At least I didn't get sunburned

As I got on I-15 heading for ultimate frisbee at Murray Park, I realized I'd forgotten to put on suncreen.  It was a sunny Saturday morning, and if we played well past 12:00 as expected, I could expect to burn a little.

As it tuned out, I didn't have to worry about that.  Chasing Ellis down ten minutes into the game, I somehow couldn't keep my feet in front of me and I hit the ground.  I tried to roll but I was too slow and came down hard on my right shoulder.  It felt like my shoulder exploded with pain.  I knew immediately that this was not a shake-it-off-and-keep-playing pain.  When I could stand, I headed off the field, answering "No" to the players asking if I was okay.  At least one looked skeptical; it probably was not a very impressive fall.

I headed for the IHC instacare about 9000 S and 700 E.  It took half an hour with the construction-retarded traffic.  I got an ice pack there, but they told me they wouldn't take my Blue Cross insurance and besides, they had an hour plus wait.  So I called down to the BCBS instacare on 123rd S and they only had a 15 minute wait.  I headed down.

To make a long story short, I waited, they took some x-rays, I waited some more, and they concluded that nothing was broken but I had an AC separation, and put a sling on me.  That was about 11:45, 1.5 hours after the injury with the worst pain I can remember.  (Damn IHC.)

I took the babysitter home.  Rachel was at a bridal shower and had left her phone on the counter.  (She didn't know the babysitter had her own.)  I was hoping to avoid more driving, which hurt, but at 1:15 Rachel was still not home and the pain was driving me crazy, so I dropped the kids off at our neighbor's -- Rachel had the car seats -- and left to pick up my lortab.

Rachel got home before I did.  "Where are the kids?"  "At the neighbor's."  "What?!"  Rachel sounded pissed.  I think she thought I must have told the babysitter to leave them there so I could play more frisbee, so I quickly told her what happened.

Today there's a lot less pain as long as I'm careful not to move it at all.  I'm going to see a specialist tomorrow and see how long I'll be in this sling.

Lortab makes me sleepy

I just woke up from a 3-hour lortab-induced nap at 6:30. I took my second lortab at 8:00. Now I feel like sleeping again.

Maybe I can get Dad to prescribe some slightly lower-strength stuff.

(Details when I feel like typing more one-handed. 25 wpm sucks.)

The difference between Mommy and Daddy

Got pulled over again.  This time by a motorcycle cop at the bottom of a hill coming home from Wal-mart.  

"Do you know why I pulled you over?"

"Probably because I was doing 45."

"That's right.  I'm giving you a written warning.  Keep it down, okay?"

(Man, that really works.)

Matthew and Melissa were with me, and of course Matthew had a zillion questions.  I explained that Daddy was driving too fast.  "Why?"  Well, nobody ever goes 35 down that hill, because the hill just goes right back up again, so you coast down and just let the next rise bleed the speed off.

I showed Rachel the warning receipt.  She was a little inclined to give me a hard time at first.  "Don't tell me you don't do 45 down that hill, because you do," I replied.  Rachel admitted that there was some truth to this.

"But Mommy doesn't get caught!" Matthew put in from the back seat.

Too much is not enough

Date night!  Rachel and I dropped the kids off at Gymcats and went up to Game Night Games and played Power Grid.  Power Grid is a notch more complex than something like Settlers, so with it being Rachel's first game and my second, it took a while.  We played with Brian and Peter.  (As Rachel pointed out as we left, "There aren't a lot of women here, are there?")

So we got back to Gymcats around 10:30, way past our kids' bedtime.  Rachel was nervous the whole way down.  "Should I call the gym and see if they're okay?"  "No," I said, "That place is like Melissa heaven."   "Yes, but three hours is a long time for a three year old.  I hope she's not bored and angry and doesn't want to go back."  

The kids were happy to see us.  They were not happy to leave.  I believe Melissa's exact words were, "No!  Never!"  Rachel had to pick her up and carry her out the door.

With luck the kids will sleep in, but I am not counting on it.  Melissa's official bedtime may be 8:30 (or earlier, depending on how tired Mommy and Daddy are), but she has not actually gone to sleep before 10:00 in a long time.  Although I am not actually sure how late Melissa stayed up last night -- I'm assuming not much past when we put her in bed, but I'm not sure, because I was asleep before she was.

Why Our Children are Not in Charge of Dinner

I rhetorically mused about what to have for dinner within earshot of Melissa. She knew right away what she wanted, "Cinnamon rolls! I want cinnamon rolls for dinner!"

In which I almost went to a Death Cab concert

Gary at work is into indie music. He mentioned that Death Cab for Cutie was playing at Thanksgiving Point a couple months ago, with Rogue Wave opening. (Gary was more interested in Rogue Wave.) This happened to be when Ben was in the throes of excitement about our party and toy fund, so he immediately got tickets for the company.

The concert was supposed to start at 5, so Gary and Nicole got in line at 4:30 and Ryan, Travis, and I joined him by 4:45 with our wives. The line was not moving. "Maybe 5:00 is when they open the gate." 5:00 came and went. At 5:30 some people in a golf cart drove by shouting that "because of the rain" they would open the gate at 6:00. This darkened the mood of our group a bit because anyone with an IQ over 60 could have told you that it was going to be a wet day any time this morning. In other words they had all day to plan for it and take the steps that apparently only occurred to them when they were supposed to actually start.

6:00 came and went.

About 6:30 I proposed to Rachel that if we weren't making material progress by 7:00 we cut our losses and do something else with our remaining babysitter time. (We had scheduled Karissa til 8:30. 3 hours of concert = plenty, right?) At 6:45 they finally started letting people in... very, very slowly. It was clear that by 7 our odds of actually being inside were poor, so we bailed. We stopped at the ticket office to get F50's money back, or failing that, at least give them a piece of our minds, but they had closed at 6. Wimps.

We ended up having dinner at the Harvest restaurant right there in Thanksgiving Point. Harvest is one of the best Utah restaurants for the $20-a-plate price range, but for some reason underappreciated. (Possibly because Lehi is in the middle of nowhere, population-wise. If I had to guess I'd say most successful restaurants in that price range are either in Provo/Orem or Salt Lake. And then there's Park City, but $20 would be very low end there.) Rachel had the ribeye. ("Baby wants steak.") I had the tomato soup, because my gut was a little mad at me for eating a bunch of Doritos and chasing it with hot chocolate while standing in line. Getting old, I tell you.

At 7:45 Jeremy texted me that the opening number was starting.

Second day of frisbee

Went up to Murray park yesterday for a 9:30 game. I got there at 9:37. Nobody was there. About 9:45 one person showed up so I decided to wait a bit more. At 10 a couple more showed up and we started tossing discs in the cold rain.

By 10:30 we had eight and the rain stopped, so we started a game. After one point a ninth showed up and we were down a man.

Being down a man sucks when you are fat and slow. You have to work twice as hard on defense since there is always someone open.

I was only the second-worst player this time. Not that I improved so quickly, but someone showed up who was worse. He was fast enough, but he couldn't catch. So we mostly left him open and hoped he would drop it if they threw it to him. Usually he did.

I got cleats especially for this game since it was clear the grass was going to be very wet. Turns out baseball cleats are cheaper than soccer or football, so that's what I got. The Reeboks I tried were horribly uncomfortable, but some brand I've never heard of fit my slightly wider than average feet just fine.

The one guy who was playing without cleats was sliding all over the place, so yeah, worth the $30.

I stopped playing after a couple hours when my left knee said "uncle." I guess it's time to try an "old man" brace. Also losing 20 pounds wouldn't hurt.

A Letter to Uncle Chris

Dear Uncle Chris,

I planted strawberries in my garden, and I planted the stuff that likes the shade, and the stuff that likes the sun a lot. I ride to my scooter to church and I really like it a lot! My Dad found my Darth Vader watch. It was under the bed downstairs. Tonight I want to sleep downstairs, so Melissa doesn't bother me. My Mom planted corn.

We had an ice cream party at preschool and it was kind of fun. You could have all three things on your ice cream. I had just sprinkles, and so did Luke, but some peoples had all three. I only wanted sprinkles. In church we played a game and guess the answers. We stood and threw the penny on a piece of paper and I got the answer right. All the class got answers right, so the teacher said, "Oh darn!" because HE wanted the treats. That was so so so funny! I liked that part. That's all.

Love,
Matthew

Ultimate

I went to the Sandy ultimate field mentioned on the UPA aite on Tuesday, but the entry was two years old and the contact email bounced so I didn't expect much. Sure enough, there was nobody there.

Ultimate SLC mentioned a group that meets at Murray Park at 11 on Saturdays, so I decided to check that out too. This one sounded more promising.

There was a group of 14 just finishing a game when I arrived. One left so teams were still even with me. I was definitely the worst player there. Seven years ago I would have been in the middle. Now I am fat and slow. I did catch a pass to score and made a couple good throws, as well as some bad ones.

The same group is playing Monday morning, a Memorial Day special. (Almost?) everyone had cleats. Looks like I should get some too.

My neck was sore this morning before I played. As in, "I avoided changing lanes because it hurt to check my blind spot" sore. It was really sore after the ultimate. I iced it and heated it and now it is about back to where it was in the morning. I could use some opiates. Or anything stronger than Advil really. I'd blame getting old but I remember how long my shoulder took to get better 7 years ago. So far I'd have to say my neck is getting better faster than that, not slower. Two different injuries, of course.

Public Service Announcment

After three and a half years, I have figured out how to correctly set the time zone on this blog so that post times are correct and not an hour early. It's in formatting under Settings.

Seriously, is that where you would look for time zone settings? Me, neither.

Table Tennis

I drove down to the Pleasant Grove table tennis club on Wednesday. I played for two and a half hours. Now I am sore. Good start to exercising again.

I was in the lower middle of the club skill-wise. Matches were best 3 of 5 games. Two people I clobbered. Another I had close games with, but we could both tell I was better and I won three straight. I was up 2-1 against John C, but he took me to five games and ultimately won. He gave me a backhanded compliment: "You have good form; you're just too slow." Give me a couple weeks and we'll see who's too slow.

Yuan beat me pretty handily but I could take some points from him. I took one game from Tom, who is 67 and considers himself the second-best player there. I guess my style matches up well with him or he was going easy, because I could see myself beating him, while if I am not misremembering he said he beats Yuan regularly.

Finally, the best player there that night was Glen, 60, who completely destroyed me. I think I took eight points total as he beat me in 3 straight games. 10-2, 10-2, 10-4. Glen plays an unorthodox style where he only uses one side of his racquet at a time -- not penhold, sort of the opposite, with thumb and forefinger making a V against the back. He has very different rubber on each side of his racquet, and he turns it around frequently, so you have to pay close attention to see what kind of spin he's adding. He's not very aggressive, but never makes unforced errors.

Glen looks like he has sub-10-percent body fat and could probably bench more than I. Tom said he plays basketball three times a week, too. Impressive guy.

The bad news is, a year ago they changed the rules for service to be totally wimpy. Now you have to move your hand completely off to the side as soon as you toss the ball. I am not a strong server, and my only one that was at all hard to return was one where I would toss the ball high, then hit the ball under my tossing arm, which made it difficult to see if I was serving with topspin or backspin until the last second. With that gone I have no real serving advantage which hurts against people who do, which was almost everyone at the club.

Don't Mess With ME!

Matthew came storming in. "G said to meet him in his backyard. He thought he was tricking me, but he was messing with me and that makes me mad!"

"What happened?"

"He wasn't in his backyard, he was hiding in my backyard and then he ran and wouldn't play with me! Hrumph!"

I wonder how long this friendship will last... G and his siblings have a mean streak and in general aren't very friendly kids. I've tried to warn Matthew but he's not ready to listen. Thankfully there are a lot of nice kids on our street too. The mean ones are the exception rather than the rule.

Kudos to Totally Toddler

I was practicing in the yellow room (which is NOT kid proof) while Melissa was playing downstairs. She crept into the room silently behind me and found some india ink. Naturally she opened it and dumped it on herself and the floor.

I turned around, but the damage was done. Melissa I deposited in the sink with instructions to stay put and wash your hands! I raced upstairs to find the carpet cleaner, but we must have run out. Drat! All I could find was Totally Toddler which works great on throw up (all colors), spit up, and about any other kind of accident a small child can have on clothes, bedding, and carpet. I was skeptical that it would work on ink, but there weren't any other options. Certainly couldn't let that dry on the carpet!

I am happy to report after a lot of blotting and nearly a whole roll of paper towels, that it does indeed work on ink! I'm buying that stuff by the gallon.

Fat

Did I mention I was fat? Yes indeed: 190 pounds. I'm 5' 11"; do the BMI calculation if you're curious. (For the record, though, that puts me into "overweight" but a long ways from "obese.")

Wii Fit also assigned me a virtual age of 46 based on my crappy score on its balance test. Boo.

Just to prove that there's some truth to the stereotypes you've heard, my BMI is not the worst in our office. Actually it is in the better half. (Barely -- #3 out of 6.) I take a small amount of pleasure that my boss, who made fun of my test results ("do you trip a lot when you walk?"), has a good fifty pounds on me.

Speaking of table tennis

We have a table at work. Jeremy is the only one who can give me a decent game, but he recently complained that since I switched to my right hand he doesn't really have a chance of winning. I have to admit, he's right. :)

I tried playing right-handed on my serve and left- on his. That worked okay.

For fun I also tried playing with one paddle each in my left and right hands, with the rule that I can only hit forehand shots. That way at least I play the same way the whole game instead of having to pull a mental switch every two points. And it definitely looks pretty cool.

Sports after college

When I was in college I played a lot of sports. Not at the varsity level; just for fun. I was not fat.

Now, I do not play a lot of sports, and I am fat.

Despite my friend Gary telling me that diet is more important than exercise, I think there is a causal relationship here. (Also, Gary hits the gym daily. So definitely take him with a grain of salt.)

But it turns out that it's really hard to play most sports after college. There's nobody to play with.

Going down the list of sports I used to play --

• Tennis: you pretty much need to find a regular partner or two. How do you do that? There is no "tennis partner" section on Craigslist.
• Soccer: if you're not serious enough to play in a city league, there is nothing (where I live and I suspect most of the USA)
• Volleyball: see "soccer"
• Table Tennis: there are two clubs in the area, both about half an hour away. (Yes, I'm good enough that I don't call it "ping pong." :)
• Judo: there is a new dojo about 10 minutes away. For $35/month I could play twice a week
• Ultimate Frisbee: there may be a group that plays on Saturdays 20 minutes away. Other groups that I googled no longer exist; this one might not either. Otherwise there are definitely groups 35-45 minutes away.
• Racquetball: like Tennis, requires a partner. Also requires either $50/month or $5/session to use a gym with a court
• Weight lifting: gym memberships start at $30/month. I don't really have room for a weight machine (free weights would require a spotter) at my house.

Unfortunately I am not one of those people who can just go running or biking. That stuff is incredibly boring to me. I need competition. Direct competition, not the sort of "who can go faster" competition that you could do in isolation. (Yeah, weight lifting is on my list. That's boring too. But at least it results in manly pecs, you know?)

My Mommy

Melissa woke up to use the bathroom, and as I rediapered her she said, "My diaper, not baby's diaper."

"Yes that's your nighttime diaper."

I tucked her in, "My bed, not baby's bed."

"Uh huh. Melissa's bed."

"MY Mommy, not baby's Mommy."

Problem. (And the baby is not even here yet!)

"I'm Melissa's Mommy, and Matthew's Mommy, AND baby's Mommy."

"And Daddy's wife," she added.

"Yes, and Daddy's wife. Goodnight 'Lissa. Mama loves you."

She curled up in her bed, content.

Sweet dreams my girl...

Garden Saga Part 4

This last week I have spent raking, clearing out grass clumps, and adding nearly 2 cubic yards of "good" soil to the garden.

I finally got around to planting today. With the exception of a few more rows of carrots which will be staggered over the next few weeks, ALL of the planting is DONE.

Whew!

Now I can just sit back and relax.

Oh wait.

There will be thinning plants, weeding, fertilizing, watering...

Bliss.

Maybe Jon's right, I'm a frustrated farmer at heart.

Dinner at the Rumbi Island Grill

Wow.

The rice was "minute" rice. (Seriously. What the hell?) The orange chicken tasted microwaved. The "full" serving of steak teriyaki was okay, except that there was about two ounces of steak (remember the rule of thumb: four ounces is the size of a deck of cards) and a very generous amount of zucchini.

I guess the zucchini lovers will be pleased. Me? I won't be back.

Shout-out to Grant

Blogging up a storm. Nice work, bro.

(You still need to turn on full text in your rss feed though.)

Passion fruit jolly rancher candy

Rachel's mom usually sends me some Jolly Rancher candy when she sends Rachel chocolate or Applets and Cotlets. (It's okay, Mom -- I just don't have as big a sweet tooth as your daughter. One of the few parts of my diet that is above reproach, for the most part.)

But I owe Mom thanks for introducing me to the Passion Fruit variety. I like them better even than the classic. (Especially since they dropped peach and lemon from the classic and added blue raspberry, which is nasty. The kids get the apples and blue raspberries.) The raspberry tastes slightly medicinal, but better than its blue counterpart.

Recommended.

Why would anyone buy from CarMax?

The minvan hunt is officially on.

There's a huge CarMax dealership about five minutes away, so I checked out their web site. CarMax's selling point is haggle-free buying, but CarMax's price is frequently higher than the "you're an idiot if you pay this much" sticker price at other used car dealers for comparable vehicles. And it's never anywhere near what you should be able to haggle down to.

CarMax offers a five day money back guarantee and a thirty day warranty on its vehicles, but that is mostly a non-issue, since most vehicles sold by CarMax are new enough to still be covered by the manufacturer's warranty.

That's not nearly enough to justify paying a 30% premium. I don't get it.

Incidently, I'm looking on autotrader.com, ksl.com, craigslist, and cars.com (which both local papers outsource to). Let me know if we're missing a good option. I checked ebaymotors but it looks like the new hotness there is the "Best offer" sale rather than a real auction, which is super lame.

Not much of a party

Hi Cousins!

Jonathan and I would be happy to host this Sunday's dinner.  Please email or
call me if you can make it.  Dinner will be at 6ish.  Look
forward to seeing all who can make it!

Love,
Rachel

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 7:16 PM, Heather <@hotmail.com> wrote:

>  Hey Cousin-a-roos!
>
>
>
> Well, the cousin dinner looks like it might need to be cancelled due to
> lack of host/hostess.  Sorry fam!  My bad.  Anyway, it was scheduled for
> Sunday, so if anyone wants to volunteer to head it up this month, let me
> know.

Attendance? Zero. Should have invited my cousins instead.

The cousins missed out on Jonathan's Baked Ziti. Yes, I cooked dinner. Although halfway through the ziti preparation, Rachel couldn't stand being left out any longer and took over the seasoning. Seriously. I think it was my mixing of the marinara sauce and ricotta cheese that drove her to it. It made getting the ricotta distributed evenly far easier but pink is a decidedly non-traditional color for ziti sauce. Not that you could tell when all the cheese covered it on top, and it certainly didn't taste any difference, but watching me mix the two provoked a very visceral dislike in Rachel. So she did the second one her way.

Predictably, the kids did not like the ziti. Matthew tried one noodle and one bit of sausage and decided he would rather make himself some toast, which he did. (And pronounced it much better than Daddy's toast. Knock yourself out, kid.)

Melissa refused to have anything to do with the ziti and eventually went to bed very much against her will and screaming bloody murder. (Actually, the screaming preceeded and caused the going to bed.) She didn't nap today, and it showed.

I, on the other hand, napped fantastically today. Unfortunately, my 1:00 nap falls right smack in the middle of church, and the Sunday School teacher's quiet, slightly monotonic monologue combined with by body demanding to sleep puts me out like a light. I'm a little embarassed that I haven't stayed awake through her class in weeks, especially since she's Matthew's preschool teacher too, so we see her during the week for that. "There's that guy who always falls asleep during my lesson," I suspect her of thinking.

But I have to admit that there is a part of me that is a little glad that my sleep schedule has resulted in putting that class time to better use.

A new low

My lawn-care philosophy is that

• every two weeks is plenty to mow
• every month is plenty for weed whacking, and
  
• edging is strictly optional.

Rachel had enough and hired a professional to do a good job today. It cost $40 -- more than the usual rate of $33 because of the profound state of neglect things were in, he said -- but Rachel pronounced herself pleased with the results.

Maybe Rachel will let me take care of it (well, mow) every other week. Even the "low" price of $140 a month is a lot of money.

Six kids

We watched the four Galbraith kids tonight so their parents could go on a date. They haven't been on one since their youngest was born a year ago. (!) Babysitters are hard to come by in their upscale neighborhood.

As bedlam ensued, I looked at Rachel and said, "This is what having six kids would be like." She protested that she'd never said she wanted six kids.

(A) That is not true and (B) I was just pointing it out, that's all.

Dreams

Rachel has high-impact dreams, like being a secret agent, James Bond style. Or situations involving life-and-death medical trauma.

I usually don't remember my dreams. This morning, though, I did remember one: I dreamed about eating Life cereal.

I was a little disappointed that my subconscious is so pedestrian.

(No, I'm not on a diet. Yet.)

Work it 3

To wrap up The Saga Of The Garden --

Rachel put in a wall of cement blocks around the new garden area to match the old one. She measured the old ones and told me to get the 16 inch blocks that looked like trimmed trapezoids. I brought home eight (as many as would reasonably fit in my car) and started unloading them so I could go get more.

They were the wrong size. They were about 6 inches deep and the old ones were about 10.

I would have recognized the difference if Home Depot had had any of the old ones around, but they didn't. We checked Lowes, too; they didn't, either.

To add insult to injury, Rachel had done a lot of extra work digging out the wall area deeper than necessary and had to fill it back in.

After the non-matching wall was in, I rototilled one more time with our neighbor's tiller over the dirt Rachel had excavated for her wall to de-clump it. It took about an hour for what would have been five minutes with the Manly Tiller. I miss that machine.

Making sense of the universe

I borrowed Super Smash Brothers Brawl from my office for the weekend to play with our guests Saturday. Matthew is fascinated: it has "Metroid" [Samus]!

How could Metroid be in two games at once?

Matthew figured it out: "When Metroid comes to fight, she comes through a magic door. When Metroid goes to a planet, she goes on her space ship."

TSL time

The community at TeamLiquid is putting on a $10,000 Starleague (Starcraft league), the biggest ever for foreigners (that is, non-Koreans). They're really doing a professional-quality job with videos, commentators, the whole nine yards. I've been watching the games live, somewhat to Rachel's dismay. Saturday there was about three hours of games; Sunday the games went longer and more matches went to three games so there was over five hours. I'm watching the second half now because I got the "so how long were you planning to watch that?" look.

Here's game 3 (of a best of 3 series) of Dinot vs Rondo in the round of 16. Craziest game I've seen in about... forever.

Here's all the round of 16.

Need to blow my nose

That's what Melissa just summoned me to her room for.

What the heck -- you wipe your nose on your shirt all day, but at 5:30 in the morning, you need Dad to bring the Kleenex?

I don't understand children.

Work it harder

As planned, I went back to Home Depot to get a manlier rototiller. I decided I was done playing in the kiddie section, and went straight for the top of the line, 13 horsepower tiller with a separate hydraulic drive for the tines, so you can put the tines in reverse and the drive in forward and just rip the living hell out of the ground.

Which is exactly what I did for an hour.

This beast was so heavy that it did almost all the work. I was almost sad Rachel didn't want to rip up more of the yard. Hurrah for the right tool for the job.

I have to wonder how pre-internal-combustion-engine farmers ever plowed anything, though. A couple horses ("two horsepower") would have been like the wimpy tiller. I'm guessing they must have just given up on crappy ground like ours and farmed areas with less clay in the soil.

Impressing Melissa

On one of the occasions I had to put Melissa back to bed in the middle of the night last night (this is getting to be a habit. I'll be glad when she's better and not coughing herself awake constantly) she noticed my shirt.

"Daddy, you have horsey on you shirt!"

Her tone clearly said that Daddy is cool.

Work it

I pulled up in our driveway last night in a Home Depot truck with a rototiller in the back. I can't remember seeing Rachel more excited to see me come home.

Unfortunately this was Home Depot's wimpiest rototiller, and although it was (barely) able to chew through the grass it did not make short work of things. Unknown to me, they had the manly rototillers locked up in a cage out back, not out on the tool rental floor, and Junior Sales Drone didn't know enough to suggest one of those when I said "I need to rip up my lawn so my wife can plant corn." Damn shame, because the next step up costs less than 20% more and it's a big step up.

But, I will get to try that rototiller too, because after an hour and a half, just as I was starting to get the hang of the wimpy one (use the sides to slice into the clay-filled ground), the throttle broke off. I could tell starting out that it was loose, but I didn't think it was in imminent danger of breaking.

Fortunately I had opted for the "yes, please charge me 10% more so you don't charge me full retail price in case your crap breaks" option so not a big deal except for having to go back today.

Everyman 8

I haven't written a sleep update in a while.

First of all, I should note that I threw the schedule out the window when I got sick. I think that's the only sensible thing to do. I slept all night and large parts of the day.

When I went back to a polyphasic schedule I felt like I was picking up pretty much where I left off, in terms of adaptation. The first couple days were a bit tougher but not spectacularly so. If I'd had to "start over" I probably would have given up. (For about 10 days I had a mild headache almost constantly. This is a symptom of sleep deprivation.)

My current schedule is core sleep from 11 to 2 AM, then another 1.5 hours from 5:30 to 7. Then nap around 1, and another nap at 5:30. Total of 5.5 hours, which is high, for polyphasic sleep.

The 5:30 nap is problematic; I often have trouble falling asleep. I think that primarily it's just too soon after waking up at 1:30. If I feel especially not sleepy I will push that nap to 8:00 or so, after the kids are in bed. I don't like doing this because it cuts into my time with Rachel. But if I don't get that nap in at all I feel pretty wasted by 11. I was able to sleep better at 5:30 when I was only sleeping half an hour from 6:30 to 7, and napping again at 12, but I was not nearly as alert in the morning (7-12) doing that. All in all the current situation is better.

If you're getting the impression that there is no hard and fast set of rules that says, "if you sleep at these hours you'll be in good shape" then you are coming to the same conclusion I am. There's definitely some trial and error involved.

I rely on my alarm to get me up at 2. Then for 5:30 to 7 I just let my kids wake me up. This means that 90% of the time I get to "sleep in" a bit past 7. But every once in a while they get up at 6:30 or earlier, which sucks. Then I usually put some cartoons on and try to doze a bit.

I still set my alarm for naps but I almost always wake up before it goes off, which I take as a good sign.

Perhaps the worst failure is that it turns out I'm a lazy couch potato and still haven't been to the gym.

Demands

Melissa yelled incoherently and kept yelling. For the record, it's 3:50 AM.

I went to see what she wanted. "I wan' da reh sippy tup." [I want the red sippy cup.]

I pulled out the sippy cup Rachel had given her at bedtime. "Here is a perfectly good sippy cup. I'm not getting the red one."

Amazingly, she decided not to argue with me.

Rachel is fairly pleased about this aspect of my polyphasic sleep schedule -- normally, she gets to answer these calls by virtue of being a lighter sleeper.

Update: Melissa got up at 4:30 too. No demands this time but I heard her banging around in her room. She was looking for her princess wand. Silly Daddy, not the old princess wand that I saw in her toy box. The new princess wand that came with her birthday cake. I told her we could look in the morning and turned off her light. She actually accepted this solution. ("Iss dark outside." "Yes. Go back to sleep.")

Catch-22

Rachel spent most of the last three hours cleaning.

Why? Because we have a maid service coming tomorrow. And we don't want them to think we have a dirty house, do we?

"You're making me sound like a nutty woman," she complained about this post. "I haven't cleaned anything. Just picked up."

I rest my case.

Allergies

Allergy season. For the last two days I've sounded like I should be on bed rest. In fact, Ryan at work asked me if that wasn't where I should be. I feel a lot better than I sound; it's mostly just my sinuses affected. Although combined with the cough that I seem to have caught from Matthew, it's fairly unpleasant.

We'll see how the Claritin I picked up tonight does.

"I turn 3!"

"I'm a BIG girl!"

-Melissa

A Tickled (blue?) Uncle and Aunt

Congratulations Telitha and Nolan on the birth of your sweet new baby boy! May you have a lovely and peaceful "babymoon." And congratulations to the new Big Brother James!

Peanuts

This evening I went to check in on Melissa and to turn off her light. She was sitting on the rocking chair footstool looking thoughtful.

"Melissa, what are you doing?"

(Melissa) pats her back sadly. "I don't have wings."

"You don't have wings?"

"Yes. I don't have wings. I can't fly."

"Oh. Yes I suppose that's true. But you can fly in an airplane."

She brightened a little at that thought as she climbed into bed.

However, she is still not asleep...


Matthew can now count by tens. He has been able to count by ones to 100 for some time now and has delighted in showing us. Over and over and over again.

Matthew has been rooting for a baby boy. A few days ago he told me, "I know the baby is a brother if he has a penis." When I suggested that he could be the one to check and let everyone know, he seemed quite pleased with the responsibility. "I can call Grandma and Grandpa too!" That sounds like a great big brother job!


If we do have a boy Matthew really really wants the baby to share a room with him.

"And if the baby cries in the night I will pick him up and sing songs and burp him!"

"Well, little babies sleep with Mommy and Daddy so Mommy can take nurse the baby and change diapers in the night."

"That's okay. When he gets bigger he can share a room with me!"

I don't think he appreciates how long it takes for a baby to get bigger...and then when little brothers do get bigger they tend to get into get into mischief (and older siblings' things). Speaking strictly from experience.


Melissa has recently figured out that there's a difference between boys and girls and men and women. I don't think she's noticed any specifics, just that Mommy and Daddy are somehow different and Daddy is a MAN and Mommy is a WOMAN. Recently she has started gleefully declaring, "Daddy, YOU 'DA MAN!'" much to her Daddy's delight!

A Good Day

Matthew was good in the morning. He was good at church. He took a nap afterwards, and was good in the evening.

So we let him stay up until 9 and watch an episode of The Cosby Show with us. With popcorn.

I don't think he "got" most of it, but the exploding hot dog alone was worth the price of admission to him. He did say that he liked it better than "the puppet show," whatever that is.

But I think that given the staying up "late," watching a show with Mom and Dad, and eating popcorn Just Like An Adult part, it didn't really matter what we watched. At least, that would have been the least significant part of the evening when I was five.

My little boy is growing up, just a little.

Fashion agnostic

We watched some Cosby Show episodes tonight. We laughed at those crazy 80's fashions.

Then Rachel got thoughful. "What do you think about my fashion sense?" she asked.

"Dear," I said truthfully, "You're asking the wrong guy. It's all I can do to notice when you get your hair cut. I couldn't give you one example of a fashion trend that changed in the last ten years."

Rachel wasn't convinced. "You must notice what other women wear."

"Let me put it this way: the last fashion change I noticed was that stone-bleached jeans aren't 'in' anymore. Actually it wasn't 'noticed' so much as I just vaguely realized it over time."

I think she believes me now.

It's gotta be the shoes

Matthew lost his sneakers. They were good shoes: they had Spiderman on them and lights in the heel. And they were cheap. Very good shoes. But he lost them.

Rachel looked all over. (I looked all over too, but that never convinces Rachel of anything. With reason, I admit.) They were not to be found.

So after he trudged everywhere in his snow boots all week, we bit the bullet and got him new shoes. Wal-mart didn't have any velcro shoes in his size, so we went to Payless where we found some excellent, if expensive (for a five year old) shoes.

On the way home Rachel started wondering what happened to his old shoes again. A thought struck her: "Did you take off your shoes to jump on the Macey's trampoline?" "Yes." Rachel sent him over to check, and he came running back with ... his shoes. Sweet! $22 saved!

Five minutes later I found him clipping the tags off his new shoes. "What are you doing? We found your shoes!" "But I like these too!"

So he paid us $4 (a month's worth of allowance) for his new shoes and kept both. He's convinced the new ones make him jump higher. And he hasn't even watched any sneaker commercials!

(We let him wear the new ones to church today, even though normally we'd rather he wear his dress shoes.)

Biohazard lite

I'm feeling well enough (after sleeping all night and morning) that I feel slightly guilty about not going to church, but not so well that I'd feel good about going and exposing everyone. Lame.

A Manly Day

Rototilled Rachel's garden today. Manhandling that sucker around was a good workout. Then I mowed the lawn. Usually Rachel mows the lawn, since I am allergic to grass clippings (really), but I was not about to let my six-month-pregnant wife do the mowing. Now my eyeballs itch; time to stock up on Claritin. (Allegra works even better but getting a perscription is not worth the hassle.)

(Un)fortunately, our neighbor's rototiller is not designed for chewing up lawns, just for turning over already-broken ground. It was unable to make a dent in the grass for the more-than-doubling of the garden area that Rachel was planning. I wasn't too disappointed, since that would have turned a forty-minute job into 3 hours or more. But now I'll probably have to rent a heavy-duty model from Home Depot next week. I know those can do the job, because that's how I put in the garden we have now.

Darn kids

Rachel and I wanted to play some Dark Kingdom tonight but we could only find one ps3 controller.

I solved the problem the lazy man's way: I ordered another from Amazon.

Mozy reunion

My old employer, Mozy, threw a party at Hard Rock Cafe SLC in honor of Mac Mozy hitting 1.0 and coming out of beta. Rachel found a baby sitter, so we went up and had a good time. At least I had a good time, talking to all my ex-coworkers. (I only knew about half of the people wearing Mozy tags -- they've gone from about 50 people when I left to 80.) Rachel was a good sport talking to a bunch of people she didn't really remember from the Christmas party at the Nickelcade where she met them once, although we've had Jacob and Paul over for games with their wives.

Rachel declined to do vocals on Rock Band but she did consent to do guitar while I did vocals. (She nailed her part. So did I!)

Not at the same time, I played guitar while Jeremy's five year old daughter beat out the drum track. He says she does DDR on Difficult, too. Impressive. ("Heck, my wife is still on Easy," I told him. "So is mine," he replied. I think his wife is named Rachel, too, but I wasn't sure enough to call her by name.)

Free Mozy T-shirts, yay. Only I asked for a XXL for "Rachel" to give to F50's Jeremy, but they gave us an S instead. Shoulda checked the label.

Night time is the right time

Doing the polyphasic sleep thing, I mostly hang out in the living room while I'm up. When I go back to use the bathroom, I often find that Matthew has woken up and turned his light on at some point. I turn it off and mutter under my breath about how that's why he's grumpy in the morning, but I've never caught him awake enough to explain why he thought turning on the light in the middle of the night is a good idea.

Tonight I actually caught him awake at 3:30. I asked him why he was up. "Because."

That was less enlightening than I'd hoped.

Nesting

We have a mama duck who built her nest in the bush right by our front door. The neighbor kids found the nest after they hit a ball into the bushes and excitedly told us. I'd wondered why I kept seeing a mallard duck in our front yard...

Mama duck was frightened off by the ball, but she came back and isn't bothered by the in and out of the front door or even when I lifted the bushes to show Matthew.

I've read that duck eggs need to incubate for 28 days. Maybe in a month I'll be able to post some duckling pictures.

3 out of 4

Melissa is now sick too. Matthew seems to have recovered though so we've only had one sick person at a time. Poor little thing woke up with the fever/chills/cough thing. I think that may have been why she's been a grumpy little miss the last two days, her body was gearing up to fight an infection.

Lucky Jonathan was on duty when she threw up.

You can tell when our kids are sick when all they want to do is lie down quietly. Definitely abnormal.

Spring is officially here

My Macbook Pro is the same temperature as always, but now it's distractingly hot on my knees instead of pleasantly warm.

Alternately, one could note that Rachel turned on the AC.

I think I'm in love

...or at least infatuation- seeing as love takes place over time.

I put my new cast iron pan on its maiden voyage today. It's a pre-seasoned cast iron pan made by Lodge and I tested scrambled some eggs on it. It passed with flying colors. With a little Pam sprayed on the pan the eggs came off easily. I put the hot pan under water and cleaning was a cinch.

No more teflon pans that get all scratched up and gouged after a few years! But love/like? is not blind. There are some advantages and disadvantages to iron cookware.

Pros:

wears like iron! can last a lifetime*
distributes heat nicely so food cooks evenly
retains heat well
supposed to grill steaks beautifully (haven't tested this out yet)
no worries about nonstick chemicals flaking off into the food
inexpensive

* if the pan gets mistreated and rusts, it can be sanded down and reseasoned


Cons:

requires more TLC than teflon
must be cleaned when hot or food really sticks
not as nonstick as teflon
kind of plain looking- not aesthetically pleasing
HEAVY

Overall I think it's a good workhorse pan, and I'm looking forward to many years together.

Pissed-off princess

Melissa is grumpy. It started when I took her out of the bathtub for shrieking. And then I toweled her off, if you can believe it. Now she's yelling so angrily that I can't understand her. I can only make out the vowels: AYHE IH AH! Take it off? Make it stop? Lay in stock?

I'm staying home from church with Matthew, who is feeling pretty good but still has a nasty-sounding cough. So I wish Mommy luck with our little angel.

Matthew is the Ibuprofen poster boy: give him a dose and he forgets that he's sick. Which is good, because when he remembers he's sick, he's the moaniest little boy you ever saw. Nobody ever felt sorrier for himself. But when he forgets he's sick he wants to play and do his usual high-octane activities instead of resting, so it's a bit of a mixed bag. (We'll definitely take forgetting he's sick, thanks.)

Update: more yelling. MOMMY [UNINTELLIGIBLE]! I HATE YOU! NO!

I might get two kids at home if she keeps this up.

Allergic to Greek

My boss hosted a lunch yesterday with catered Greek food to wrap up a morning interviewing Richard from California. I ate at 2; at 4:30 I noticed I felt itchy all over, and by 5:00 I couldn't take it any more and tore my clothes off to scratch. (It didn't help.)

Rachel suggested I take a shower. I did, and the itching subsided, for a couple hours. It started again about 7, so I chugged some childrens' benadryl, and that took care of it for good.

I've never felt itching like that before. And I've eaten Greek food, without problems. This was just grilled chicken, flatbread, and yellow rice.

Rather unsettling.

Not so Fast

Matthew is sick. How do I know for sure? Besides the fact he is not a stoic about illness or injury, he informed me in a sad tone that "Maybe I can't play with friends today." (If there is one thing Matthew never tires of it is going outside to play with the neighbor kids)

And...

"I'm really tired."

"Being sick is not fun."

His teeth are chattering and his fever is back with a vengeance. Poor kid. This virus completely wiped out his Daddy for several days.

Feeling better

Rachel is doing better, just in time for her dress rehearsal (Thursday) and concert (last night). In the meantime I got as sick as I've been in recent memory Tuesday and Wednesday. It may have been something different, or just a different form of Rachel's virus.

Tuesday night I felt cold and my body ached. ("Huh," I thought. "This feels like how my body ached last time I was sick.") When I went to bed at 11 for a nap my teeth were chattering. Rachel came to bed and pointed out that I had a fever. I decided not to get up after twenty minutes and slept through til 10 AM. Then I slept from 2 PM to 8 PM. Then another night's sleep at 10:30. In between I watched the kids so Rachel could rest.

Wednesday the fever was gone but my eyeballs still ached. I spent the day recovering.

Last night Matthew woke up at 3:30 with a headache. We gave him some ibuprofen and a forehead patch. Twenty minutes later he informed us he didn't need the patch anymore because his head was better. Thank heaven for drugs. We were afraid he was the next victim of the Ellis virus but he is doing fine this morning. (After getting up at 7:30, naturally.)

Unplugged

A Comcast guy came by today wanting to know if we wanted to upgrade our internet service with a cable TV package.

"No thanks, we don't watch TV."*

His eyes bugged out in genuine surprise. "No TV!? You don't use an antenna or anything?"

"Nope, and we're not really interested."

"How about your phone line? We've got a great deal for internet/phone service. Or do you just use cell phones?"

"We just use cell phones, thanks."

"Uhhhh. Well let us know if you change your minds. Have a great day."


When Jon and I got married we decided that television wouldn't be an important part of our lives. We've never had cable or an antenna hooked up. Sure we have plenty of other vices, but wasting time watching mindless shows isn't one of them. In my experience, it's just too easy to get sucked in.

My resolve has only strengthened after our last trip. We had cable in our hotel room. Matthew loved watching the cartoons and the advertisements that go with them. "Dad, Dad! Can we get that? It makes you jump high! Dad! LOOK! That's sooo cool let's get that!" Trying to explain that the ads are there to convince you to buy things you don't need completely went over his head. "But Mom, Dad! It's cool!"

So do I miss TV? Nope. No regrets.



*We do watch movies, and occasionally order televisions shows on DVD after reading reviews. We also play lots of console games... (that would be one of our vices).

Sleep deprivation

The kids, that is, not me.

Matthew and Melissa were both up until midnight last night. I'm not sure what put a nickel in them. Rachel and I both lost count how many times we turned off their lights, only to have them snap back on a minute later.

They were both cranky today. (They never sleep in, no matter how late they were up.) By the time I got home, Melissa was crying at the drop of a hat; Matthew had mostly gotten his second wind. So I snuggled Melissa to sleep at 7:30 before our friends came over with their kids. Matthew got to play until 9 and was pretty cheerful.

Staying in Utah, for now

I turned down Rackspace's offer. It was a good offer, so I'm a little bit sad? wistful?, but on the whole I think my opportunities with Feature50 are even greater.

But, my boss's wife is really excited to go to Taiwan for a month with her family. Maybe Rachel and I will get a chance to go too. The only obstacle is my boss, who is far from thrilled with the idea.

That's it; I'm old

I ate half a bag of Doritos this afternoon and a few hours later felt like total crap. Now I'm doing okay again.

Mike Bayer warned me at PyCon: "Pretty soon, your body won't put up with that stuff anymore." He was right.

Fortunately hamburgers are still on my body's Good list. At least, they were on Friday.

Still sick

Rachel was feeling good enough to come to William's birthday party with us yesterday for a couple hours. Apparently that was overdoing things, because she's feeling worse again today.

Normally I am vigilant against Rachel overexerting herself when she is recuperating, because she has a history of doing that, but even I thought that the birthday party would be okay. This pregnancy has not been an easy one.

Attention, please

Matthew surprised me today. He was paying attention to the speaker in sacrament meeting.

I couldn't tell he was listening; he was coloring away in his notebook. But when the speaker rhetorically asked, "How can we help our wives and mothers?" Mathew piped up: "I can do dishes to help Mommy."

I have mixed feelings about that, actually. I like doing the dishes. It's a very well-defined task, unlike some others ("clean the kitchen").

Maybe we can teach Matthew to clean the kitchen.

10010

Ten thousand ten. That's the biggest number Matthew can conceive of. He's enormously impressed by it. A kid went by on a skateboard. "I think he practiced ten thousand ten times!" Running down the hill: "I was ten thousand ten fast!" Eating his favorite beef and noodles: "I like this a lot!" How much do you like it? "I like it ten thousand ten!"

Rachel is feeling better

How do I know? Because when she woke up from her four hour nap she cleaned up the kitchen.

When Rachel is sick I feed the kids, I do the dishes, I run the kids around outside our house or at parks, and I keep the floor clear enough to not pose too much of a tripping hazard. But "Rachel clean" is a different level.

How can you tell Rachel is sick? When she starts to think maybe "Jonathan clean" is good enough.

Matthew is reading on the toilet

Rachel is a little annoyed but that is because it's 9:30 and she wishes he were sleeping instead.

Welcome to the porcelain throne book club, kid.

Nolan blogs

I found out today that my brother in law Nolan has been blogging for more than a year. How about that -- pictures and everything. I'm impressed. Nolan isn't the most technical guy in the world so I guess blogging really is mainstream. He seems to average about 1.5 posts a month which is a little minimal but hey, cut the guy some slack, he's in med school. And that's still more than some relatives I could name.

I didn't know Nolan was such a hardcore sports fan. He writes a lot about Cleveland's teams. I suspect a strong set of major league teams was a big factor in his decision about where to go to school.

I also didn't know that he took fifth in his age group in a triathon. Way to make me feel even more out of shape than I already did, Nolan.

San Antonio, days 4 and 5

Day four (Tuesday) was interview day. Not much to say about that -- Rachel was sick, so I took the kids in the morning, went to my interview, came back. We did try the Mi Tierra cafe that Abby recommended in the evening. The food was pretty good, the service was quick, and they have live guitar players going around taking requests. They also had their own parking lot which is unusual for downtown San Antonio. (But in general we had an easier time finding decent parking than we've had in SLC.)

One fun story from Tuesday morning: I took the kids for a drive to scout out my interview location, mostly to figure out where to park so I didn't have to spend an unknown amount of time looking for a spot later. Turns out the office building Rackspace was in had its own parking garage. Problem solved. I turned the corner and pulled over to get out of the way while I asked our GPS to take us to a burger king to feed the kids.

While I was fiddling with the GPS, two bicycle policemen came up. One knocked on the window. "Would you care to explain why you're going the wrong way down the street?" I sheepishly explained what I was doing and that I hadn't noticed the street was one way. Fortunately the cop was in a good mood, and supressing a laugh, he and his partner stopped traffic briefly for me to make a U in the right direction.

Somehow I have to say that cops in spandex wearing dork helmets are less intimidating than usual. But I'm still glad these were in a good mood.

As for the interviews, I think they went well. They called this morning [Thursday] and said that if I want to stay in Utah and commute in for one week out of four until after the baby is born in August, they will go for that. I get the impression that is an unusual concession for them. No formal offer still, though.

Wednesday we took the kids to the big park downtown to stretch their legs. Unfortunately it was more of an adult park -- fountains, art, landscaping, but only a smallish play area which was saturated with at least three classes of schoolkids when we got there. The kids played for a while but when two more classes arrived the kids could literally not stretch their arms without hitting another kid on each side. Matthew was overwhelmed and just stood there sulking. We left.

We saw the Alamo before leaving. Everyone who says it's a bit underwhelming is right. They don't really have anything left from the actual "remember the Alamo" period except the church and one of the barracks, neither of which is in much the same condition it was in 1836. And it turns out nobody really knows much about the final battle, except Santa Anna won and killed the survivors. Pretty slim history to build a legend on.

Still, how could you go to San Antonio and not see the Alamo?

We were not looking forward to the flight back since it was going to be about an hour longer thanks to a stop in Dallas. It got off to a bad start when the Dollar car rental shuttle dropped us off on the wrong end of the airport, so we couldn't do curbside checkin. Grr! Fortunately someone had left a luggage cart right there, so we didn't have to lug everything down to the other end of the terminal where baggage check was. (Rachel's suitcase is only wheeled in the technical sense; the wheels are little useless vestigal things and in practice you just have to carry it.) Then the American Airlines agent told me I was in the wrong line and to go stand over there instead. This made me grumpy.

San Antonio is not a busy airport though, and at 2 PM on a weekday security did not take long. Our boarding passes were marked FIRST in the boarding section. We figured that meant that they thought Melissa was younger than she was, and we should board early. Shrug. Turns out that no, Rackspace really did book us first class on the return leg, maybe as an appology for not getting us a direct flight. Cheapskate that I am, this was my first time flying first class. Rachel, too. The food was actually edible -- Rachel liked her salad better than Ibizio's the other night, although I would have to give the edge to Ibizio for their excellent and plentiful blue cheese dressing.

The first class seats actually have one drawback: you can't raise the much larger and plusher armrests. When you are traveling with a two and five year old, raising the armrest gives you that much more space. But to be honest, you don't really need the extra lateral space in first class, and the extra legroom and leaning-back space makes a big difference.

The kids were good on the flight, and I think Melissa brightened a whole lot of peoples' day just a little by deciding to grace everyone disembarking at Dallas with an impish, dimpled grin and a chirpy "Bye!" There were few passengers grumpy enough to resist cracking a smile at the curly-haired two year old.

Agreeable kids combined with actually being physically comfortable made air travel actually pleasant rather than something to be merely endured. Amazing.

Then we got home. It was in the 80s in San Antonio. It is still cold in Utah.

The Parade

This morning Matthew decided that we needed a good parade, and he was just the boy to provide one. For a good half hour he rehearsed in his room with the music cranked up. I knocked midway through to check on him and he let me know that he didn't want interruptions or peeking, because "it's a surprise!"

He wanted to wait until this evening to put on his show since Daddy would be home then.

Tonight he plugged the CD player in the living room and got ready to strut his stuff. Prior to the show he assured us that "it's ok to laugh because it is a silly dance."

Then Matthew went to town with a crazy dance involving jumping, break dance moves, choreographed arm movements, and singing. Melissa couldn't restrain herself and joined in on the fun. It was more of a show than a parade, and now I know why Matthew was so sweaty after rehearsal this morning. You could really tell that he'd practiced what he wanted to do too. We captured a few minutes on the camcorder for posterity's sake.

San Antonio halftime report

San Antonio is, as I told Grant on the phone, "not as green as Washington, but almost as green as New Jersey." The older neighborhoods are full of 100 year old oaks and very pleasant and shady. Our realtor said that most builders now don't want to deal with that and just rip everything down. Another reason to avoid modern cookie-cutter style developments.

Our realtor didn't give us demographic information (I forgot to ask), but I suspect that the nice older neighborhoods we were in today are full of mostly older people, and the people our age are all in the McBland developments far away from downtown. If we can find a rental with four bedrooms, that might be our best bet to live near people our age and reasonably close to Rackspace.

The roads here are mostly East coast style, which is to say narrow. But traffic has mostly been fine, even today at 6 PM. People stay closer to the speed limit than in Utah. This bugs me a little. I'm such a type A driver that while following our real estate agent I purely out of habit started changing to an empty lane coming up to a light so I could gun it and blow past the slowpoke in the PT Cruiser. Then I realized what I was doing and stayed behind our agent. Rachel noticed, correctly interpreted what had happened, and laughed at me.

San Antonio has at least one Mennonite church, which we know because we drove past it. ("In an area called the Westside that is 98% Hispanic and known as low income," and about a mile from our hotel. Sounds about right.)

San Antonio, day 3

Rachel was feeling pretty good by the end of the day yesterday but this morning her cold was back with a vengeance. It was 11 before she was feeling human again.

We took the kids swimming in the hotel pool. They were extremely excited by this prospect. (Everything is a novelty when you're five, or three.) It was 3 to 5 feet deep which was still too deep for the kids to stand on the bottom. But they got a real kick out of "swimming" with our help. They would have stayed all day if we had "water wings." Even as it was, Melissa threw the mother of all tantrums when she found out that I didn't intend to take her back down to the pool after coming in for a potty break.

When I was a kid, I was so skinny I couldn't do a dead man's float. The closest I could come was an almost-motionless back float with just my mouth out of the water. If I stopped moving completely I would inevitably sink. ("It completely refutes Archimedes," as Frank Gilbreth said.) Our kids are the same way: rail-skinny, without an ounce of fat. This despite our best efforts to feed them! The problem is they would rather ingest the bare minimum calories required to fuel playing some more.

So, I started teaching our kids to swim the way my dad did me, which was another weird damn-I'm-getting-old moment or three. I took Melissa out and supporter her back while she kicked and paddled. I encouraged her to get used to putting her head in the water. Rachel did the same with Matthew. Then I showed Matthew how to control your breath in the water which pretty much any non-back-stroke requires. He seemed as terrified of the water as I remember being, so I backed off. We had a pool growing up and I dreaded pool days because they meant another swimming lesson. I had a bit of a phobia, and although Dad's lessons ultimately got me over it, I wonder if it could have been done with a little less trauma.

After swimming we had lunch at Burger King, where our plans to let the kids burn some more energy were slightly foiled by one of those fool-and-his-money machines with shiny things and a claw to almost reach them. Matthew spent the whole time fascinated by that thing. I've tried to explain before that wasting quarters on those is futile, and even let him waste a couple of his own, but he didn't learn the lesson and I'm not about to let him waste mine too.

Naptime went well today; kids in separate beds, Mommy and Daddy next to them to keep the peace, and the whole family got a good nap.

We called the real estate agent recommended by the second counselor yesterday -- Kim Beckstead, who is googleable if you ever need a San Antonio realtor. He referred us to another agent named Terry since he recently broke his collarbone and couldn't drive. Terry listened to me explain that we were interested in properties south of 1604, then gave us a list of 20 properties, 14 of which were north of 1604. We asked her to show us the other six. She made appointments for four, of which we ended up seeing two -- the third was in a gated community and nobody could be reached for the gate code, and the fourth's owners cancelled the showing.

Then it was time for dinnertime roulette. I was in the mood for barbeque but it was not my lucky night. We tried three barbeque restaurants that our GPS claimed to know about. One was only open for lunch. The other two looked like they had been closed for months. After the third, we gave up and went back to the hotel and ordered "room service," which, since the hotel didn't have its own restaurant, was outsourced to some Italian place nearby. The fettucine alfredo was meh, but the calzone was actually pretty good.

Rachel's cold has added a case of eye boogers to serious congestion, which greatly displeases her, particularly since she doesn't know where her glasses are, and she figures her contacts will keep the infection alive as long as she wears them.

San Antonio, day 2

Rachel's incubating cold from Saturday metastasized overnight. She felt pretty lousy in the morning, so I took the kids to church by myself.

I'd done some research into San Antonio real estate, and most people seem to agree that there are two areas that stand out as nicer than the rest of the city: the Alamo Heights / Olmos Park Terrell Hills region, and Stone Oak. Stone Oak is too far away from Rackspace for my commuting tolerance (barely under an hour if traffic is light) so I went to the "Olmos Heights" ward.

Good thing I checked it out before buying a house there. The ward skews old. And that's fine, but having lived in an older ward in our Provo house, we'd rather live near people our own age. It makes a big difference when you're home with the kids all day like Rachel is. At this ward, Melissa was the only kid in nursery ("Sometimes we have other kids show up," they reassured me). Quite a change from Draper where we'd have a third nursery if we had the space for it. Her teacher was in the primary presidency so Melissa joined the rest of the primary -- all 12 or so of them -- for sharing time. She sat by Matthew and when I stopped in to take her to the bathroom, she seemed to be enjoying herself, albeit a little bemused by the "Hello, Hello" introduction.

The second counselor gave me some advice on finding a younger area. Most of the yuppie mormons live in Stone Oak because that's where the temple is. But he suggested Castle Hills, Windcres, Deerfield, and Northwood as reasonably nice areas where Melissa would not be the only kid in nursery.

Low-prep stuff from the grocery store for lunch. We put the kids in separate beds for nap and it did not go as well as I hoped. Melissa kept chattering and getting up and chattering and getting up and finally I had to get in bed with her and pin her down, like I used to have to do with Matthew when he was six months or so. Melissa fought but I was bigger, and once still she fell asleep quickly. With Melissa out, Matthew and Rachel and I followed.

We went to the river walk in the afternoon to use our boat tour tickets. The tour was mostly a recital of the history of the various hotels that line the walk, but at least it was shady and green. Rachel kept remarking about how this flower or that was already blooming and "mine won't until June."

Rachel's favorite thing about San Antonio so far is how polite everyone is. I haven't noticed in particular, but I'm (a) male and (b) a little oblivious anyway. Rachel says all the men excusesthemselves and defer to her when they cross paths. "Even the huge tattooed guy at the grocery store said Pardon me, Ma'am."

We had the worst $60 meal I've ever had at one of the river walk tourist trap restaurants, Ibiza. It was in the ground floor of one of the Hilton's. Bleh. Overpriced and terrible service.

We took the "trolley" (really just a run of the mill bus, but the kids liked it) downtown this time. This meant we didn't have to worry about parking, but it also turned a 10 minute drive back into a 30 minute ride from hell during which I really had to go. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I suspect pretty much all downtowns suck in that respect. The driving/public transportation respect, that is, not the really having to go one.

Then we tried to get the kids to sleep again and oh man what an ordeal. Melissa is not cut out for hotels yet. I ended up turning the light on partway so I could catch her faster when she got out of bed to harass Matthew or play with the phone or whatever. Matthew finally fell asleep around 11 and Melissa a bit later. Then she woke up at 2:30 and kept bopping again until past 3:30, when I got in bed with her. Not sure how long it took her to fall asleep after that. Twenty minutes? Good thing I am doing polyphasic sleep or I would have been pissed. As it was I mostly kept her under control while Rachel sort of got to sleep.

Then Matthew got up at 8:30 and I fought a losing battle to keep Melissa from waking up while he bonked around.

On paper I got a decent amount of sleep yesterday but I am feeling ready for a nap already. Fighting kids to sleep sucks.

Mexican Coke

I saw some at the supermarket last night so I picked up a bottle. I guess I'm not much of a Coke connoisseur because I didn't think it was a big deal. There was a difference, but it was subtle. Maybe if I drank more than one coke every few weeks I would care more.

San Antonio, day 1

We're in San Antonio for a job interview with Rackspace. Rackspace paid for the whole family to come down for five so Rachel and I can look at some houses while we're here. We may also go to Sea World, although Rachel got a bit of sticker shock at the price (about $175 for the family).

The flight itself was surprisingly pleasant. Melissa amused herself almost the entire time with her Go Paint set. Matthew had one too, and started playing it when Melissa got hers out. He lasted a few minutes, then went back to his "game boy." The Coleco system is great for trips because it has a ton of games that he can't lose. Sorry, it's not in production anymore, but maybe you can find one on ebay. Which reminds me, I need to get one of these too while I still can.

We got the Go Paints at Toys R Us with a gift card Rachel's grandparents sent the kids. I let them browse the whole store and that is what they wanted. Normally I wouldn't get such expensive craft materials -- watercolors cost what, a dollar? -- so I told them we would save it for our next flight. I'd completely forgotten about them, but when we were packing Matthew dragged me over to the closet where I'd stashed it -- out of sight, I thought -- and reminded me that those were for the flight. I'm glad he did! I told Rachel, Wow, the kids are so good I'll need to pack some toys for us next trip! I'm thinking the two-player Settlers card game.

Of course, by then we'll probably have number three. So never mind.

Matthew did spend the last fifteen minutes of the flight moaning and shrieking that his ears hurt and he hated planes. No doubt his ears did hurt but man I hate his hysterias. Like when he bashed his toe and there was blood all over but he acted like he'd severed his whole leg until he got a lollipop and then everything was fine. This time Rachel gave him gum and water and nothing helped... until she gave him a lollipop. Magic. I'm glad she was sitting next to him instead of me.

When we got to the hotel, Rachel was hungry but in the mood for some non-fast food that was not Mexican. That was harder to find than we thought. (San Antonio is majority Hispanic, which probably has something to do with the popularity of Mexican food here.) After a few brushes with the crack San Antonio Traffic Obstruction Team, aka construction workers, and realizing that a lot of roads were one-way but not indicated as such on our crappy hotel map, we ended up going to the downtown mall because we figured they'd probably have some generic chain restaurant that fit the bill and we were tired of looking around. (It turns out that there's a trolley that goes downtown from near the hotel, so if we go there again that is probably the way to go.)

We got tickets to the riverwalk boat tour but postponed our actual tour until tomorrow since everyone was hungry and tired. So after lunch at Chili's -- our waitress was so awesome that I had to flag down another one and ask her to run my card because ours had disappeared again -- we went back to the hotel for naps. The kids kicked each other for the better part of an hour before going to sleep. I had a splitting headache, so Rachel heroically rode shotgun while I put my earplugs in and pulled a hat over my eyes and slept. (Rachel did get a nap too after the kids finally fell asleep.)

After naps we set out for a grocery store to get some fruit and oatmeal so we weren't subsisting entirely on restaurants. (Also it turned out that "baby" wanted popcorn and ice cream. Who knew. ;) Unfortunately Google woefully mislead us -- there is a HEB grocery store in the area, but it is about a mile from where Google said it was, and not on Main Ave at all. We did get the GPS option on our rental car so we asked its opinion, and it took us cross-town to a decidedly non-upscale grocery store. But it had fruit and oatmeal and popcorn and ice cream so all was forgiven.

When we got back again, we watched the first half of Spirited Away and then went to bed. It looks like the ward in whose boundaries we'd be most likely to find a home meets at 9:00, dammit. I hate feeling rushed in the morning, especially on a "vacation."

(So are we moving? With the baby due in August and Rachel really wanting to have it with her Utah midwife there is a pretty high bar to clear for this to get the thumbs up. But it could happen.)

There's a Party Going On!

I'm lying here on my side, and as I type I can feel kicks under my ribs, on one side of my hips then the other, and then some breakdancing on my bladder. Guess this baby is going to be as active as his or her predecessors!

I'm off to visit the ladies room...

Seven Years

Yesterday was our anniversary. Seven years ago on a very windy, cloudy day we married. We had a simple luncheon afterwards for friends and family, and then we went home to put our little rented house in order. It wasn't an elaborate or expensive affair, but it was sweet. What a happy day! I couldn't imagine being happier, or more in love...

A lot has happened in those years.

I think now of all the times he has held me in his arms as I've cried or ranted and offered me comfort.

I see him in the middle of night tucking a little one into bed, once again.

I hear him coming home and the kids shouting "Daddy! Daddy!" And even though he's bone tired he plays with them. He tosses them high in the air, chases them through the house, and admires all the projects they have done that day. The highlight of the day is when Daddy comes home.

I feel his chest rise and fall as I rest my head on it, and we talk both of things of great importance and completely inconsequential.

I watch him take off at odd hours in the evening to the store to retrieve a craving that I absolutely must have. I feel his hands as he holds back my hair when I throw up with morning (all day) sickness.

I hear him singing a happy song about his wife and his kids.

I feel his hands on my head offering a blessing to me.

I listen to him read the scriptures to us each morning.

I hear his praise for my meals, even the ones that didn't turn out right. Never once has he complained about my cooking or housekeeping.

I doze through small happy sounds as he watches the kids each morning so I can rest a little longer.

I watch as he trudges through the snow to shovel the walks of a neighbor or the church. He does this cheerfully even.

I wave goodbye to him and the kids one evening a week so that I can play in an orchestra. (Matthew and Melissa love Daddy night.)

I am happily surprised when he shows up with a bouquet of flowers, some decadent chocolate, or a new game he thought I'd enjoy. This for no reason at all other than he loves me. I smile when I remember others warning me that he wouldn't do that anymore after we married.

I think of when he took care of me, the kids, work, and the house when I was so sick. He had a deadline at work and stayed up late in the evening to make up for time.

I see him tenderly rocking his new baby and singing softly.

I hear him talking to Matthew about how to show respect for his mother and warning him that "...she is MY Wife and Sweetheart!"

I remember the thousands of small kindnesses in action and word.



And I am more in love than ever.

Thank you Jonathan, it's been great. I look forward to many more years together!

Injustice

I took the kids to Wal-Mart last night to get Uncle Brian an air mattress. Matthew took a quarter with him, with designs on a vending machine gumball. (Rachel won't let him buy a pack of gum, but a single gumball is allowed. And honestly, there is something magical about gumball machines.)

He put his quarter in and turned the handled 360 degrees. The machine made a grinding noise but no gumball was forthcoming. I gave him another quarter to use on the peanut M&M machine next to it. He got 6 M&Ms. He was thrilled.

Melissa doesn't get an allowance yet, so I gave her a quarter too so she wouldn't be left out. She got seven M&Ms.

Uh-oh.

Matthew complained, practically in tears, that it was not fair that Melissa got seven. I tried to explain that Melissa's good fortune did not in any way diminish his six. He had six before Melissa put her quarter in, and he had six now, so why should his happiness be diminished?

I didn't make much of an impression. I think this is another thing that five year old brains just can't put in perspective. I sure couldn't at that age either.

Postscript: he kept complaining until after he had eaten one, and Melissa had eaten three, so that he had five and she had four. Then Matthew was happy again.

Matthew Graduates!

Today was Matthew's last day of speech therapy. His therapist seemed very pleased with the progress he's made. He's age appropriate (or ahead) for all of his sounds, grammar, sentence lengths, and intelligibility. In his latest speech sample, there was only one word that was unintelligible out of 237. When he started speech therapy only 60% of his words were understandable, now over 99% are.

He's also figuring out sounds with his phonics progress. He knows that letters make certain sounds and is more conscientious about how they fit together when he speaks. Yeesss!!!

Today he worked on " ing " and " 's " sounds. When he thinks about them, he gets them, so they are emerging sounds.

His therapist considers him a "graduate" now. To celebrate, he got to pick whatever he wanted for lunch. We had blueberry pancakes and cream.

Here's a speech sample from March 27th

E: Examiner

C#: Matthew

Speech Sample


E: What do you wear in the rain?

C1: I don ha rain clothes.
Intended: I don't have rain clothes.

C2: Where the other rain boot?
Intended: Where's the other rain boot?

C3: Oh, here it is.

E: You found the boot. That boy looks ready to play in the rain. Do you like to play in the rain?

C4: No.
C5: It is funny (laughing).

C6: That funny right?
Intended: That's funny right?

E: That is funny. Tell me about your Easter.

C7: I forgot everything.

E: Everything?

C8: Just not one thing.

C9: The Easter bunny was late!

E: The Easter bunny came to your house after Easter?

C10: Put the eggs on the ground and I found a lot more than my sister.

E: What were the eggs like?

C11: Candy.

E: Candy? Candy was in you Easter eggs? But you say they didn't come on Easter Sunday?

C12: On Easter Sunday I got toys in my bucket.

E: That sounds like fun. Tell me about the toys.

C13: I forgot.

E: Try to remember.

C14: (Um) a sinky
Intended: (Um) a slinky.

E: A slinky?

C15: And a toy airplane with a (X?)

E: What does the airplane have?

C16: (A X) (uses hand actions to demonstrate a launch)
Intended: (A launch)

C17: Put the string in and.... (motor noises)

E: What a fun Easter basket. Anything else?

C18: Candy and.....

C19: I think that's it.

E: Did you have to find your Easter basket? Was it in a hiding place?

C20: I don remember.
Intended: I don't remember.

C21: My sister got a pez candy.

E: Oh, those are a toy and a candy.

C22: Tigger.

E: It sounds like you had a great Easter. Your mom is going to have a baby. That is very exciting.

C23: After the Fourth of July.

C24: It's goin to be a long time.
Intended: It's going to be a long time.

E: Do you think it will be a boy or a girl?

C25: I think it's a boy.

E: A little brother will be a lot of fun.

C26: My sister cause a lot of trouble.

E: She is still learning. Like you.

C27: She's two and a half.

C28: When she turns three I will be almost six.

E: I think you are a good big brother. What names do you like for the baby?

C29: I think if it's a boy....

C30: I will name it Ethan or Mason.

E: I know Mason. And Ethan must be another friend of yours. What names do you like if the baby is a girl?

C31: If it's a girl I will name it Elizbe or Uncle Ellis.

C32: I mean Michael or....

C33: Emma.

E: Those are great names! Do you think a girl would like to be called Uncle Ellis or Michael?

C34: (laughing) No. Michael is in my class and so is Elizbe.
Intended: No. Michael is in my class and so is Elizabeth.

E: Elizabeth?

C: (E-liz-a-beth)

E: I think you will be a great help to your mom.

C35: When it cries I will put on some music or I will carry it.

C36: My sister was bigger than me when she was a baby, but now I bigger than her.

C37: I want to tell you somefing.
Intended: I want to tell you something.

E: Please do.

C38: I broke my toenail.

E: How did that happen?

C39: I as openin the door and (sound effect) I broke it.
Intended: I was opening the door and I broke it.

E: Ouch! That sounds like it hurt.

C40: I was jumpin.
Intended: I was jumping.

C41: Can we put the ice togeder? (Don't Break the Ice Game)
Intended: Can we put the ice together?

E: Absolutely.

E: Will you say 'jumping' again for me?

C: (Jumpin).

C42: I like jumpin and singin.
Intended: I like jumping and singing.

E: Will you sing a song for me?

(Matthew sings the alphabet song)

Walking Wounded

I know you are all dying to hear an ankle update:

My ankle started to feel better (well, less painful) on last Monday and by Tuesday evening I ditched the split in favor of an ankle brace. Still had to ice and elevate it to keep swelling down. On Friday I started walking on it some, more than I should have as it turns out.

Here's some pictures from Friday (6 days after incident).







Lovely aren't they? The bruises have turned from black to a lighter purple and from dark green to light green.

At six days post-accident it looks much better than it did, however, at 10 days it still looks about the same.

So Friday and Saturday I overdid it (a little), and paid for it Sunday. Recovery is still very slow. My foot feels like a hunk of clay attached to my leg except when it is bent or flexed much and then it hurts! It's still very wobbly feeling too, like it's going to give out on me, so I keep it in a brace and use crutches periodically.

I planned on being up and trotting by now, the couch is getting a little monotonous and the kids have watched way too many cartoons.

To top it off, I still need to make up a good story to go with the injury. Kick boxing accident, anyone?

"I sprained my ankle running up the stairs." Lame.

Someday your prince will come

Melissa ran up to me after watching Cinderella and dove on my lap. She looked up and said, "I marry you!"

"No, I'm already married to Mommy."

"I marry Datthew!"

"No, that's just ... not done."

She was disappointed that I kept shooting down her future, so I suggested, "You will marry a prince!"

"Yeah!"

Now I feel a little guilty. Maybe I should take Cinderella off of the "allowed" list for a while. I'm having trouble thinking of a movie that depicts love and marriage less realistically.

Any suggestions for "strong woman" movies? That a two (almost three) year old would get?

"NO! Don't WANT to be Pretty!"

So Melissa claims whenever it is time to comb her hair. In the bathtub she doesn't protest so much because I comb it with a conditioner for curly hair before I rinse. Hence it doesn't pull very much (she still protests some though). Outside the tub, we try to be as gentle as possible, but her hair is so curly, fine, and prone to tangles. I really need to find a good detangling spray...

Melissa, I suspect, would just as soon have untamed wild pony hair (or perhaps no hair).

When Even a Brother Will Do

Melissa got a little scratch on her hand. I was on the opposite side of the room making lunch, but Matthew was right beside her.

"I got an ow. Kiss it, Datthew!"

He demurred, but she insisted. "Kiss it better! Datthew!!"

Bad News (Or when being cheap or lazy is actually more expensive)

Last week I noticed water on the side of the vanity in the master bathroom.

NOT GOOD.

I couldn't find the source of the water, so I called our contractor (and handyman extrodinaire) who finished our basement to come look at it. He agreed that it did not look good, and offered to tear up the floor to see what the damage was below.

Today Chris started tearing up the floor...

Turns out the previous homeowner decided to save a little money and set the tile him/her? self. Instead of doing it the right way, he/she? placed the tile on top of the already in place linoleum floor. This raised the floor up 3/4 inch higher. Unfortunately the toilet did not make a good seal since it was now much higher than the wax ring. This caused water to slowly and silently leak under the floor for years. The reason it wasn't detected earlier is because tile doesn't buckle or rise like linoleum and the water had so many extra layers in which it could be absorbed.

The floor beneath the tile was very damp, going down one more layer it was black with mold. Eek! Thankfully it was contained in the bathroom and does not appear to have spread to other rooms.

So now we get to completely redo the bathroom. Fun, fun!

If Only....

I were a jedi. Then I could stretch out my hand and will whatever it was I needed/wanted to come to me.

Right now everything is So. Far. Away. Is it really worth getting up, hobbling on crutches (ouch), and gingerly carrying it back? Hmm. Jonathan is absolutely wonderful when he is around, but he can't be my errand boy 24/7.

Doesn't help that I have a bladder the size of a peanut due to this blessed state. Like it or not, (not!) I have to get up to visit the facilities every 2 hours.

That's it. I have no choice but to recover quickly.

Disability

Rachel got a nasty ankle sprain yesterday. She was in a lot of pain and could barely move. Today she is doing a little better but clearly this is not going to heal in a couple days. We had it x-rayed and splinted -- it is not broken but in some ways that is little comfort; almost all breaks heal within 3-4 weeks. A bad sprain can take longer, and this is a bad sprain.

How bad? Let me put it this way: when she was almost totally wiped out by strep, it still took a week for me to convince her to go to the doctor. It only took me one day to get her to go in for this.

Just in time for her sister to come out, too.

I think even more than the pain, Rachel hates being on her back most of the day. I kept having to send her back to the couch. "But I'm bored!" she protested.

We still had easter dinner as planned. Rachel told me what to do for most of it, and made the "easter rolls" herself. On the couch.

Games

A week ago I started playing the "I'm thinking of something" game to entertain a bored Matthew in the car. I didn't think a member of the video game generation would be very interested, but Matthew really got into it. In fact, he tries to start the game up again every time we get in the car now.

He doesn't understand how to "divide and conquer" the problem space by asking questions that eliminate broad swaths of possiblities at a time. So when he makes a wrong guess, I give him additional information of the sort he would get if he were to ask that sort of question. ("No, it's not a skateboard, but it does have four wheels.") Maybe this will point him in the right direction; I don't know. I do remember that it was a long time after my own father introduced me to this game that I caught on to that. Maybe that's something that comes later on in brain development.

Matthew is also extremely pleased to ask us his own questions. This is more tedious, because his questions are trivial and do not vary much. ("What is a number between three and five? What is Daredevil's real name?") At the extreme, he has asked the same question four times in one day -- twice of Rachel, and twice of me.

But hey, I'm glad he likes the game.

Dreams

Rachel has exciting, adrenaline-pumping dreams that wake her up with her heart pounding. She's a secret agent, infiltrating the enemy base. Or she's a zookeeper, and her co-worker's mauled by an alligator. ("I don't think alligators can really climb trees, but the one in my dream could.")

About the most stressful my dreams get is the one I had during my 12:00 nap yesterday. I dreamed I was drinking directly from the water pitcher, and woke up anxious because if Rachel caught me doing that she would kill me.

Inconceivable

Melissa yelled for me at 7:15, but all she wanted was for me to re-tuck her into the bedsheets that she'd kicked off of her. Then she burrowed into her pillow and went back to sleep.

Matthew got up at 7:45, looking grumpy. "Is it time to get up?" "You can get up if you want, or you can sleep some more." "I think I'll sleep some more." Hell has frozen over!

But he reappeared 30 seconds later. "I changed my mind."

So close!

(And of course he woke up Melissa too.)

For a sleepy Melissa

blond curls on the pillow
like wisps of gold spun through the clouds.
so recently from heaven,
sleep well, little honeybee.
your daddy loves you.

Everyman 7 and PyCon

My hotel room at PyCon had a temperature of, I'm guessing, about 78. Maybe higher. I'd start to sweat in a T-shirt and jeans. I couldn't bring myself to turn on the air conditioning in the middle of winter so I just turned on the fan and slept on top of the covers.

Now it's back to waking up in a 62 degree house. We have the thermostat set to kick it up to 68 at 6 (hmm, probably 7 now with DST), but when I get up at 3 it's pretty cold. Back to wearing a jacket and a hat in the morning.

So if you want to start a whacky sleep schedule I recommend starting in the summer. No sense in making things tougher than necessary.

Bonus tip: I started out not turning on any more light than necessary when I got up in the middle of the night. Small lamp to read, or nothing at all when I was using my laptop. No sense wasting electricity right? But it turns out that darkness all around makes your body ask, "why aren't we in bed?" And while your body may have a point it makes it tough to adapt to a new schedule.

Last weekend I decided that 4.5hr of core sleep was going well enough that I could try 3, which if you recall was the goal to start with, but didn't work for me at first. Both mornings I did that I woke up after my 7:00 nap, thought, "I'm still beat" and slept another hour. (The kids were not adjusted to DST yet so that was actually an option.) So, not really a success, and I went back to 4.5 in the interests of being alert.

Then Wednesday I flew out to PyCon. The upside of traveling while doing this is, I'm enough used to napping during the day that I was actually able to sleep on the plane, something I've never really been able to do before. I just pulled my hat down over my eyes, put in some gun-range-quality ear plugs, and slept. The downside is going through security, boarding, etc., is likely to not jibe with your nap schedule. So I missed 12:00 and 5:00 naps and slept extra on the plane to make up for that.

Thursday I missed my 12:00 nap since my tutorial schedule didn't really allow for one. Friday I missed my 12:00 nap since I was too keyed up about my upcoming talk. (They had me in the biggest room, capacity 600 or so. This is my third year speaking at PyCon but there are a lot more people this year; it was a little intimidating at first, but then I hit my stride.) But I still felt okay, so for Friday night I switched back to a 3h core again, and Saturday I got all my naps in.

I was actually one of the best-rested people at PyCon. Lots of people were staying up late and only getting 5h or so of sleep and paying for it during the day. One poor guy stayed up playing Tigris and Euphrates with us and got up 6h later to keep a deal he'd made with someone to go swimming in the morning. 6h doesn't sound too bad but he'd just flown in from Australia so he was jet lagged to boot. He looked like death warmed over when I saw him the next day.

Summary: After a month on the everyman schedule, I'm on day 3 of my 3rd attempt at switching to a 3h core and this time it is going pretty well. I don't need caffeine to stay up. Currently I feel at least 80% alert, which while not stellar is a lot better than how I felt after 3h the first two times. (40%?)