I'm blogging about my wrist again

At the end of last year the cast came off my wrist. It was stiff and unmoving - and filthy. You know how your skin looks when it's had something pressed in it for awhile? It was also vaguely misshapen. I had almost no grip strength, and there was a comically absurd mismatch between my forearms. I tested myself slowly at the gym - I didn't want to hurt myself, but I wanted to know what I could actually do.

It wasn't much.

Things as basic as twisting a screwdriver, even without any torque, were taxing. I couldn't do a bicep curl because I couldn't put pressure on my wrist in that direction - I could do a hammer curl instead. There were a lot of substitutions going on. At work I slowly pulled myself back into doing some actual work outside my desk, but doing anything with any substance or merit caused an ache that took a day to subside.

One fun fact about my job is that many of the operations are ambidextrous. I switched most of them to left handed operation and I was able to get things done. Trouble is, you're supposed to go back and forth to prevent strain. I couldn't, so I didn't, which caused a strain on my left shoulder.

Suddenly, I wasn't doing much again anymore.  I have a small team at work (literally one other person) and this person quit, so I had to do everything myself. It wasn't what I would call fun. Long story short, my team is running at full capacity again (someone else was assigned to me) and I'm comfortably back being a shipping manager and assistant production manager.

Hold on, I was trying to blog about my arm.

I had a notepad in my phone where I kept track of what I was doing at the gym and how much weight I was doing it at, and I stopped updating it after the accident. I made another one when I started rebuilding my arm. It was almost embarrassing how little I could hold with it when I started, and it was wobbly. I gave myself some goals, and some others told me it would take a full year from that point before it would feel normal again. 

I felt normal back in June. I checked the old notepad and discovered that I had recently surpassed every single part of it.

Now if only they were able to do something about my elbow. That thing pops like bubble wrap. Whatever. Happy New Year.

Merry fortnite

My kids have two weeks off of school at the end of the year. Two entire weeks. When I was in high school I remember I was in school on Christmas Eve for a half day (it wasn't very well attended, but I was still sent in). Now? Christmas is a Thursday, but they have everything from Dec 22 - Jan 2, plus the weekends bookending it making it 16 days off.

And they keep hoping for snow. Kids, if you already have the day off, the snow is wasted. You can't get a snow day when you already have the day off. You need to time your requests better.

Glasses

I've needed glasses since my early 20's. Fortunately right now my job pays for glasses (something about their contract requiring anyone working there to have 20/20 vision), and I get a new pair every two years. But something unfortunate happened.

Two years ago, they convinced me to get what they call 'progressive lenses', which means that different parts of the lens have different focal... lengths? I don't have that vocabulary, but what it meant for me was uncomfortable. You see, I look with my eyes, but looking anywhere but dead ahead was blurry and warped. They said I'd get used to it, but I never did. After a month, I put on my old pair of glasses and they worked just fine. But something unfortunate happened.

They disappeared when on a nice family weekend for my wife's birthday. Gone without a trace, never to be seen again. I tried to wear the weird ones for the drive home, but it was so jarring that I just went without. My wife drove when it got dark.

When we got home, I went digging and found yet an older pair of glasses. They're a little worn out, with an odd bit of wire holding the rims together and some mismatches screws holding the temples on. They worked well enough, and weren't jarring at all. I've been using them since then, except I have to keep tightening the screws or the temples fall off.

My eye exam was today, and I flatly told them that I was going back to single distance lenses. I'm looking at my six year old pair that needs work and honestly they can't come fast enough.

The old vs the new... car

Remember my "new" car? I needed to replace a busted headlight.

Booooooo.

I bought a replacement bulb, then dreaded it. I kept the package in my car, waiting for it to maybe warm up. (I don't have a garage) I dread this because on my last car, getting to the headlight assembly was a chore. I had to go in through the wheel well, remove the wheel liner (which was guaranteed to break a part because it was held on with parts that snapped into place), then contort your arm reaching through to get to the bulb assembly. Then, after figuring out the combination, you could only pull it back so far because the wires were too short. From there you needed to do some voodoo to get the bulb out, then the new one in, before reversing course. Now you couldn't see the housing going back into place because your arm was in the way. That might be a real problem if you could get your head in there to see it in the first place, so just fumble around for awhile until it sets correctly. This required three, yes three, different wrench sizes and a screwdriver.

So of course I hesitated, because every time I have to do this it's cold out.

I had some time this morning, so I found a video showing how to get to the bulb assembly on my new car and replace it. I was immediately surprised. All I had to do was pop the hood and look down. The bulb assembly was right there, and it opened with a short twist. I did both bulbs in FIVE MINUTES, and with no tools.

I believe someone at Kia told the engineers that they would also be mechanics for basic maintenance like this, because it was almost too easy,

A small private service

My grandmother, my dad's mom, was the kind of woman that never wanted anyone to make a fuss over her. She didn't want a big funeral, memorial, 'celebration of life' (she rolled her eyes at that one), or anything of the sort. She wanted a simple graveside service with family and close friends present.

She got her wish.

It was chilly, but not uncomfortably cold. There was snow on the ground, but it wasn't snowing, nor was it windy. It was the best weather we could have hoped for in the midst of a snowy season. Given the privacy behind the service, it was remarkably well attended. There was no general announcement, but everyone that was told was in attendance. There was concern that her peers would refrain based on how cold it had been, but they all came and the weather relaxed for the occasion.

During a quiet moment, a flock of geese honked madly overhead. It was amusing, but it was also the perfect segue into the seagull story.

I was a small boy, and my grandmother had taken me to a nearby department store. It was attached to a quiet little mall that was dying, so the parking lot was mostly empty. I sat up front in her little truck, and there was a flock of seagulls sitting around, waiting for some discarded scraps.

She turned the truck toward them and gunned it.

My parents drove like they were afraid of the road, so the sudden acceleration was as surreal as the explosion of terrified birds fluttering in every direction. She did that more than once, but it was hilarious every time.

I'm gonna miss that woman.

She's gone

My grandma died today.

The takeout takeaway

Success. I sold him the idea of hanging out at home playing video games while I went out and picked up our order. Had the same problems, though. I got there when they said it would be ready - it wasn't. I waited around for an extra 20 minutes, and when I got home with it, four items were missing.

Fortunately I had them all skip ordering drinks and I just got a few bottles of their favorite carbonated sugar and we all called it a draw. I was both worried about carting around a bunch of disposable cups full of iced sugar water, and half worried they'd be wrong anyway. 

He had a good birthday. 

Fifteen again

My second born is turning 15 this week. It should be easy to reconcile that with my current age of 24, but I still look at birthdays with a strange combination of joy and existential dread. 

He gets all the joy, though. But his dinner request was Friendly's, which is fine except the only one left in this town has terrible service. (Let's all wait 40 minutes to get your order messed up anyway) I'm going to try to convince him to do takeout. I'll let you know how it works.

Lost another one

Another funeral. Soft spoken man I knew from church my entire life. He was always doing for others, didn't even want a funeral. 

Honestly, the people that don't want anyone making a fuss over them when they go are going to be the ones with disappointed friends and family if there isn't even a little fuss. Come on man, it's not for you.

What struck me was the dichotomy in what was said about him. People in the church spoke highly of his constant and continuous work with the missionaries in the area, helping them however they needed. His family spoke more generically (none of them, except his widow, are involved in the church at all), but his granddaughter said everything without saying much. 

She always wanted her grandfather, but he was always giving all of this time to... *this church*. It was brief, but it was the way she said it. In that moment I saw a little girl that just wanted her grandfather, and she grew to resent it. That was the moment that I realized that endless selfless service can lack balance and cost you just as much.

The Windaween haul

My kids braved the icy rain and blustery winds. The winds themselves died down a good bit before it got dark, but it was still rainy and the rain was still icy. Still they ventured out. Decked out and wrapped up they decided to brave the elements to beg candy from strangers.

It really is a weird event.

Our road is the entrance to the neighborhood. If we head south, it's a smaller subset of roads that can easily be covered in an hour. If you go north, you can stay out until the lights start to go off. Typically, we've led them south, because if anyone tuckers out they can go home when we pass by. It happened when they were younger than one or two of them would tap out and the others would continue onward. 

The entire time we were out, we saw four other groups of kids. That was it. After half an hour, we found that houses were absolutely dumping candy into our kids bags. At the hour mark, we had finished the southern section and they were done. They could carry no more. I was alright with that, because I wanted to get out of the rain anyway.

Windaween

Ah yes, Windaween. Similar to Rainaween, but instead of rain the predicted weather is 36mph winds. First of all, nobody is sick this time, so that's a bonus. I'm grateful that none of the costumes double as wind sails (inflatable dinosaurs, boxy robots, etc). I'm also glad that it's on a Friday this year. They can get all the stranger supplied junk they want, then I don't care if they stay up half the night watching Halloween movies and eating junk food. In fact, I expect them to.

Everyone bailed again

So, the two friends that I helped with their paperwork? One of them had a shotgun and no idea how to use it. For a while she didn't know where it was, either. She liberated it from the house when took her kids and escaped her abusive ex.

Wisdom

She found it, and we all saw it as a great excuse to go shooting again (part of my helping with paperwork also included taking them out shooting so they could get a good idea of what they liked). Once again, everyone bailed on me. Once again all valid reasons (new job - yes go do the thing. Migraine? Yes, this will make it worse and if you're not having fun then why are you here) So as I was ready to call it, another friend was apparently sent to fill in.

Didn't see that coming. Whatever, he's cool and we don't get to hang out much so off we went. Bro is a crack shot and fun fact: we have the same first name (spelled the same, too)

Literally nothing went the way I expected it to but everything was fun anyway.

Everybody bailed

Two of my friends wanted to get a NYS pistol license, and slicing through the bureaucratic nonsense to help them overcome this direct infringement on their constutionally protected rights is something I'm good at.

(The more the clown show in Albany tries to make it harder, the more motivated I am to help people overcome it)

So the gun show was today, and they were going to go with me. Both of them, separately, cancelled on me. Their reasons were valid, but it still left me flying solo. My brother was also going to go, but he kept texting me all morning about one delay after another - right up until he, too, cancelled.

I am an extrovert, I do things with people. I do not count as people.

I still ran into four people I knew, so that counts.

Mass-aaaaahhhhhge

So I had, previous to even planning my hike this past weekend, booked a massage for this afternoon. I couldn't have timed it better, but this gal flat out asked me wtf I did to my calves. (I book her almost monthly, so she definitely has a frame of reference)

I didn't even realize they were that bad until she got to them.

The kneedful

I did another couple of Adirondak high peaks this weekend. Giant Mountain and Rocky Peak Ridge. It's just up. Up up up up up. That's to be expected, but honestly it felt more like spending five hours on a stair climber than hiking.

That's ok, it's actually why I use the stair climber. Torture myself at the gym so my outdoor escapades are fun. So that wasn't really the problem. No, the problem was going down.

When I first moved out to Buffalo to attend UB, I was the type to skip the elevator and just use the stairs. I still do, but back then I did it a lot, and I discovered an odd problem after a while. My knees hurt when going down the stairs. Conventional wisdom suggests that going up would be the difficult part, but this was not the case. The direction, force, etc, were all conspiring against me for a while. I used the elevator when going down even a single flight of stairs, and after the first semester the problem abated. Never came back, and I continued to use the stairs every time (up and down) until I graduated.

Back in June when I hiked Whiteface, we did it backwards. We drove to the peak, then hiked down, then up to Esther, then back up to Whiteface. From the peak, there's a part where you can either take an elevator back down to the parking area (booo) or take the very rough trail down, which is basically bouldering. It was tiring getting back to the peak, but those rocks going down... they hurt. Wow did my knees hurt. I took it nice and slow, carrying myself on the guardrail until I could walk like a normal person again.

By contrast, when I did Cascade and Porter, my knees ached a little during the last hour. Very different strain.

This past trip, it was a mixture of stair climber and bouldering to get to the peaks. It was beautiful, but going down wasn't a challenge - it was a problem. It was a longer hike, but our plans had us getting back to the car three hours before sunset - so nobody had a flashlight. As soon as the decent started, my knees started. The sharp grade combined with the bouldering parts made it almost excruciating. Our speed was cut to less than a half. We timed ourselves and realized that at that pace we were going to make it back to the car well over an hour after sunset. When bouldering with no lights, that's dangerous. I had exactly one dose of Tylenol which took the edge off, and we managed to get down past the boulders and onto just steep trail before we had to pull out our phones to use as flashlights just to make sure we stayed on the trail. I almost used the trekking poles as crutches, but taking the pressure off helped a lot.

My entire body was overdoing it to keep the pressure off my legs, and I ache all over because of it. Good thing I can sit down at work.

Worse than I thought

So back to my grandfather. He was brought into the hospital last week to have the battery changed on his pacemaker. When he was there, some of us went to the senior living center he was in to collect his things because he wasn't going back. Once he was discharged, he was sent to the new place, which was better furnished.

The bad news is that he's showing signs of heart failure. 

Olden anniversary

Last week would have been my grandparents 69th wedding anniversary, were my late grandmother still alive. She passed on back in 2002, so it's been a minute. We talked to my grandfather today, and well, some days his cognitive decline is more apparent than others. I'm not sure he realized it.

He's not been well. It started about two years ago when he wrecked his car, but had no knowledge of it. Later we found him collapsed on the floor. From there, he hasn't been able to live independently. He's been in two full time care facilities, and he needs to be moved to a new one. Not for any reason than the level of care he needs is beyond what the current place is allowed to give.

I'm trying to be optimistic, but it's hard to think that the sharp minded man he once was isn't coming back.

The unregistered mistake

I got a new car a few months ago to replace the one that rotted out from under me.

I hate making car payments.

Let me skip to the part where I'm complaining. My insurance agent fat fingered something, because even though they insisted my car was fully insured with zero gaps, the DMV sent me a nasty letter saying I needed to explain the 29 day lapse in insurance. And if I couldn't explain it, the vehicle registration would be suspended for the same amount of time.

I had to log into the DMV and submit my own proof, but the insurance agent had to do the same. It never happened. I got a further two letters in the mail while I was on vacation, so of course I didn't see them until I got back. Suddenly my cars registration was suspended.

There are too many plate scanners, even attached to cop cars, to risk 30 days in jail and my car being impounded. So there I was unable to drive my own car, that never had any issues, because someone at my insurance agent was, frankly, lazy and/or malicious.

It took some rather aggressive communication with my insurance agents office before the issue was settled. You can always tell they're afraid of me when they send their final email at 5:01 and hit the door running.

The issue is settled, but not after much inconvenience on my part. Meanwhile, they're being replaced. I never changed agents when we left Buffalo, always doing things online anyway. But the absolute slack on their part would never have happened if I could have angrily walked into their office and not left until the issue was settled. Honestly, they were using the distance to their advantage.

Another first day

The first day of school is always weird to me. I remember when I would go back the first thing that hit me was the smell. K-12 educational facilities always had this weird smell I could never fully identify. Like it was some odd combination of low budget detergent, questionable hygiene, and freshly unwrapped backpacks that haven't finished outgassing yet.

We barely had time to breathe after returning from our trip before the kids were shuffled off into the fray. At least they had a few days. I was back to work before the van was even cleaned out.

The big followup

Sam is fine. Whatever hurt his shoulder didn't break or dislocate anything. I'm still compiling pics from the various phones that were brought, and in the moment it didn't occur to me to get a pic of the overturned ATV.

The van has an appointment to get the windshield replaced (I failed to mention the rock that went sailing from a large vehicle that left a pockmark on it. Good thing I have 100% glass coverage) and the oil changed (Turns out putting over 5000 miles on it in 2 weeks makes it scream at you). The van has also been deeply detailed. I went back to it the next day and the smell bothered me. It was a combination of body odor and food residue. oof

Monday morning I got on my bike and rode around the lake. I missed it.

Tuesday I got back into work after two weeks and, oddly, I missed it. Then I'm told by one of my favorites that she put in her notice and only has a week left.

Well crap.

Getting back to the gym was nice, although my normal workout felt like I was trying to set personal records, at least at first. By the end of the week it felt normal.

The kids started school on Thursday. I used to take off the first day of school, but I hadn't arranged it yet and still felt backed up at work. It's been a quiet week.

I had previously booked a visit with my chiropractor and a massage for this week. I was all sorts of bound up. Apparently my right calf had ridiculous amounts of tension worked into it. I blame 5,000 miles of driving. I'm too old to just ignore my issues, Besides, the price of the visits was far less than just the souvenir sweaters we bought.

I originally conceived this trip based on the one my wife and I took back in 2007 that started with her family reunion, then dipped into Yellowstone for half a day, then Devils Tower, Rushmore, and Wall Drug on the way back. I felt like I only saw a scratch on the surface of what it could have been, and wanted to get a real dig in at some point. But life got busy, then kids came along. Now with our youngest being 10 (and still counting as a fourth grader until Sep 1 at least, so she got us into the national parks for free) we could manage *and* they would remember it. It was my wife that seemed more excited by it, as she took the initiative in planning. And then since it took us right through Minnesota and Wisconsin, her family saw it as a chance to all get together.

Seriously, the ones that live in Arizona flew out for the occasion. This was the first time her entire family has gotten together since Christmas 2018.  

But this past week has been quiet, and I've enjoyed it immensely.  

The BIG TRIP PART THREE

I could go on at length, but here we go:

Sat 16: Uranus Fudge Factory. Camped at Shades State Park Indiana
Sun 17: Casey Illinois (Worlds largest... stuff) and St Louis Arch. Stayed at Holiday Inn Express Oak Grove
Mon 18: Liberty Jail, Far West temple site, Hawn's Mill, Adam-ondi-Ahman, Winter Quarters. Stayed at Cobblestone Hotel & Stuites, Cozad NE.
Tues 19: Chimney Rock,  Scotts Bluff. Stayed at the C'mon Inn, Casper WY.
Wed 20: Independence Rock, entered Grand Teton National Park. Stayed in pop up tent.
Thurs 21: Hiked trails, left Tetons. Entered Yellowstone National Park. Camped right by the bathrooms.
Fri 22: Elk right next to the bathrooms first thing in the morning. Saw Old Faithful and lots more.
Sat 23: Went back to Stone Bridge to get family pics like in 2007. Nell lost a bracelet. Left Yellowstone National Park. Stayed at Holiday Inn Express Buffalo WY.
Sun 24: Devils Tower National Monument. Mount Rushmore National Monument. Wall Drug. Badlands National Park late night ranger program (Saw more stars in my life). The kids were climbing on the rock formations. Some other kid broke his nose during the presentation. Camped at Badlands Hotel & Campground. (Glorified parking lot, couldn't drive stakes into the ground)
Mon 25: Drove around the badlands. Saw more bison than I've ever seen. Visited the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead, my glasses lost a screw at her gravesite. Visited Mitchell SD Corn Palace. Stayed at April's house.
Tues 26: Doubled back to the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota. Stayed at LE Camp Phillips.
Wed 27: Camp Phillips all day long. Archery, Boating. Bonfire. Fixed my glasses.
Thurs 28: Mennonite store, then the caves at the end of the day.
Fri 29: Opening day at the orchard. Sam wrecks an ATV.
Sat 30: We drive straight through to home. 

Sam has a Dr visit already set up to address the pain in his shoulder from wrecking the ATV, but he seems otherwise unhurt.

I need four days of sleep and to be left alone for a week. 

The BIG TRIP PART TWO

So we opted to go camping a few nights (We're camping in the national parks when we stay there, so we already have all the gear) and it's doing a wonder in keeping expenses down. (A $40 campsite vs a $200 hotel room, it works), but the first night it was just HOT. Felt like a sauna.We didn't realize this in the van because we had the AC on, but once we got there and opened it up we realized how humid it was.

Nobody slept in the sleeping bags, we were all on top of them.

Sunday 

Casey Illinois is a small town with the worlds largest rocking chair. And pencil. And barber pole, golf tee, and mailbox, among others. You could fit a lot of people inside that mailbox - and it's a functioning mailbox, too. 

The Gateway Arch in St Louis was fun the first time, but the first time was 10 years ago. Only my oldest went up, and they were doing lots of landscaping so it was dirt fields. This time we all went up, and I literally got a picture of my van parked nearby at the stadium.

Monday

Saw all the church history sites in MO. The buildings were all closed, but the ones that were just open areas were still very nice. Drove a lot. I mean a lot. Getting tired of driving.

But there is still more driving. It's my 19th wedding anniversary and we spent the day driving.

THE BIG TRIP

Today begins THE BIG ROAD TRIP that we'll be on for two weeks. With all four of my kids and their various personalities crammed in the minivan with no escape.

 Wish me luck. 

Minor filling

My dental health improved dramatically once I stopped drinking sugar. But the shape of my mouth was going to get me in the end. You see, I have to partially close my jaw for my toothbrush to actually reach the side of my upper back teeth.

Whatever they're called. 

It finally caught up to me, and I have a small cavity on one side. Or rather, I have a small filling on one side. I was a bit surprised though. I timed it, from the moment they jabbed my gums with a needle to numb me, to the moment they declared they were done, was exactly ten minutes. That was a remarkably short time, I was expecting to be in that chair for 6-7 business days.

All alone

So my wife made a friend back in college, and they're still good friends to this day. I suggested she plan a trip to see her friend, and she planned a trip for all of us to go to Connecticut to see her friends family for the weekend.

Not exactly what I had in mind, but a change of scenery is always nice.

Then a friend of mine, that I haven't seen in close to 18 years, lost his grandfather. He was going to fly into town this weekend for the funeral. At my wife's suggestion, I stayed behind so I could pick him up from the airport and host him for a day before he headed out.

His flight arrives at 12:30am Sunday morning. It's now just after 5pm on Friday, and I'm completely alone in the house. It's unnervingly quiet. I'm not used to this.

Cascade and Porter

So I am continuing to hike in the Adirondacks. The first hike was mid June, and it was honestly colder than I expected. I had to layer in the morning, and only shed the outer layer around noon. This time it was warmer.

Much warmer.

I also brought my wife instead of a motley collection of goofballs I met while out shooting. As the title implies, we hiked to the peaks of Cascade and Porter. It was a longer hike, takes around 6 hours. Took us a bit longer because she kept stopping to listen and identify new birds.

She's got three new birds on the hike.

Oh yea, did I say it was warmer? We went through twice as much water as the last hike. Thing is, I originally wasn't going to bring more than the last time. She insisted, and I went along with it (wasn't gonna push back - I know she drinks a lot of water. Besides, I asked her to come). By the end of the hike, about a tenth of a mile from the car, we had run out of water. I conceded that her idea of how much we needed was more accurate than mine.

I drank less than a third of the water I was carrying around the entire day. I'll say it was a lot easier carrying a mostly empty pack down from the peaks than it was carrying a full pack up them.

Anyway I'm already planning my next hike.

Silent camp

This year, all three of my boys are at camp for a week. My daughter makes almost no sound. It was almost eerie coming home today, knowing there were people in the house.

My cat has been looking for my second born all day. I think she actually likes him.

Ghost job

So at church, I've been asked to do some stuff. Not gonna get specific because, frankly, I can't. I suppose I should have looked for more clarification before accepting a vague responsibility. Meanwhile, I missed the first meeting because if conflicted with a wedding.

Not sorry.

Since then, every other meeting has been cancelled or rescheduled. I'm still not sure what it is I got roped into doing.

Movie prep

So we're planning a road trip at the end of the summer. 

Let me back up.

In the summer of 2007, the wife and I went on a road trip out west for her family reunion and saw a lot of stuff on the way back. I blogged about it, but that old blog post was ruthlessly murdered by someone who didn't value a Myspace server. Also, I didn't back it up.

Anyway, I've wanted to do that again for awhile. Having small children makes it both difficult and, honestly, useless. They won't remember it. But now they're old enough and we're gonna do it again. And my wife is getting them ready by showing them movies that take place at the various locations on our trip.

I didn't even know North by Northwest ended at Mount Rushmore. All I knew about it was the scene where he was chased by an airplane.

Boomin

Most years, my sister hosts a cookout on the 4th of July. The other years she's doing something silly like 'being on vacation' or something. (It's like 1 out of every 10 years she's out of town, so I'm not complaining, just sarcastic). She and my brother-in-law get both sides of the family together and we overeat while the kids soak themselves. It's nice. Then my brother-in-law's parents host whoever wants to go swimming (they have a pool), and we'll go and cool off. The third and final location is my place. We do fireworks at my place.

I like it because I end the day where I live.

Now... New York's fireworks laws are lame. (City has a problem, state gets a law, that's how it is here) We get the fireworks that are legal here and make a lot of noise.

One of my attendees had been out of state, and returned with something that would get attention any other day. Let's just say the 4th of July was a lot louder this year.

Sunfailers

My wife was at a garden supply store, and our daughter convinced her to buy an already growing, potted set of sunflowers. I was happy enough to have them, and I planted them in the front yard right away.

They're wilting. I've given them plenty of everything, except whatever it is they actually want. I need the sunflower whisperer. Someone tell me why I can't have any this year.

Congratulashuns

Nobody knows how to spell it, that's why we all write 'congrats!'

Anyway... my older brother got married this Friday. As he was the last of our siblings to do so, I suppose the theme of the wedding was (on our side anyway) 'Last Man Standing', but I had the good grace not to say that out loud. They're a good compliment to each other, and as well as I know my brother, she checks all the boxes.

And off they go. 

Adirondack starters

For years I've been wanting to hike in the Adirondacks. One thing or another would be planned, then something else would come up and put a stop to those plans. Either it was Canadian wildfires causing the DEC to close the trails, or storms washing out the trailheads, or... either way it was something. Year after year I was thwarted.

I decided to sneak up on them this time. Thursday night I drove up with a friend and we stayed the night, and Friday we started at Whiteface Mountain (you can drive up to the top). From there, we hiked down, then up to Esther Mountain. Then back to Whiteface. Took right around four hours. I managed to only need to stop for a break once, and that because hiking back up to Whiteface, after hiking for three and a half hours, the steep incline was starting to be a bit taxing. I would say it wasn't bad for my age, but there were plenty of people older than I am that were breezing past us.

Goals.

I try to keep active, but that's not the kind of active I'm accustomed to. Maybe I had the wrong kinds of foods, whatever. I'm already planning my next hike. Meanwhile, I spent my birthday laying about recovering. First time I stayed home doing nothing for my birthday.

Sunflower failure

I have no sunflowers and I'm stumped. Several years ago I planted sunflowers in the front of my house, and they grew as tall as the roof and shaded the living room very nicely. The kids loved them, I loved them. It was nice. Then my wife wanted to try growing strawberries.

ok

She finally gave up and let me have that spot of ground back, and when I put in the garden, I planted my sunflowers same as last time. Nothing grew. Weeks went by and nothing grew. I just replanted them, thinking maybe the seeds were no good. Or something dug in and ate them, I don't know. But I should have a field of foot tall sunflowers by now.

The waste of June

My kids last day of school is June 27. For those of you without a calendar, that's seven full days after the official start of summer. When I was a kid I would look at the school calendar and add up the random days off, then stack them at the end to see how much sooner we could end the school year.

They got two weeks off at Christmas and New Years. Two solid weeks. I got one as a kid, this is nuts. Meanwhile there's that random week off in February that the rest of the country seems to lack. Trim that year end break back to normal and cut off the winter fat and bring it up. We could be done so much sooner.

Of course if it were up to me they wouldn't see the inside of a classroom between Memorial Day and Labor Day. June, for the elementary and middle schoolers is filled with nonsense. It's all field days and parties of various sorts. Meanwhile the high schoolers are taking Regents exams that literally nobody but the high school administration cares about. Not a single college or university gives one single thought to Regents exams, but the NY school system still perpetuates the idea that it counts as college level and is seen as super advanced.

They all need to be fired.

Color? Colour?

 

Does anyone know what color my car is?

Because I don't.

Gar-den

Mother's day weekend is typically when I put in the garden. I prepped the land earlier in the week and took the time that Saturday to get my seedlings in the dirt and the extra fencing up. The wife also got us a pair of cherry trees to plant, so some of the fertilizer was set aside for those. I was ten minutes away from finishing when I felt a sudden cold front move in (we could see it on the horizon, I knew it was going to rain). In fact, I was just barely getting my tools inside when the rain came.

I appreciate not having to water, I suppose. Problem is, it hasn't stopped raining since.

My plants need sunlight and water. Water and sunlight. I haven't seen sunlight since the morning of the 10th, it's been cloudy and raining the entire time. It's a bit lopsided over here.

Logged out of work

Last week I got to work and tried logging into the customer portal, and it said I didn't have access. I could do nothing. Heck, I couldn't even submit a ticket, you have to log in to do that. All I could do was send them an email and wait. Meanwhile, the others in the office had to do that part of the paperwork while I did internal stuff.

After a few days, I got a reply. My login was terminated because my email was not considered secure. I was using a Gmail account for my login, but I've also been using it for over three years. I had no warning, and I have no recourse.

Getting an email account on the same domain the rest of the company is using is time consuming, and I had exactly two days to get into the system and get trained before I was the only person at work that could do that job. Gmail was a fast way to get in, and it worked. It worked for three and a half years, and I had zero warning before getting ejected from the system.

I informed management, and they went about trying to get me a new email address on the company domain. Time passes. Nothing happened. A week goes by, nothing happens. I speak with our outsourced I.T. guy. The next day I'm good to go.

I was bringing up my issues with the wrong people. Lesson learned.

The battery

Apparently, when you change the battery on a Kia Sorrento, you have to keep power on the terminals or the computer goes haywire. Not that its causing issues, it just thinks there are issues, so the check engine light comes on and won't turn off until you drive it awhile until the car realizes nothing's wrong.

Jack didn't know this about that particular car. He's a one man show, so I can forgive that. But he's also a dealer, so he can't sell a car without a valid inspection sticker. And nobody can sign off on an inspection with a check engine light. And you can't clear the light if it's not showing any codes (which it wasn't). So he's got to drive the car for awhile until it clears.

Whoops.

Meanwhile, I had taken everything out of my old car and I have this bag of stuff sitting in my basement. Looking at it, I realized that over the past six years I've just been tossing stuff into the various compartments thinking it might be handy sometime.

Spoiler alert: most of it hasn't.

The little solar powered flashlight? Used that. The bag of disposable masks from the pandemic? Get outta here.

My problem is I can see the value in things without seeing the necessity. So now I have to figure out what to do with three fourths of this stuff.

The replacement

My grandfather's neighbor, Jack, is a car dealer. He was already aware of my problem, and when I stopped over we got to talking and asked if the car I was borrowing from my parents was my new car.

Yea... I never returned it. They let me hang on to it rather than get gassed out driving my automotive corpse.

Long story short, he had a car on hand he was looking to sell. I'll spare you the details, suffice it to say it's in great shape and I was able to pay cash.

I've been asked what color it is. Honestly I don't know. Some kind of greyish silverish tannish... idk.

Pending repairs

It's been two hundred days since the bike accident. I had my last appointment for my wrist on Monday - the x-ray showed that it was finished healing. My elbow pops when I hold it in one place for too long, but I just don't do that, so it's fine. The surgery scar faded, the colors match the rest of my wrist. You can miss it if you look too fast.

Last week I packed up all the winter stuff into the shed in the back, and pulled out the summer stuff into the shed up front. The other day I mowed the lawn for the first time this season. (Alright seriously, every single time I was home and could do it, it was raining. It was getting long). But one thing broke that day that hasn't been fixed yet.

The bike.

The right handlebar was still loose and slipped off easily. The left handlebar impacted and dragged on the pavement, and it was all torn up. The handlebars were misaligned, but that's an easy fix. The gears took a hit somehow and they rattled when I moved it. I'm taking it to a pro to get it looked at. Cosmetic damage and functionality can be dealt with, but that handlebar...

I want assurances. I want to know why it failed and how that can be prevented again. I honestly can't see myself riding that bike again unless I know why the accident happened in the first place. And I want to ride that bike again.

Taxing trips

Tax season ended Tuesday, Wednesday was a breather, and Thursday we were out of town for a long weekend. The wife wanted to take the family out to Kirtland Ohio to see the church history sites. 

Like this one

In the past when we traveled, we needed one hotel room. Now, with the six of us and their increasing sizes, we need two. Now for some odd reason, the hotels in the middle of nowhere Ohio were strangely expensive. Prohibitively so. I worked in hotels for a long time, I can understand spikes in the prices, but they usually followed things like concerts, festivals, or solar eclipses. (Yes, every hotel in town was booked solid)

I checked. Nothing was happening. I couldn't explain it, so... whatever. We went camping instead. Now for clarification, we didn't go camping. We were staying at a campground. We had all the gear, and we're experienced, so this was nothing. Except... the first night it was almost too cold, and the second night it was almost too hot. Being fully prepared meant bringing twice as much clothing as you would have expected.

Oh, and my second born son fell off a dock into a lake. Everyone, him included, got a solid laugh out of that. At least it happened at the end of the day, so he could just shower off and slip right into some pajamas.

The formal wear

My older brother is getting married this June.

I didn't say anything about that here, have I? Whatever. He can blog his own life.

Anyway, I'm the best man and apparently, I had to make sure that the tuxedoes were arranged. In reality, it meant that while the groom and other groomsmen were getting sized, I was on the phone with the bride relaying her preferences. She said what she liked, and I repeated it out loud. When we were met with options, I repeated it to her and relayed her reply.

I have never seen someone take such studious notes as that man in the tux shop. Lines crossed out, options circled, even a red pen made its way into the margins while he dashed a set of instructions in all caps.

I reminded the bride that nobody would be looking at him. They're all going to be looking at her, it was his job to look classy. I suppose I understand, wedding days are understandably rare. But the importance of that day wanes with time.

Your first apartment together, you have the little wedding shrine with photos and your cake topper. Later, as you redecorate or move, it shrinks down to one or two visible photos, and eventually it's all in a box somewhere. The stuff from my wedding only comes out as Valentines Day decorations. (My wife has a theme for every month)

Pressure differential

Can I make a request? I just want the wind to stop blowing. The temperatures are going to wobble all over, I understand. It's April, we know this. But... I just want the wind to stop blowing so much.

The weirdest lining

My son got his learner permit today. He turned 16 on Friday, celebrating by skipping school and doing... I don't know, I was at work. He spent the day with his mother. He politely asked that I not take him to a government office to deal with paperwork, so we did it this week instead.

So, my 'technically' driveable car that's not going to pass inspection?  Yea, he can learn to drive in that. If he absolutely wrecks it, I haven't lost much. No pressure really means no pressure this time.

He's dead Jim

I brought my car in to get the exhaust fixed, and they politely rolled it back outside and declared it dead.

Hold up.

So they told me that the thing I knew was broken was going to cost a mint to fix, which I more or less expected. But then he said not to bother because there was more rust than frame holding the back end together.

You know those car guys that get old rusty buckets from the 60's and spend years and a fortune putting them together and making them driveable? Yea that's what it's gonna take. He advised me to not hit any potholes on the way home. 

It's still technically street legal until August, so I have time to figure this out.

Faster than expected

Remember when I was told about the timeframe for getting the van back, the guy on the phone said "a couple of weeks"? I was told I can get the van today. I can always appreciate when things take less time than expected. This also means I can get to work on the other car problem. My car exhaust is broken somewhere. It's still drivable, I just can't sit idle for awhile otherwise I get gassed out.

And it's loud. Go figure it's always a daisy chain of problems all hitting at once.

The eternal backorder

Last year when I had my van inspected, the rear springs needed to be replaced for it to pass. I could see the back end was hanging down, it was a no brainer. But the dealer that was doing the inspection didn't have a set of springs. They couldn't *find* a set of springs. A couple of weeks later, they had found and purchased a full rear assembly to get the springs out of it to put in my van so they could get their loaner back.

Well I finally got a call about the van door. The good news is that everything is covered by the warrantee. The bad news is that they have to replace the door motor (which I believe should be easily bypassed so you can just, you know, open the door on your own), but the motor is on back order and will take a couple of weeks.

Everything with these people is either on back order or unobtanium. The next time I need to buy a car, I'm going to look at where they're built and where parts are sourced, making sure it's domestic. That way when they say they can't find one, I'll just go get it myself.

Daylight caffeinated time

I avoid energy drinks. A mere cursory glance at the ingredient list suggest half the can should be a controlled substance, but here we are. This past weekend a friend of mine left one, unopened, in my car. I elected to ignore it, but then we lost an hour.

Normally I just wing it. This morning, however, I was not having it. I forced myself out of bed and slogged through getting up. I was not going to let some bureaucrat that won't end this silly practice to get the best of me. I was going to the gym no matter what.

Then I got in my car and thought "Can't hurt". I had a very good workout.

Work turned out to be very busy. I was the only one that could do shipping, so I did everything. It was just over 400 pounds of stuff that needed to get moved around and packed, then moved around again. Done, ezpz. Then a truck with a literal ton of product arrived, and I'm the only one that can unload it. Again, done. I have been buzzing around like a hummingbird all day. The most caffeine I'll have in a day is a sugar free 53mg. I looked at this can and it has 200mg.

oh

At least I had it on such a busy day. I'd have been bouncing in my office otherwise. I still kinda am. 

When one door opens, it just stays open

You read the title correctly. My van has those doors that have a motor. You can't just grab the latch and pull it open. You pull the latch, then back off and wait while it slowly opens by itself. You can't bypass this, you just have to wait. You can use the remote to open the door when you're approaching, which is handy if it's raining and you don't want to get any wetter. It was also handy when dropping off the kids and they, for some reason, just open the door and run completely forgetting to close the door.

They don't do that anymore.

The downside is that it's just another thing that can break, and guess what. It did. First time, I was able to just pull it shut. Same with the second time. After that, we told the kids to stop using that door until we could get the issue settled. I should have seen it coming, because every single time we would use the van I had to stop a kid from opening that door.

Until I missed one.

Then of course it was wide open, only this time, the roller broke free of the track and broke the adjacent window. Now the door won't close at all. Sure you can still drive the van, but nobody likes cosplaying as a Jeep Wrangler in March.

It's cold.

There's also the weather to deal with. Fortunately, I was able to move it into my grandfather's garage next door to avoid any issues, like the three inches of snow that fell that very night. The service center at the dealership can't see it until the 12th. Meanwhile my parents had a spare car kicking around they're letting my wife borrow so she doesn't have to listen to the van scream about how the door is open while the cold wind freezes her out.

Honestly she would hate that. 

Un-birthday

No, not United Nations birthday. A Mad-Hatter / March Hare UN-Birthday as in it's not your birthday but whatever we're gonna party anyway.

That's what my wife gets three out of four times. Her birthday isn't today, and it isn't tomorrow. For a brief instant, her birthday will exist and immediately end as the clock strikes midnight. She keeps it pretty tame (not like the previously mentioned lunatics), but it gets suppressed right until the real thing comes around, then she gets four years worth of party all at once.

So yea, this year is low-key.

Just so you know

 

The broken brush

It's been snowing a lot. This weekend it dropped a foot, then rained ice on top of it. I got that cleared off Sunday morning, but it was still bad enough that they cancelled church.

God says stay home.

But then it kept snowing. I got up early this morning to clear off the snow so I could go to the gym. (I NEED MY ENDORPHINS) With my hood up and my tall boots on... my snow brush broke. The brush head snapped right off, leaving me with a looooooong stick. Undaunted, I turned around and raided the van for that snow brush, and cleared them both right off.

Don't worry, I put it back.

My street wasn't plowed, but if it was there would have been a huge mountain of snow at the end of my driveway that I couldn't have simply driven over. So thank you, Town of Salina, for slacking this morning. The streets were covered with hard packed snow, and it took me longer to get there than I care for. Three of us were outside the gym when the lights flickered on. Steve, the guy at the front desk, was applauding us as we walked in.

Of course, he deserves the same. He got there before we did.

It was empty at the gym. There are some people that I see every single time I go there, and one of them wasn't. I was about to send a dog sled team until they got in late. I have seen this person almost every time and we've spoken maybe three times, and it's all been a variant of the phrase "are you using that". I don't even know her name, it's great.

Another blog post titled silver lining

I had tennis elbow. Right arm. I was informed that the only way it would resolve was if I stopped using my right arm for anything. No working out, no typing, not even moving a computer mouse.

Yea that wasn't gonna happen.

Well I broke my wrist and elbow and what do you know - my tennis elbow is gone!

Way ahead of you

Last week, I had my latest appointment with the wrist doctor. I found the splint in the back of my car and brought it inside to warm it up before putting on a show for the doctor. They had me remove it for x-rays, and keep it off to look at my wrist.

Long story short, he said I didn't need it any more. He wanted a CT scan, but I pushed back, pointing out that even he made it sound redundant. His look of resignation was immediate. I have good insurance, but come on, I do not need this.

So, yea. I put the splint back on just for the doctor. I initially thought I would keep it on simply out of caution (its ice season), but once I had it off, the mere thought of putting on another restraint was so distasteful that I didn't bother. Ever. I left it in my car just in case, but 'in case' never happened.

I regret nothing.

Tragic waste

Wanna know how long it's been since I took a weekend away with some friend just for fun? Twenty years ago. Yea, it was January 2005. There were six of us, and we went to Niagara Falls. Most of the group hadn't been, and didn't know if they'd get the chance before life took them other places. 

So off we went.

The following year, I got married, and then every single trip I went on involved my wife. She's gone on a few without me, and the only two times I'd even been on an overnight were for what amounted to business. One was a funeral, and the other was apartment hunting. And the reason for this isn't because I was being held back, it was more of a lack of opportunity. My friends and I just don't do that sort of thing. Well an opportunity came up and some of my friends figured 'why not?'

Why not indeed.

It was agreed that the guy that used to work in hotels should be the guy to book it, and the logic was sound. I knew what to look for, and what to avoid. Friday came and I thought it was indigestion. Took a pill and shrugged it off. We got into town and I was exhausted. I had, and not incorrectly, figured I was tired because I go to bed earlier than everyone else, and was kept up until 10.

It's not wrong, but it also wasn't the reason.

Saturday morning I assumed it was a lack of sleep and continued indigestion. Took another pill and some caffeine and decided to push through it. No, by 2pm I was about done. Thankfully, we were all disappointed with the event and weren't disappointed leaving when we did.

I barely made it home. During the two hour ride home, I felt progressively worse, and it all manifest once I got out of the car. Just trying to move was torture, I had the shakes something fierce. I was glad to be the first one dropped off (benefits to living closest to 90, I suppose), but I barely made it to the door. For the next 48 hours, I slept 30 of them and ate probably 500 calories worth of lightweight carbs.

I then proceeded to miss the next two days of work because I get dizzy when I stand up, and I'm still coughing.

This was *supposed* to be a fun weekend, but nooooooooooooooooooo...

The left over

I do my meal planning on Sundays. Alright, the planning is done, I just do the cooking. In my efforts to maintain a low calorie, high protein diet, I eat a lot of chicken. In fact, every day for lunch I have chicken breast.

It only gets boring if you make it the same way every time, but you can spice it up so many ways.

So on Sundays, after cooking the chicken, I would put the containers on a food scale and measure it out, marking how much was in each so I could properly log it day by day. (Yes, I have to be that careful) And this always made for leftovers. My third born and hungriest son would always hang around hoping for the leftovers, which I would happily dish out. His enthusiasm was not unnoticed by his siblings, and soon they all wanted in on the chicken. But the leftovers were, perhaps, a single serving. 

Now, the weekly grocery shopping has twice as much poultry. And on the weekly menu board, it simply reads "Dads chicken", a meal they all eat with no reservation and no leftovers. They all look forward to it, they all go for seconds. Yes, I am bragging. This is a win and I'm taking it.

Oven feud

I have a toaster oven and I prefer it. Yes I understand that the microwave is faster, but I also understand that the magnetron operates at the natural frequency of the water molecule, and thus it doesn't heat your food evenly.

You heard me. Your food will never heat evenly in a microwave. It only heats water. The water simply transfers the heat to the other parts of the food.

Now for a lot of foods, that isn't necessarily a problem. For other foods, you can have a mixture of warm and crunchy with hot and soggy. No bueno, me no likey. My toaster oven, while using a lot more electricity, heats *everything* at the same time.

And the icing on the warm cake? The toaster oven simply goes ding when it's done. My microwave gives this passive aggressive beep a minute after it's done if I haven't opened it yet. Like excuse me, are you in a hurry? Do you, my microwave, have somewhere to be? You think I forgot about the delectable meal you probably butchered in your limited functionality?

No. Now shut up and watch as I use my toaster oven instead.

Resolute timing

One of my new years resolutions this year is to lower my caffeine intake. There have been times in my life when I had none at all, and it makes napping easier. Other times I have entirely too much. Either way, I like naps and my blood pressure could use far fewer stimulants.

But New Years day is not the time for it. So I decided to push it back a few days. Having the new year start on a Wednesday, it feels fair to push it back to the next Monday. So here we go.

The unslept

I can't sleep in anymore. I wake up naturally sometime between 3:30 - 4, regardless of when I actually need to be up. I didn't think that would be a problem until I stayed up for new years, dropping off to bed at 12:30 (what, you think I went out?) and waking up at 3:30.

At least I didn't have work. I still went to the gym, grateful that it opened late. My compulsion to be there when it opens would have ruined me.

Our yearly tradition of doing fireworks on NYE was made pleasant with the warmer weather, and more fun because we had so much extra. We get them for July 4, but my two older boys were at camp that week, and half of my remaining kids had fallen asleep by the time it got dark. My daughter isn't as excited by them, so we cut it short and told ourselves that new years was going to be big.

It was. Took us a good long while to get through them all, and we weren't even cold. In fact, when I was on my way to the shed to get some setup supplies, I spotted this in the yard:

He wasn't alone, but it's certainly unseasonable.