Catching Up

Wow, I've been bad keeping this thing updated lately.

In something of a quick update:

• Last month I took Sammy to Children's Hospital to have a doctor check out a potential "boy" problem. We suspected all was well, but his pediatrician wanted to make sure, and sure enough he was. On the one hand I appreciate the concern that the pediatrician had, but on the other hand, it cost us $25 to tell us what we already knew.
• Abby is doing well in school and is currently on Spring Break. I took a day off Monday and Abby and I went fishing at a local pond. Abby caught 2 crappie while I only caught 1--a fact that she keeps reminding me of. I'll post a picture of the second fish later.
• Cindy is again doing programs for the library this summer although not as many as in past years. Evidently, the budget for programming at the library isn't as generous as it has been in past years, so Cindy didn't get as many bookings.
• My generals have FINALLY been scheduled for this summer. I can honestly say this scares me more than anything short of kids, and possibly moreso than that. Still I've been at this so long, that for my sanity, and possibly everyone else's, I need to get this done and soon.
• We broke down and bought a new PC. One of the perks of working for a university is that the good folks at Dell will give you a pretty good discount on a system. We've had it now for about 2 weeks and it's so much better than the old one. I still want to add memory to it, but otherwise we're quite content with it.

An alternative look at the brackets

If March Madness were decided by academics.

Interesting and somewhat disturbing article

Caution, some harsh language

The End of Wall Street's Boom

Tubthumper Skater

Yesterday Sammy and I went ice skating at the OSU Ice Rink. For most people this is a somewhat innocuous and uneventful activity--for Sam though it was a chance to entertain the masses, and entertain he did. As we proceeded around the ice Sam would delight and amuse by falling to the ice and shouting "I GET KNOCKED DOWN" and then as he got back on his feet "BUT I GET UP AGAIN!". The first 10 or so times he did this I found itquite amusing, and the 50 or remaining times he did this I found it quite bemusing. But persist he did, much to the delight of others at the rink.

For those curious why he would do such a thing the link below is to a song that Cindy recently put on a CD because she thought he'd like it. I guess she was right much to my chagrin.

Of Odds and Ends, and Blasts from the Past

What an interesting few weeks. Two weeks ago, like most of the Midwest we dug our way out snow, ice, and even more snow. For reasons that escape me, I've never been quite able to master the art of ice removal. Snow I can move just fine, but ice--that's a different story. Nonetheless I did my level best to keep our driveway and walks level. As you can imagine not much happened that week. Abby was pretty much out of school the entire week and Sam didn't have preschool that week either. Even OSU closed for a day. So for the most part, much to their consternation, they were pretty much housebound though we did make it outside for some rousing snowball fights, fort-making, and other snowy frivolities.

Contrast that with now when the temperatures are expected to be in the lower 60's, most of the snow is gone, and there is a real chance of thunderstorms tonight. Weird stuff.

Anyway, Sam and Abby are still having fun. For the past few Saturdays Abby and I have been going to a soccer clinic close to our house. A select soccer program has partnered with the league Abby plays in to offer clinics at a warehouse facility. Basically, they've placed AstroTurf on the floor of the warehouse so that they can have soccer practices in bad weather. From what I gather a parent of one of the players on the select team owns the warehouse and donated it for this purpose--must be nice to be able to donate something like that but I digress. The clinics focus mainly on ball skills like dribbling, passing, trapping and stuff like that which is good for Abby, since aside from some work we do in the backyard, she hasn't really had much instruction on those sorts of things.

Both kids are still taking ice-skating lessons and remarkably Sam really seems to like it. He can pretty much skate around without falling though he does like to "fall" intentionally on occasion. Sometimes he falls just so he can get back up by himself and other times he falls so he can make "angels" on the ice--he'll lay flat on the ice and start moving his arms and legs like he's making a snow angel. His teachers really seem to be impressed with the progress he's made, though I do sort of feel bad for the one woman he sort of latches onto for his lesson. Luckily she's good natured about it.

Cindy and I have both had recent blasts from our respective pasts. In the middle of December I opened a Facebook account to see what all the fuss was about, but sort of forgot about it until I got a "friend" request during the bowl game (arrrrrrggggggg) complaining about "Tresselball" which is in overstated concept in my opinion. Since then I've reconnected with a ton of people from my past, a couple of whom I hadn't seen in well over 20 years. That's been cool.

Cindy, who is a self-described Luddite and had little idea that Facebook existed, was hit with something like 5 or 6 friend requests in one day last month. So she, somewhat reluctantly, opened an account and since then has enjoyed reconnecting with a good number of her friends.

Of Hat Tricks and Cannons

On Saturday we went to our first ever Blue Jackets game and what night it was! For those who don't follow hockey, and I barely do, the Jackets have been decimated by injuries and have to play a lot of rookies and players recently called up from their top minor league team in Syracuse. So their recent string of victories has been something of a pleasant surprise.

Sam and Abby both seemed to have a good time at least until the third period when Sammy melted down a bit. Until then both Sam and Abby were having a great time, watching the game and the attendant entertainment that came with it, including the future Jackets hockey game at the first intermission pitting one team of 7 to 9 year-olds, and the "blimp" that flew overhead the crowd dropping various prizes on the fans in attendance.

Unfortunately, in the third period things started to go south, especially for Sammy. Prior to the third each team had one goal, both scored in the first. Whenever the Jackets score, the folks at Nationwide set off a "cannon" while blaring AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock". In the first period when the Jackets scored, Sammy loved it. By the third period though the poor guy was pretty tired, which is when the Jackets did the rest of their scoring (3 goals). This time when the cannons went off Sammy wasn't so thrilled with them, and fortunately for the Jackets, not so fortunate for Sam, the Jackets scored 3 goals in the final period to seal the victory. By the last goal he had pretty much lost it.

But in terms of a first game it was certainly memorable. We saw Nikita Filiatov score his first career hat-trick (3 goals) which prompted a five minute celebration which included fans throwing hats onto the ice. And since the Jackets scored 3 goals we could have gotten free chili from Wendy's (I somewhat lament passing on that), and for reasons I forget we could have gotten a free donut from Tim Horton's with the purchase of a coffee. So it was a potentially productive night.

Miscellaneous

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, so I'll try to summarize the last few weeks.

Christmas was pretty good for Sam and Abby who got a lot of cool toys. The best is probably the toy dinosaur Sammy got from Uncle Matt that walks, roars, and looks like the dinosaur that ate Newman in Jurassic Park. It's been known to attack quite a few things in our house, and sometimes I'll even let Sammy play with it.

Abby got a couple science kits and loves to do experiments. I don't mind this so much except that one of the kits has various experiments testing the acidity or basicity of various things around the house (pop, soap, juice, and whatnot) but doesn't explain what an acid or base is, and I'm a bit stumped on how to explain that to a first grader. Suggestions are welcome.

Cindy was pretty ill for most of the Holidays so for her it wasn't such a good time, and I was a bit frazzled as a result, but managed.

Abby and Sammy had their first ice skating lesson at the OSU Ice Rink on Sunday. We were a bit worried about how Sam would react to it, but he seemed to love it despite falling several times. Now he wants his own pair of ice skates. Abby seemed to pick up where she left off last winter, which was also something of a minor surprise since we didn't get to skate a lot in the Fall.

In terms of the Fiesta Bowl, there are a myriad of whatif moments in that game, but in the end not too much to complain about. We had someone in place to stop the UT receiver and he simply didn't. I'm disappointed for the players, especially the seniors who've endured a lot of nonsense from ESPN talking heads and the like, but I'm very encouraged by the effort and the character shown.

Edit: I was wrong above. There is something to complain about. I'm not sure Fox could have botched the coverage any more than they did. From missing plays, to inexplicably long shots of Gatordade coolers, to 5,949 shots of the Texas band, to 1,643 shots of the McCoy family (and none of the Animal sr), it was a horridly amateurish production.