Categories
Family

A Small Fat Greek Wedding

That’s a pretty sweet ride for a bride on her wedding day. Is it a donkey? mule? burrow? Does it matter? Let’s just say the bride had a great ass.

A lot of fun was had by all, well into the wee hours of the morning. There was food, dancing, more food, plate breaking, a cake fight, more food and laughter. The bride and groom were blessed with a lot of good people to celebrate with them on their day.

Congratulations to the brother and now the sister-in-law. May many happy days await you.

Categories
Misc

Mykonos

We’ve been in Mykonos since yesterday. It’s, essentially, the first island of the coast of Greece and a rather popular vacation spot for both Greeks and non-Greeks alike. If the reason isn’t abundantly clear after looking at the picture above, get your eyes checked. Now.

So prior to my brother losing his bachelorhood tonight, I agreed to go for a swim with him. We started on the beach from which the above picture was taken, swam to the far beach (the one behind the boat) and swam back. Our best guess is it’s a half-mile to the far beach, so that was easily the longest swim I’ve ever taken. The brother-in-law and sister swam out to the rocky area to the left of the beach.

Aside from the exercise, it also helped settle a quibble between my Father and I. He felt the water here was saltier than normal sea water. I scoffed at the notion and said it’s just different mineral content or something. But after the swim, and several large mouthfuls of sea water as I gasped my way across, I decided he was right. It’s not an unimportant observation because without the extra buoyancy afforded, I probably wouldn’t have been able to make it across.

Lastly, because the picture can’t do it justice, swimming in the water is like swimming in a pristine aquarium. It’s cool, but absolutely clear. When under the water, it’s possible to see at least 50 feet in any direction. While swimming across, the deepest spot was, minimally, 40 feet down and except for the naturally diminished light at that depth, perfectly clear.

Categories
Misc

Athens

We spent yesterday touring the city of Athens. Mainly, that meant visiting the Acropolis but we also visited the Olympic stadium and several other more modern landmarks like Parliament and the President’s house. The tour itself consisted of a lot of Greek history and mythology (our guide was excellent and very passionate about the subject matter) which I won’t rehash here since it’s available out on the intertubes.

After the jump are a few highlight pictures of what we saw.

Categories
Misc

When in Greece

So, for a few days anyway, I’m not an SAHD. Obviously, the ‘Dad’ part hasn’t changed, but I’m doing it from… GREECE! The kids have sitters for duration.

Here’s the view from our hotel window:

That’s the Acropolis, which I’ve been reliably informed is just the wall portion, not the top. On the top is the Parthenon. We’ll be visiting there today.

The food here is good, so that’s been a non-issue. They love their cheese here, that’s for sure. Souvlakas are basically shish-kabobs and something else that started with an ‘m’, that was good as well. One thing of note about out hotel room is that our room-key also serves as the master light switch. We couldn’t get any of the lights to work until we noticed a little card-reader looking thing attached to the wall near our door and gave it a try.

Time to go see some sights.

Categories
Misc

Sandusky Found Guilty

This news has been all over, he was found guilty on 45 of 48 charges. Not much I can add. I don’t know if this really helps the victims in any way, but it gets a very sick man out of the public and will prevent him from victimizing anyone else.

Categories
Family

Thunderstorm Progress

Both kids have exhibited fear of thunderstorms for the past couple of years. We are, at this very moment, experiencing our first one of the year. Both kids are weathering it well.

Earlier, the lass made mention of the fact that she wasn’t afraid of the thunderstorm. She then asked her brother if he knew why.

He replied “Bowling?”

“Yep,” she answered.

“I know,” he finished.

Apparently, for the lass, Mother Nature is bowling and the thunder is the ball rolling down the lane. The rain is her crying. I guess MN is having a bad game.

The boy told me that God is bowling and that when it thunders, he gets a strike. When it’s quiet, he doesn’t. At this point, God has had quite a few strikes.

Categories
Misc

USOC vs Knitters

The Wife knits. My Mother knits. So I was well aware of the brouhaha involving the USOC and the knitting site Ravelry yesterday. For those unaware, Ravelry is a site for knitters and other textile crafts. Members login to the community and discuss and share aspects of their craft.

Apparently, in support of the Olympics ironically, Ravelry holds a contest called the Ravelympics. Well, when the USOC caught wind of it, they sent a cease and desist letter as part of an automatic reaction to uses or variations on the word “Olympics.” Legally speaking, their actions were legit.

Common sense wise, it was the equivalent of stepping on a hornets nest. The Ravelry community is over 2 million strong and composed of not just a few people whom likely would have been watching the Olympics while exercising their craft. (I am deliberately avoiding knitting puns because all the articles Ive read so far are chock full of them.) After word of the legal notice made the rounds, as well as the tone therein, the USOC now has about 2 million pissed off knitters on their hands.

Demonstrating backbones limper than a skein of yarn, the USOC has backed off and it looks like there will be no legal action taken on their part. Though it seems to be too little, too late as far as the Ravelry community is concerned, as evidenced by a comment highlighted at the end of the linked article.

Hell hath no fury like a knitter scorned.

Categories
Family

The Boy and The Lass’ Relationship

Went grocery shopping this morning with both kids for the first time in a long while. It’s old hat for the lass, whom has accompanied me on many an occasion. For the longest time, it’s only been her. With school now out, she was joined by her brother. All in all, they managed to get along well enough that I’d be willing to repeat the exercise.

But (and you knew there had to be a “but” because why would I blog about grocery shopping?) there’s alway something. That “something” happened when we were all done. All bagged up and rung up at the register, getting ready to head out to the car for loading. The lass had pulled down the ream of useless coupons that our grocery store spits at me every time we check out.

The boy was upset about her coup. Yes, you read that right. He was upset because she had claimed all of the useless coupons. I know this for a fact because he came up to me just as we were starting to head out and said “Dad, my sister took all of the coupons and won’t give any of them to me. So she has all the coupons and I don’t have any.”

My initial, non-verbalized, reaction (you know, the immediate one that every parent has that we squelch 99.999% of the time for one reason or another) was, and I quote, “Seriously?” Followed immediately by “I can’t believe this.”

My verbal reaction to him a moment later was “You’re upset because she has a bunch of worthless coupons and you don’t? Do you know how lame that is?”

Not exactly the most, um, judicious response. But it was an honest response, which more and more I’ve decided to start offering to the both of them. Especially when it involved this level of inanity. Because, really, am I supposed to try and split-the-baby over coupons? Chinese water torture has nothing on these guys.

I highlighted this particular event because more and more it’s coming to define the relationship between the boy and the lass. Arguing over “the scraps at Longshank’s table.” Actually, if they really were scraps, I suppose I could stomach it better. Yesterday, the boy was upset because while he was getting in the pool, the lass started splashing in his general direction. The lass regularly gets upset because the boy decides to play one of his games and won’t let his sister have a turn. Because, you know, when you’re playing a 1 player game it’s really a 2 player game where you tag team it back and forth. That’s how it’s supposed to be done. Sharing and all that.

So I’ve decided that if these are the sorts of things they’ll argue over, and request that I referee, then I will communicate their pettiness by not taking them seriously. Or, by offering the most extreme penalty I can imagine on short notice. Anything to highlight the ridiculous level to which they have stooped.

If they want to make it a long Summer for me, I’ll just return the favor. In spades.

Categories
Football

College Football Playoff Coming

It would appear.

It looks like it’s a 4-team playoff of some sort, meaning it’s almost certain that only teams from big conferences will be going. Likely, Notre Dame will also get some kind of bid if they’re in the top 5 or something, though that’s just speculation on my part. No actual details have been released and the proposed first year would be the 2014 season.

This isn’t about the teams, it’s about the Benjamins:

ACC commissioner John Swofford said the commissioners have agreed on the principals of how the increased TV revenue will be distributed among the participating conferences. Industry sources have indicated a four-team playoff might be worth as much as $400 million to $500 million annually.

I still say it’s a mistake.

Categories
Misc

The New Dad Stereotype

Via Instapundit, an interesting article about how TV and movies are evolving in their portrayal of stay-at-home dad’s.

Personally, the doltish-Dad spiel never applied to me and my guess is it didn’t apply to a lot of kids growing up. In addition to running a small business for 30 plus years, my Dad was more than a little competent around the house. He built a deck, managed a pool, grew fruit trees, coached all 3 of his kids through various athletic endeavors including football and track and field, renovated just about every room in our house without blowing things up, helped us with homework and school projects and dished out some discipline along the way. A typical working day for him was 14 hours including office time and then traveling to various job sites to manage the field. Frankly, he didn’t have time to be incompetent.

Mom was the classic stay-at-home variety, and that was what enabled them to make things work. She handled the lion’s share of the house, including dealing with me and my brother and sister. As we kids got older, she took accounting classes and eventually helped Dad with running his business, taking care of the money management side of things.

They worked like that because that’s what was required to make thing work. Someone had to be responsible for providing and someone had to take care of the kids. About 8 years ago, the Wife and I had the same circumstance presented to us. By gender, roles ended up different, but in the end it’s the same result.

And the Wife hasn’t blown anything up yet either.

Categories
Family

School’s Out

For whatever reason, the kids had today as their final day of school. It was only a half-day to boot, making it all the sillier. Of course, the school year started with them missing the first week of school due to the power outages because of the tropical storm. Then, we had a foot of snow in October that caused more delays. So, I guess ending with some scheduling weirdness was appropriate. Or at least normal by this year’s standard.

Both kids have moved on to the next grade, I’m happy to report. The lass is particularly excited because her teacher next year is a cat person and the lass’ favorite animals are cats. At least, they are right now. No sure what happened to the elephant in that hierarchy. The boy seems pleased with his teacher for next year as well.

Actually, that seems to be a consistent end-of-the-year ritual with the students around here. The boy went to a party today and upon arrival, everyone bellowed at him “WHO DO YOU HAVE?” I remember similar happenings last year.

Interestingly, I’m not really dreading the coming couple of months. I’m sure there will be moments where I wish they were back in school, but it’ll be a little change up for me having to deal with them. I suspect they will both be visiting friends a bit more this Summer as well. Besides which, there are things to do around the house, and there’s no reason that Summer can’t be a time for learning as well.

Categories
Misc

Nearing a Space Milestone

Looks like Voyager 1 is getting ready to exit, stage left.

Categories
Family

Happy Father’s Day Wish

Yesterday was a good day. We got to the Scout camp site around 3:30 and the rest of the day flew by. The boy and his friends ran around all afternoon, the parents all mingled and relaxed. Based on my experiences with it so far, group camping is about as good as it gets for parents. Infinite diversions and distractions for kids, none of them the electronic variety, along with low opportunities for getting in trouble.

About the only form of trouble that does come up is the inevitable friction that comes with being in close quarters with other personalities. But that’s a strength as well, since they have to figure out how to cope and make nice. Plus, other parents can usually step in a smooth the flare-ups over without too much fuss.

After dinner, the Order of the Arrow showed up and performed a graduation ceremony for the various dens. It’s a hokey ceremony, as these things go. The Boy Scouts show up dressed in Indian garb, excuse me, Native American garb and they recite some poetry. Then, I hand the earned rank badges to the head Akela and he in turn hands it to the Cub Scout.

But it works. The boys are quiet and attentive the whole time and the ceremony is done in 15 minutes tops. The parents all enjoy it was well. A fun thing on a good day.

After that, it’s more running around followed by s’mores followed by more running around and the night for the boys ends with some songs by the campfire, as well as a skit where I’m the butt of the joke. I and another parent are human props holding a stick to act as a counter at a store. “Customers” come up one at a time and ask the clerk for candy, who tells them that he doesn’t have that kind of candy. Finally, the last customer comes up asks “Well, what do you have?” The clerk answers “Two suckers on a stick” and points at me and the other parent. Rimshot.

I stay up a bit later to help clean up while the boy goes down for the night around 10. By the time I’m done and the fire has finally died down, he’s fast asleep in the tent. So I settle down to join him.

Then, he’s awake and it’s early morning. He’s on top of me and shaking me saying “Dad!” in an urgent but hushed voice to get my attention. I shake off cob webs enough to acknowledge I’m not asleep anymore. I check my watch, it’s 4:30.

He says “Happy Father’s Day!” Then scampers off to the bathroom.

Categories
Cub Scouts

Gone Camping

Today is our Spring Campout for the Pack. I’m off to go get things going.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day they tell me, so pre-Happy Father’s day to any other dad’s reading out there.

See you manana (you’ll have to imagine that funny squiggle over the ‘n’.).

Categories
Misc

Sports Spells

Over at Wired Magazine, there’s an interview with the Matthew Hutson, author of the new book The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking. The following excerpt is from the first question:

The construction worker who secretly buried a Red Sox jersey in the new Yankee stadium, in the wet concrete. A year later the Yankees found out and made a big deal out of it. The fans were calling for blood and for it to be removed, and the Yankees didn’t want the stadium to be cursed, so they jack-hammered it out of several feet of concrete and pulled this thing, this shirt out of the ground in front of media.

The fact people were concerned that a shirt bearing the name and number of a Red Sox player could curse a stadium by sitting in the concrete of a floor? To me that is weird, funny and illogical behavior.

But by looking at that kind of thing, you get a chance to explore: What do you mean by cursed? Why do we care so much about symbols? How do we judge cause and effect? It gives you a great window into human cognition.

I had no idea this went on. But sure enough, here’s an article at ESPN about it. Pretty hilarious stuff. I can only assume someone saw the guy do it, otherwise I can’t imagine how they’d have found it. The best part is it was an Ortiz jersey.

Now, here’s something to ponder. Would the jersey really have served as a hex if no one knew it was there? Imagine the mythology that could have developed if the guy had gotten away with it and then leaked it out that the jersey was there. Yankee fans would have blamed every bit of bad luck on it for years, I have no doubt.

Of course, as it worked out, the Yankee’s won the World Series in their first year in their new ballpark. So obviously the spell was broken.

Categories
Bread

A New Start

I’ve been utterly and totally incapable of getting a usable white-flour sourdough starter going for almost 2 years now. I’ve tried so many different permutations (including this guys’s instructions) and methods that I’d finally come to the conclusion that it was a problem with the flour. Somewhat dubious, since apparently my Mother has had no problems getting starters going with KA flour at her home. I’ve tried bottled water, converting rye starters to white starters, different methods, all to no avail.

Finally, the Wife purchased a bit of an established starter [from King Arthur][2]. What arrives looks a bit like thermal paste, and is miniscule in amount. The instructions shipped with are pretty simple, starting with adding 1 cup of water and 2 cups of flour to the bit of starter I received. After 12 hours, discard half and then add 1/2 cup of water and 1 cup of flour. Repeating this process after 2 to 4 hours, more or less the time it takes for the flour to double in volume.

[2: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/classic-fresh-sourdough-starter-1-oz

The product was as good as it’s word. The starter was quite active, doubling easily within about 3 hours. I used it to make a sourdough loaf a couple days ago and it had the familiar tangy flavor to the bread. The bread is aging well also- staying most and chewy while the flavor actually seems to be improving a bit.

I still don’t understand why I haven’t been able to get one going on my own. But at least I have something to work with now.

Categories
Family

Graduation

Well, the day finally arrived. After years of waiting, the lass had her graduation today. We were so proud.

The ceremony was really nice, with a slide show highlighting moments from their past year of school. Pictures of them doing cooking projects and field trips and cuddling with rabbits. After that, they called the kids up one by one and handed them their diplomas.

The lass was so serious when she got hers. Looking like this was only the beginning of her long journey into the world. “I’m going to accomplish big things” the look said, er, looked. Then we all went to the cafeteria to have a pot-luck dinner. Followed immediately by 40 kids riding a sugar high. WHEE!

Yep, the lass has graduated. Now she’s on to first grade.

Categories
Family

4 More Days

With only 4 days of school left, the boy received a homework assignment tonight involving his spelling words. He won’t be tested on them, as he took the test for them last week.

But this particular homework assignment has a writing element to it. He’s supposed to write something about a visiting a relative who lives far away. He’s got plenty of material to choose from, but the catch is he has to use 4 of the 10 spelling words.

He finally stopped crying after a marathon tear-fest of what seemed like hours. In reality, it was more like 15 or 20 minutes, which is still 15 or 20 minutes too long. The Wife and I both told him to step away and calm down. But he was inconsolable. We’re talking full-on balling, snuffling, sucking, tears and snot. All over a small writing assignment.

“I can’t do it….” he snuffled.

“Can somebody heeeelp ME?!?” he whined.

“This is hhhaard…” he cried.

In between there was the bleating and other sounds of sobbing. Unbelievable.

Maybe I should make him write a blog post. But first I’d better put some water protection over the keyboard.

Categories
Misc

Stupid Dishwasher

UPDATE: Stupid spelling errors. Fixed title typo.

Well, not the dishwasher so much. The heating element. The new one that replaced the broken one back in February. The new one that broke after less than 5 months of service.

When I called customer service about it, they told me they wouldn’t replace it because it only had a 3 month warranty, which had expired. Plus, another (possibly faulty) element was now $100 more expensive than last time. At the point, it was made more sense to just purchase a new dishwasher. I told the customer service person so and then hung-up.

So there’s an expense we didn’t expect to be shelling out for. We picked out a new one earlier this afternoon. It should be here tomorrow, at which point I’ll give the delivery people the old one and install the new one myself.

In the meantime, we still can’t get the kids to clean dishes.

Categories
Armoire Woodworking

Cove Molding The Hard Way

To finish the armoire, I need cove molding. Unfortunately, I can’t just run down to the local Lowe’s or Home Depot because they don’t carry cove molding in cherry. But that’s what I need. So I had to fabricate some molding myself today.

The molding I made is made use 3/4″ stock. I ripped the boards to a 4 inch width, then set about hogging out the material using my table saw. I’ve seen it done where the wood can be push at an angle across the blade, thus hogging out the desired arc in one fell swoop. I didn’t use that technique. Instead, I kept adjusting the depth and position of each cut until I’d removed all the material I could. The result is a series of steps that rough out the arc. For each cut, I’d set the blade and fence, then pass the wood over it, turn the board end-for-end and do it again, so the arc ended up symmetrical.

My initial cuts were in the 2 deepest cuts in the center. I then switched to working from outside to in. Initially, I tried eyeballing each cut, but that didn’t work so I traced an arc from the middle to one edge so I had a line to work to for each cut.

When that was all done, I tried to sand the results to smooth it out. After going through 3 pieces of sandpaper on my first piece of wood, I decided to give my curved card scraper a try. That worked out much better and I finished the job that way. After the jump are pictures of the stock at varying points in the process.