Lisa's 30th Birthday and My Dad's 60th

Friday (the 20th) was my wife's 30th birthday and my Dad's 60th.

I took the day off and we reduced our child-care responsiblites by 1/3rd early on, as YaYa went over to a friends house. The remaining four of us headed over to my Mom's in the early afternoon.

It was a nice, simple affair. It began wtih the fun part: opening presents.

She'd been asking for a pepper mill/salt grinder forever, and the kids bought one for her from Bed Bath & Beyond

She really loved it! A bullseye for once! She really, truly loved it.

We bought my Dad a Donald Duck T-shirt (he's a Donald fan) and a book of essays from the Abraham Lincoln Association.

Here's a funny moment. While Lisa was opening her gifts I looked over to see my Dad, king of all that is shy/quiet/wallflowerish most of the time,busily opening his own presents while no one was watching.

"Dad!," I said. "What're you doing? Where are your social skills?!"

His sincere and loud response:

"I don't have any social skills!"

Here's a shot of all of Lisa's gifts. A pedometer and a Jordan Knight CD from me, the salt/pepper set from the kids, some candy, Diet Coke, a calendar, and clothing gift certificate.

Then came the (cheese)cake.

After the party my folks took the two little one's overnight, and we picked YaYa up and took her over to my in-laws. We visited awhile and they took her overnight.

Then I took Lis to a new (to us) italian restaurant, maybe the best Italian place where we've ever eaten. My God, I must have gained 5 pounds, and no regrets; it was too good for guilt!

At home again we settled down to watch The Office Season 1, then we, uh . . well, the kids were gone :)

Just FYI

I spend a lot of time at BaseballThinkFactory.com - an obscene amount of time actually. I love their newsblog and the insightful and hilarious comments left there (though to warn you, the posters often lean leftist/atheist/libertarian politically and enjoy having it spill over into their baseball comments).

I enjoyed commenting for awhile this summer, but then someone on the site decided to launch a nasty, over-the-top response to a critique I posted of one of his opinion. I said the he** with it and stopped commenting. I've got better things to do than argue with a kook online.

So I lurk, the same as the mysteriously high # of folks who visit here and leave without commenting ;)

The point: BTF pointed me to www.baseballevolution.com. I haven't had a chance to do more than scan the site, but I came across this great stat:

A playoff team has a 12.5% chance of winning the World Series in the current Wild Card format. The Yankees have made the playoffs every year under these rules, and won the World Series 4 times... a 33.3% rate. So they would need to make the playoffs and not take the World Series trophy 20 more times to even hit the break even mark of probability. It seems that reports of the Yankees floundering in the playoffs are quite unfounded.

Not quite, of course. Move the stats forward, to 2001 to now, and it doesn't sound nearly as rosy.

* * * * * *

As I write this the Tigers are getting slaughtered in game 1 of the Series. I don't feel strongly one way or the other about this series, but still yawn when I think of the Cards. So I stand by my prediction - Tigers in 5.

* * * *

I notice a deep dislike among 'serious' baseball fans for Fox Sports, and Joe Buck and Tim McCarver in particular.

The complaints about Fox itself revolve around their music, graphics, in-game sound, etc. Most of these are hoeey, although Scooter the talking baseball was ghastly stupid.

Tim McCarver I can see. The man talks gibberish many times, but he is entertaining. Joe Buck I just plain like; I don't have a problem with him.

Is it so disliked because it's Fox, flowing from the perception that Fox (being 'conservative') is the enemy?

Or is it because most baseball fans are so obsessed with the game that they develop their own beliefs (in what stats are valuable, in what players are valuable, in what plays are worth the risk and which ones aren't) that they are more comfortable with the announcers muted and their own thoughts playing as a soundtrack?

I vote for the latter.

* *  * * * *

Today was YaYa's birthday party, and yesterday was both my wife's and my father's birthday. I'll post more on both subjects later.

 

Lost Season 3, Week 3

A vast improvement over last week, but I'm still having trouble coming up with something to write about.

Do I think Desmond has a telepathic link with Echo and Locke? No. It's possible I guess, but you can't discern that from the slim evidence in this episode. Desmond knew about the speech before Locke gave it, presumably before he even thought of it. 

To me that points towards some kind of voodoo time distortion. Sure, Desmond himself might be changed now; if you still believe the gist of the island to be supernatural perhaps he is now 'one' with the island and viewed Locke's airport scene.

'Course, that still doesn't explain him referencing the speech, not just the idea that Locke would go after Jack and Kate.

[Besides, if they were all 'connected' why the need to follow a blood trail in the search for Echo? Why not just do a Luke/Leia and 'ping' Echo?]

Or he's dead and come back for whatever reason. He looked a little Jesus-like today, no? Minus the hissy fit when Hurley wanted to debate, of course.

And how could all three survive that mess at the end of Season Two?

As to the airport scene, no real surprises - unless I missed something. Good to hear Charlie and Claire will be ok for awhile.

Were the polar bears real? They looked a little cartoonish to my eyes.

After Locke threw the knife I questioned Hurley's sudden appearance, which certainly seemed to be a 'transformation' from the bear. Is it possible that this is a hint (or a red herring) pointing to the island being part of Hurley's mind?

I have no real knowledge about polar bears, other than they sell a lot of Coca-Cola around Christmas. But is it normal for a polar bear to drag a man to his den and keep him alive for a snack?

Sure did look like kids skeletons in the cave. Creepy. But I don't think the bears (if they're real) are controlled by Dharma or the Others in any substantial way. It doesn't ring true to me, and it doesn't fit the Dharma logo among the bones.

By the way, I thought Echo calling Locke a 'hunter' was a weak and obvious attempt to spook out the audience. Not earth shattering at all.

So Locke grew weed. Interesting, but really, the guy has had more adventures in his life than Dirk Pitt. Time to finish off his flashbacks and move on.

Overall a fun episode that answered some questions and raised some others. Well done.

NLCS Game 7

That was a heck of a game.

Sure, the team I was rooting for lost but it was so good it almost seems . . okay.

From Oliver Perez's unexpected mastery, to Endy Chavez's spectacular catch (which had me screaming for joy), to the coulda-shoulda-woulda bottom of the ninth, it was great.

Kudos to St. Louis for pulling it out, and on to the World Series.

Apparently I'm a post-season jinx, so I hate to make a prediction, but . . . Tigers in 5.

Project Runway Season 3 Finale

How's this for odd: when it came down to the final choice, I was rooting for Jeffrey.

Not because I liked his clothing. On the contrary it seemed to me to be more of the avant-garde, unwearable art pieces that you see made fun of in satires of the industry. The exception was his fourth piece, apant outfit that I thought was very hot and attractive.

No, it was because of his remaining opponent, Uli.

I think Uli won the Fashion Week runway, no doubt about it. Her pieces were attractive, showed range, and except for the jarring transition to color late in the show, coherent.

But I also think she was a waste of space on the show, a one-note Nellie who snuck into the finale only because her final runway challenge dress was undoubtably the best of the bunch. She had to be chosen the winner that week, and by default be included in Olympus Fashion Week.

I could almost hear the judges regret when they put her through; hence the four person finale.

But on the big day  she rocked, and Michael (my favorite and America's) fell off the pace with an over the top, very provacative line. Laura, who my wife felt deserved to win, I felt played it too safe (again!) and was just plain bland.

So it was down to Uli and Jeffrey.

The judges - wisely - seemed to go with the person (of the two) who'd been the most consistent the whole season.

And so the a*hole won.

I'm still not 100% convinced he didn't outsource some of his work. He sure seemed a little shady about the whole thing, and reacted out of character when the accusation was put out there.

[I wonder: if he did cheat, is it possible the designer kicked out for cheating earlier was framed, as he suggested? Possibly by someone who wanted a talented designer out of the way, someone like Jeffrey?]

Still, to paraphrase Laura, I'm glad the battle was fought on the runway, not in the accountants office.

Overall, the weakest season of the three, talent wise. Even so I think you'll see Michael and Laura again, Uli will find her niche, and Jeffrey will be a 'coulda been' in the industry.

Time will tell.

Two Pics of YaYa

Here's two pics of YaYa. I'm not playing favorites, I just stumbled across these two and decided to post them. I'll certainly do the same for LuLu and Parker when I find the same.

Parker's Table Manners

Here's a pic from September 9th of Park sitting at the table eating his dinner by his own choice. Keep in mind, the vast majority of the time he's still in his high chair when he eats.

He drinks out of a regular cup, insists on a fork and uses it better than his sister's ever did, and routinely throws his food whenever he feels he's full.

We're trying to stop that of course.

Ditto his disgust for anything green and healthy. He'll tear up fruit and other colored veggies, but green just isn't his color.

He'll make a bad banker some day. :)

 

Regrets, of a Sort

This week Friday is my wife's 30th birthday, next Monday is YaYa's 5th, and two days later my wife and I will celebrate our 10th anniversary.

In mid November the whole family - minus Parker - will be taking a 10 day Disney Cruise down to the Bahamas. That, technically, is to celebrate all of those events. And YaYa has the obligitory birthday shing-ding this weekend.

Even so, I feel like a failure.

I would have liked to have thrown a big bash for the annivesary, and a nice one for my wife's birthday as well. After all, on my 30th she threw a huge surprise party for me.

I pictured a church ceremony where we at least acknowledged our vows, and possibly renewed them. And then a dinner afterwards where we took everyone that shafted us on a wedding gift with the notion that it'd last six months and rub their nose in it.

It's also high time I upgraded my wife's ring. Funny how it looked magnificent when I was 22 and she was 20 - and tiny and cheap now.

Alas, we're broke.

Every last dime is going to make sure we have enough spending $ for the trip and the excursions. In addition, we're perilously close to purchasing a house. And there's tuition,  WI heating bills, Netflix, the gym membership,etc etc to pay out of every check.

But here's my vow: sometime next year, probably on the heels of our tax return, I'm going to do it.

It might not be full scale; we might just have 30 folks share a dinner with us one night. And maybe we'll just have the priest mention us at mass.

But we will have a public celebration of ten (mainly) wonderful years together, and we will do something for her [belated] birthday too.

We might even work on that ring. . . .

I put this on the site a) as a reminder and b) so that there's some social pressure to live up to my promises.

Maybe you'll even get an invitation :)

 

Lost Post Week 2

Once again it took me six days to see the episode, so sorry for the late post.

Then again there's not much to discuss. It was a pretty straightforward episode, essentially an action-adventure story with a few revealing flashbacks.

My wife, who is slipping towards the 'enough with the mysteries' crowd, loved it and thought it was one of Lost's better offerings. On the other end of the mystery spectrum, I thought it was decent, but my attention lagged at times.

What we learned: that Jin (sp?) is far from the cold-blooded assasin we presumed him to be, and Sun is herself flawed. Aside from the fact she seems oddly oblivious to the burden her marriage has placed on her husband and is an adultress, she has a life-long pattern of letting others pay for her crimes/sins.

I'm glad she shot the woman on the boat (with provocation). Enough with the 'we are the good guys, you just don't understand' jazz.

You kidnap women and children. You drug folks against their will. You maintain a labor camp. You hanged Charlie. You abandoned the survivors to the wild when you had the ability to call for a rescue. You've imprisoned/threatened/mistreated the survivors.

Whoever you are, you ain't the good guys.

We also learned Ben's full (real?) name, saw a glimmer of the failed relationship between him and Juliet, and learned that they mean to turn Jack against the survivors.

I doubt it will work. He has the whole honor thing going for him, and in addition he a) has feelings for Kate - why I don't know and b) seems to have little to return to in the states.

Pretty lean show in terms of character development. I'm looking forward to tonights episode, although part of me was dissapointed to return to the Locke-Charlie-Echo world of the beach.

On a dimly related subject, nice to see the MLB footage and hear Joe Buck on the show, even if it was to show the hated Red Sox win their &%^* title.

In the current world I'm still hoping the Mets even it up and go on to win the NLCS. I maintain my position on the Cardinals: they are a boring, antiseptic team.

And look, I know my flaws. I know that in the heat of competition I demonize the opposition. That's why I'm trying hard not to say things like: Ron Belliard looks like the loathsome character of Eddie on That's So Raven, that DavidEckstein runs like he has a stick up his bum, that for being a 'genius' LaRussa sure seems inarticulate and creepy during the in-game interviews, or that Pujos is beloved in St. Louis because it's a town that worships steroid ridden first basemen.

But I didn't say any of that, did I?

All emotion aside, I find the Cardinals a dry and boring team, and not very good this year to boot. Baseball and its audience would be much better served by a Mets-Tigers Series, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Oh, and the A-Rod to the Cubs trade rumors? I hope they aren't true, as I'd hate to root against the guy. I don't think it'll happen tho' - ARod needs a title to overcome his mental block, and that isn't going to happen in Wrigley Field.

 

K5 Soccer

Soccer season is on us again, and as much as I dislike the dang sport my oldest is again an active participant.

There's a huge difference between her play from K4 to now. Last year she was three going on four and had a short attention span, no head for the game, and not a chance in hell of her little legs keeping up with the big kids.

Now she keeps more or less attuned to the action at hand in both practice and in the game. She runs just as fast as most of the kids, tho' not as fast as some, and seems to genuinely enjoy herself this year.

Alas, on offense she's not very good. She still hasn't grasped how/where to move the ball and really can't anticipate the play before it happens.

But as a goalie . .

The girl can play.

In the first game of the season she blocked seven of eight shots on goal, including some wicked scrums where I thought she'd back up or risk getting hurt. Not my girl! As soon as that ball approaches the goal she's right up on it, risking life and limb to shut down the play!

(one time she went down to one knee to stifle the ball right as it was about to be kicked. She grabbed it, got up, and promptly threw it in play - right into the head of an opponent!)

The next week (I missed it because of work, naturally) she shutout the other team for two periods. Then she was lifted and natch, her replacement gave up the winning goal.

Would it have killed my wife to count the shots-on-goal for her absent husband? Apparently so :(

Best quote: the mother of the second goalie yelled 'put YaYa back in' when her son let the goal go by.

This last week we played the same team that wallopped 'em last year, the all Spanish speaking, insanely loud and flamboyant team that turned the game last season into a world cup match.

[my mother gets irate when I say that, as her other grandkids attend that school, but I don't think anyone at the game last year would disagree with that assesment. It was NUTS]

The wrong team won again- but they failed to play any girls in the co-ed game, so let's see their win stand up to an 'anonymous' complaint to the Archdiocese - and it was a shellacking.

Midway through, with the score 5 -- 0, they finally put YaYa in the net. The other team turned it up a notch, as well they should, given that I overheard a mother say, with no sarcasm, 'oh good, they're putting in the super goalie'and she fared well.

Final tally for her time in the net; six saves, two goals allowed, one of which was bunk. The other team was out of bounds and our coach protested, but injustice abounds in K5 soccer. . .

What I enjoy most about watching her in the goal is the way her mind comes alive. She's so stiff on offense, but as goalie she'll slide to either side of the net when the ball is still halfway down the field, anticipating the play to come.

I've even heard her yell at her defenders to 'pay attention'.

Not bad for a girl that ended last season being called 'the worst goalie ever'.

Not anymore baby, not anymore.

 

One pic of YaYa

Moron Lauded on AOL's Welcome Page

I've pretty much abandoned the political aspect of this site in the wake of the '04 elections, but c'mon . .

 (BTW - if you live in WI vote for Mark Green and dump the bald free spending liar/crooked 'I adopted a kid for politcal gain' Gov. Jim Doyle on his behind).

I log on to AOL this morning and on the ever helpful 'welcome' page see a cute, freckle faced teenager.

A teenager who just happened to incur the wrath of the Secret Service for threatening to kill President Bush on her website.

The threats themselves were nothing more than the ill-conceived, stupid, and immature actions of a kid from California - where no doubt such statements make her 'cool'.

But she's a 'peace loving person'.

Riiight.

Anyhow, I don't think she meant actual harm, but I'm glad the Secret Service took her to task. I suppose I should be offended that they didn't have her parents there during the questioning (it isn't mandated) but I can't force myself to care.

The Mrs. says I would object if it hit closer to home and maybe I would. But I'd be angrier at my kid than the Secret Service.

Oh, and get this lovely quote from the kid:

"They yelled at me a lot," she said. "They were unnecessarily mean."

I have to take a deep breath and remind myself this is California, where the standard rules of human behavior and expectations do not apply. But c'mon - the guys paid to protect the President scolded someone who threatened to kill him and the girl has the gall to get all weepy-eyed.

Pleeeease.

If you aren't mature enough to understand you f**ked up, then don't do it in the first place.

At least our homegrown kooks have class. Here in Wisconsin a teenage boy was questioned for the same thing a week or so ago, and he didn't make excuses.

He went on TV, said it was a joke but a stupid one, and apologized to the people of his school, his parents, and his hometown.

But hey, we're just hicks from the sticks.

LuLu's First Day of School

[Note: for far too long I've refered to my youngest daughter here as "middle child', a term that's a little demeaning and soon to be innacurate. She's got a ton of nicknames in real life (Livvie Lue, Lu, LuLu etc), but LuLu  and Livvie Luseems to flow naturally when I write about her, so that's what I'm going to go with from now on]

This year marked LuLu's first year in school, a proud member of her K-3 class.

We agreed to send her to the same otherwise all African American school that YaYa had attended two years ago. We've since moved YaYa to another Catholic school, but the combination of a full day K3 program and strong academics made the trip across town worth it.

There was something different sending Livvie Lu out the door. It was certainly just as big a milestone and we love her just as much, but with two years of school under our belt we faced the day with more confidence. And as much as YaYa looked forward to school and wanted to go, LuLu's had two years of peer presure to make the trip a goal of hers.

And let me tell you, she looked darling:

Soon it came time to pack the kids up and hit the road. My apologies to Parker for the mis-sized pic.

The room was the same, the teacher different.

We stayed for a minute or two to let her get accustomed to the place, then made our goodbyes.

No tears, not from LuLu. And none from me for once.

But another one of my babies spreading her wings. I only get to take her to school once a week, on Wednesday's (the rest of the week the Mrs takes her and I take YaYa, as her school is closer to work) but I look forward to that time with her. And every day she comes running up to me after work with a big hug.

So far school's been a success (knock on wood). She even won a free JC Penney portrait at a parent/child night.

Oh, and her first progress report came in: she got good marks ('most of the time') in everything but 'dresses self' (that was a 'working on it'). In the academic progress area she can say the alphabet, recognizes letters, sounds, and shapes, can count to 13 and has a 'more than 3 minute' attention span.

And let me tell you, that girl knows her shapes almost better than I do. And not just squares and circles like my time in kindergarten. We're talking ovals, cylinders, triangles, diamonds and hearts.

Under teacher comments the following appeared: "LuLu is a excellent student. Her academics are great. She is a leader in the clasroom and enjoys helping others. She needs to work on talking out in class. She is a joy to have in my class everyday"

Good job LuLu!

 

The Last Day of Summer 2006

The last of summer for my family was August 27th. The next day school would start and we were determined to make the most of our last day together.

I am, at heart, a sincerely melancholy guy.

That day we'd been invited to a picnic in, of all places, a pet cemetary. I'd agreed to sponsor part of the daylong pet picnic/carnival and invited my in-laws and their service dog Zsa Zsa too.

Zsa Zsa finished near the top in musical chairs, btw.

There were several activites for pets, most of which kept our interest for a bit.

But the kids got antsy after a bit. And it's hard to concentrate when you're bombarded by hornets left and right.  BTW, I love this next pic:

Thankfully there was a (less than inspired) magic show for the kids, in which YaYa as usual volunteered.

and a makeup session:

[That thing on YaYa's belt is a candy dispenser the girls were in love with for a few days, before (of course) they lost/broke it.]

Afterwards we and the in-laws hit up Chuck E Cheese, where the kids enjoyed the last part of the evening, and the summer.

School awaited! . . .

Summer Gymnastics Camp

In mid-August both my girls were signed up for gymnastics camp at Midwest Twisters. Trouble was I got lost on the way there, then almost ran out of gas . . . then showed up only to find out I'd screwed up the date and was a WEEK early.

Well, they took 'em anyways, mostly out of pity. :) The girls did have to deal with a Dragon and Fairy Tale theme instead of what they'd orignally been scheduled to be in (a Chinese theme I think; frankly it all runs together. Naw, I got it right; I remember them bringing shields home that they'd made in the art section of the week-long class)

They enjoyed it a lot. YaYa in particular seems to love gymnastics and is a monkey around the house.

Maybe next year we can afford to send them every week. Who knows.