was so nice out, they wanted to walk. So we did. We walked to the post office to mail something, then to the restaurant, and then to the drug store before returning just in time for sunset. It was quite the nice day. Too bad it's not supposed to break out of the forties tomorrow. And there's a couple chances for ice and snow this week. I'm SO ready for Spring.

This evening some friends came by and all the kids played Guitar Hero on the Wii the rest of the night (Darby is getting pretty good). A nice end to a nice day.

broken lent already

At lunch, we did such a good job. Shelby skipped lunch (on her own! no prompting!) because her school serves burgers on Friday, Darby had a salad, and I had pizza (even pulled off the pepperoni). But by the time dinner rolled around, I had already forgotten it was still the first Friday of lent, and we walked into Quiznos for some sandwiches without thinking it through. At least, not until we had already ordered. Ugh. The food was in the oven when I realized, what could we do? Shelby about had a heart attack that we were eating meat on Friday, you should have seen her face. Hopefully we'll do better next Friday.

Called upon again to be the best

Some years before the creation of this blog (back in 2000), I was called upon to travel back to Philadelphia for the wedding of my high school best friend. Best friend asked me to be best man. While I think another may have been worthier for the role, I filled that role with the appropriate level of distinction I believe, and the DJ of the reception informed me that I was the first he had seen give the best man speech reading from a PDA screen (and, there's proof).



That particular event was not actually the first time I stood next to the bride and groom at their wedding, as I had (strange as it sounds) served as the "attendant of honor" for one of my earliest Oklahoma friends back in 1998. No, I didn't have to wear a dress, no I didn't have to walk arm-locked with the best man, and no I didn't have to hold the bouquet for the bride during the ceremony, but thanks for asking. Unfortunately, we didn't sell the movie rights to that occasion, because something much like it is about to be a movie.

Well, tonight, I have again been called upon to stand next to the bride and groom. One of my college best friends called and asked me to be the best man at his wedding in April. In this case, I am certain there are worthier choices, but I am honored nonetheless to fulfill the role. Except for the speech part. Who likes to write speeches? Well, I've a got a few months to come up with something before heading to mid-Texas for the event. Though, truth be told, back in 2000 I composed the majority of my speech on the PDA while on the flight to Philly. Since I'll be driving this time around, that option isn't exactly available, so I'll have to be a bit better prepared.


Update
Here's a picture of me giving the best man speech.

Mostly universal

The church the girls usually go to for all their various activities (Sunday school, CYO, altar service, etc) is on the other side out town, which usually doesn't stop us from making the drive, but I've been attending RCIA class on this side of town, and tonight we needed to be in both places at the same time, which as you know, is usually not possible. So, instead of attending their usual church for Ash Wednesday mass, I took the girls to the church where I attend RCIA, since I had RCIA immediately following mass.

This was the first time that the girls had attended a mass at a church other than their own, and the first time I had attended mass at a church other than theirs since high school. Considering Catholic means "universal", I was surprised by a couple of the differences in the mass. Sure it was mostly what we're used to, but Darby, being an altar server and thus very familiar with the process at her church, gave me several "WTF?" type looks during the ceremony. And afterward both kids said, "we're not coming here from now on are we?"


Oh, and apparently the three of us are giving up some variant of soda for lent. The girls both decided to give up Pepsi, which I thought was a bit limiting, but Darby at least says she has Pepsi every day at lunch, so I guess that's something. I have decided to give up carbonated beverages. Considering I did that back in high school for two years, forty days shouldn't be too terrible right? Well, I don't know about that. I mean, do you have any idea how much soda I drink in a single day? Is it too late to change my mind?

Public school is teaching my kid to like being drunk?

Okay, so maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but it's a little disconcerting when my oldest daughter comes home and says learning what it felt like to be drunk was fun. Apparently, in "life skills" class the message was "don't drink and don't do drugs", but when the students got to wear "funny glasses" to experience the disorientation of being drunk, they all thought it was "pretty fun", or so says my daughter. I'm not sure that was the intended consequence. And I hope the first time she's in a potential underaged drinking scenario, "it was pretty fun" is not what first runs through her mind.

Super Fat Tuesday

"First we vote, then we eat. A lot."
-- my response to the kids when they asked what we were doing tonight

As has become customary for us the last few years, I took the girls out to eat at a place of their choosing the day before lent. They couldn't agree on where to go, and so fate interceded (also known as "rock paper scissors"), leading us to Golden Corral. And let me tell you, we definitely put on some weight this night.

But first, as noted, we did our civic duty and waited in an unexpectedly long line to vote. It was sort of anti-climatic because after that long wait, there were just two things to vote on, president and school board. Historically, they throw a bunch of things up for vote at once, and you find yourself in the booth toiling about some bond issue or other that you didn't expect too see on the ballot because you weren't paying attention to the entirety of your municipal government in action. But not today. Which, I suppose, was somewhat relieving. Because, of course, we were quite hungry. Shelby even asked when we got there if we could please go eat first. But I explained that we wouldn't make it back before the polling station closed. She didn't care much for that, but she still wanted her sticker.

Surrounded

The title is actually a misnomer, which I'll explain momentarily, but for my purposes it's just as well. You see, as much as I like movies and music, I've never been much of an audiophile or home theater connoisseur in terms of having the latest and greatest equipment. Prior to last May, my 25" tube TV from 1995 was the best TV I ever had. And I NEVER used anything other than the built-in TV speakers. So when I moved, I went ahead and picked me up a 42" LCD TV (a refurb, so I didn't splurge or anything), but I was still using the TV speakers, which were mostly fine by me, because what do I know.

Well, to go along with the new-ish place, I've been slowly improving my home theater footprint, without breaking the bank. I've got the aforementioned LCD TV, there's an HTPC project going (another entry in and of itself, which I'll do when it's done), I picked up a nice receiver for Christmas, and as I happen to know the owners of the best speaker company on the planet (Oklahoma City's own Digital Designs), I've been eager to be an early adopter of their new home theater line of products.

Tonight my DD buddies came over with my new speakers -- the first time I've used external speakers for my TV/Movie viewing experience -- to help me set things up (because again, what do I know about this stuff). While I didn't ask for a full 5.1 or 7.1 setup (mostly because I didn't want to mess with that, but also the layout of the place isn't the most conducive for such a setup), thus the misnomer remark, I now have a 3.1 setup (front left and right, center, and sub) that is far beyond anything I've ever had. We played the Wii and watched a movie after the setup, and everything sounds AWESOME. Definitely a good move on my part. And now I'm more eager than ever to wrap up my HTPC build (which would give me a custom DVR and have my full digital music library playing through the new receiver/speaker setup).

So, while I don't technically have "full surround" (by choice), with my new setup I feel plenty surrounded with audio goodness. Thanks DD!