The four-opter picture

My camera battery was almost completely dead so this was the best I could do in the low light.

Skyblue frames

Check 'em out!

Confederate Jazmine

I wish you could smell how fabulous this is.  Of the five plants we planted last summer four are thriving and one recovering.  The whole backyard smells like heaven.

The Four-Opter

Sunil will be getting his new sky-blue glasses on Monday.  He had a great time checking out the different instruments (pictures to follow).  When first reading the chart he got the big "E" right and then couldn't do the second line.  Really his eyes weren't as bad as that made it seem.  But he ended up with 20/80, great motility, no astigmatism, and full color range.  Not bad.

Big City Lights

Tonight was the school talent show.  Sunil sang "The Eye of the Tiger".  I was very proud.  We stayed for the first 20 acts or so (an hour and a half) and then brought the in-laws home. We didn't even make the intermission.

As long as were out and it was still early I walked the kids up for ice cream and to play in the park in the dark.  Seema and Nita are here for a visit.

The Adventures of Lewis and Clark

Tonight is the 5th Grade play.  Sheela and two of her friends will sing the first featured song, The Ballad of Lewis and Clark, before retiring to the chorus.

Twilight Camp Shirts

The Cubmaster passed out our t-shirts for twilight camp.  Sunil will go for four hours every evening for a week.  Sid and I will each volunteer to work at least one night.  The shirts are pretty cool (at least they aren't grey) but we have to keep track of them for six weeks before we can even wear them.

Spine Surgery

Well I survived three days of mock surgeries -- as the surgeon not as a patient.  I enjoy the erector-set design of the fixation systems.  We covered at least 12 different systems with countless variations most of which I won't remember until Monday.  But I do understand the finer points of the different approaches and the families of systems so I'm counting it a success.

Spine surgery is slightly less brutal than orthopedic surgery but can still be pretty aggressive.  It did give me a clearer picture of what Mrs. Alonzo just went through and I'm glad she held out for the minimally invasive approach.

Family Campout

We spent the weekend tent camping by the lake in what turned out to be perfect weather at the Clements Scout Ranch outside of Athens, TX.  Mostly the kids spent their time fishing (catch and release) for perch and large mouth bass.  Both kids (and Sid) had really good luck.  I didn’t fish but spent some time with the other families just chatting.

The Trip

I really missed being at home this time which is not to say that I didn’t have a great trip.  Outside of the office we didn’t get to see or do much of anything but that was made up by a very productive training session.  The big software package that I’ve been begging for for the last four years is still not mine but this one if filling my days nicely.  It is very complicated to set up correctly so that the maintenance will be minimized but I’m enjoying the challenge.  I have two other team members that are both awesome and we work really well together.  The three of us would be my ideal crew for most of the projects that I’d like to tackle over the next two years.  Now that I’m back in the office I need to clear away some of the inevitable paperwork so that I can get back to playing with my new toy. 

 

But in true May (read as “Hell Month” fashion) we go straight from work to a baseball game, then on to a two night cub scout camp out, back in time to do laundry and celebrate Mother’s Day with the In-laws and back to work. 

Glasses again

It looks like Sunil's turn to join the ranks of the bespectacled.  His appointment is a few weeks away but I did make him an eye appointment after he failed a vision screening at school.

the pandemic

I’m sick of hearing about the Swine Flu.  I must have missed the early reports about it being deadly, etc because all I’m seeing is articles about it not being as bad as feared, one fatality in the US, and less severe than the miscellaneous other strains of influenza that we’ve endured this year.  In one day I received advisory warnings from the school, the office and the cub scouts.  I’m receiving emails from friends scattered near and far checking on our health and well being.  We’ve had large gatherings like the Scout Show and MayFest cancel but are still having the elementary school dance and baseball games (if the fields dry out).

TAKS - again

Assuming everyone passes, the 5^th graders will be taking the last of the TAKS test for the year today.  This time around is Science.  Two years ago when Sheela first had to sit for these tests I bought her strawberries, blueberries and raspberries to take for her “healthy snack”.  We’ve had them for every test (well, not the raspberries) since.  We forgot to buy them last night when we went to the ice cream parlor next door to the store (Baskin-Robbins birthday celebration – 31cent ice cream cones).  Sheela took the disappointment of not having the TAKS snacks pretty well.  So I ran out this morning and picked them up.  I came in work all pleased with myself for being dedicated to family traditions even though it was awkward until I talked to my friend Carolyn.  Her family tradition, now in it’s four year, is a breakfast buffet.  So she prepares three or four full breakfast meals form which the kids can pick and choose.  This year she’s quite ill (but not with Swine Flu) but still in there doing her best to whip up pancakes, fruit/yoghurt parfaits and quiches with fresh squeezed orange juice for the fourth morning in a row.  She has three kids, each in different grades, taking different tests on different days.  That’s dedication to a tradition (and why its best not to go nuts in the beginning).

 

Treasure

During the gardening portion of our weekend we cleared fallen leaves from underneath the hedges.  I found a variety of broken plastic toy parts, a fair pile of trash and a rodent skull.  I'm guessing it's a squirrel skull but I haven't really looked in to it yet.

Sunils's run

Cubmobile Races

Pinewood derby grows up but only a little bit.  Sunil's age group didn't get to use the ramp, they pushed each other around on the flat.

I love my family

We spent the morning on yard work.  The kids chipped in pretty cheerfully for most of it (in the end we had to get perental).  We followed that up with the kids doing the laundry while I read a book.  Then we had a humbling baseball game.  In the end the boys lost 25-11 but the first three endings went all to the other tem (15-0).  This makes up for yestardays win 25-0.  This was much more fun to watchthan the shut out.  Now we are wqtching game shows together.

Another Shooting Star

Sheela was selected to receive the "Shooting Star" award for her class this grading period.  I'm so proud it has been nearly three years since her last one.  The picture of her receiving the award from her principal will follow in a few weeks.

Oz

The current mgmt regime is quite enthralled with the "Oz Principle".  It boils down to accountability in the work place and not burying your head in the sand when disasters are looming.  I read the book a decade or so ago and wasn't that impressed.  It isn't that accountability is a bad thing it's that I don't like the writing style and the examples are trite.  Anyhow I'm forcing myself to reread it and it is slow going made worse by the fact that I have a short stack of novels and "The No Assholes Rule" business philosphy book waiting in the wings.

The ground has been broken

The ground breaking ceremony for our new facility was held today.  After a catered bbq lunch at the office we loaded everyone on to five coach buses and trekked up to our new home.  We'd erected a floored tent in the middle of our huge field, set up a PA system passed out bottled water, commemorative t-shirts and hard hats.  Silver shovels were presented by our four presidents (and one Sr VP) to the mayor, our landlord, our CEO, our North American President and a member of our board of directors.  Speeches we made, dirt shoveled and pictures taken.  Then we trekked back to the office.  In the tradition of our operations department we concluded with an Ops Team happy hour.  The day went off beautifully.

Spring Portraits have arrived

I'm not wild about either one particularly but I do like the way they look together.

The flowers of spring

I planted some white verbena on either side of the front door and coreopsis by the mailbox (we call that one "tickweed" here abouts).  My daylilies are about burst, the snap dragons are blooming, the iris are at their peak and the jasmine is about to bloom.  Now I remember why people choose to live here.

Texas Tradition

Bad mom that I am I skipped taking pictures of "toddler Sunil" surrounded by the bluebonnets.  We stopped for a few quick pics by the raodside today.

Texas Bluebonnets

They are pretty

New cut

The hair finally grew out enough to reshape.  Now Sunil and I are sitting at the slowest traffic light in town.

HATs Canoe Trip

Sid and Sheela leave this afternoon for their daddy daughter weekend canoe trip down near Waco.  One of the HATs tenets is that there is no such thing as inclement weather just improper clothing.  They will put that to the test during the rain showers and thunderstorms passing through the area from now until late Saturday night.  Sunday should be beautiful by the time they head home.  Luckily they both have a strong sense of adventure (and proper clothing).

Game 2

The Angels played their second little league game last night.  They won 20-14 in a game that turned out to be much more about their fielding than their hitting.  It was a very different game from the last one but as much fun to watch.  We couldn’t have asked for a nicer evening.  Sunil won the game ball this week for “effective use of teamwork” while backing up the first baseman from the outfield.  His friend Sam got the game ball for his batting. 

 

It rained pretty hard last night so tonight’s game is in jeopardy but if it dries out enough they’ll play tonight and again tomorrow morning.

Enterprise City

Sheela’s class spent the day at Enterprise City yesterday.  They each had to apply for a job by writing a resume of sorts.  Sheela worked in the gift shop.  She worked for three hours earning three pay checks of $4.50 each which she had to spend on her breaks.  The other stores/businesses included a snack shop, a bank, a newspaper, police station and a radio station.  The businesses had to collect money for services, or sales, pay their employees and purchase advertising.  Her store won the award for the most profitable of the day (they made a whole $1.50 profit).  Apparently a good time was had by all.  I asked her to buy me a newspaper (mostly ads and two sentence stores), she bought Sid a T-shirt, the rest of her money she spent on bouncy balls and junk.

Closet

Every night we tuck Sunil in to "bed" he has taken to sleeping on a pile of boxes in his closet.  It is a rather tight fit but he likes it.  Usually we find him back in his own bed by morning but sometimes he stays in the closet all night.

Iris Pic

Iris

It looks to be a good year for my iris crop.  I’ll have more than 30 blooms of Chocolate Daddy this year and possibly as many as a dozen of the really pretty generic yellow.  Hopefully I’ll get to take some pictures this evening before it gets too dark.  This Fall I’ll need to dig them up and thin them out some.  The place where I’d like to plant the “extras” is along the neighbor’s fence on the low side of the driveway, but they don’t much like to have wet feet so I may not even try that.  I could put them on the high side but I won’t get to see them there.  I have a few months to figure it out.

Business Travel

I counted five trips that I need to take in the next two months.  That’s not going to happen.  But I love the possibilities and all of them are trips that I want to take.  Three of them involve visits to our biologics’ suppliers.  These are trips that I’ve been promised for the last two years that haven’t come to pass.  Unfortunately if something has to slip these are the most likely candidates…. again.  One is to take a training class on our new labeling software.  That will take place back in MA where I just was.  This one is definite.  I’m booking tickets today to go in early May.  The sixth is to teach a training class on some of our custom business processes at our sister company.  This one shouldn’t be my job but I want to do it anyway.  I’m too much of a control freak to let someone else tell these folks how to make my systems work.  If they tell them wrong I’ll have to clean it up.  Plus by teaching the class I’ll know who I’m talking to when we try to troubleshoot it over the phone later.  And we will be troubleshooting because the system is not as stable as it should be.  It was designed as a temporary solution to hold us for a year or two while bigger pieces fell in to place.  That was nearly seven years ago and the bigger pieces aren’t even on the table.

Over

The meeting finished a little bit early and was very successful.  We reduced the number of label templates that we need for nearly 200 down to six.  This sounds good but doesn't really show how good it is.  Each template represents 1000s of individual changes to process every time changes are made.  Even better we now can use electronic reviews and approvals.

Even better my counterpart up here is bringing his wife down to TX next week on a house hunting trip in case they decide to move down.  I really want them to come down.

Sightseeing in MA

I had a little free time before it got dark so I drove around for a while seeing the sights some of which included: the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Bridge, the Long Hollow Bison Farm and Sully's Breakfast "Home of Polish Music".  There is better stuff to go see but I hurried back to watch the Daily Show and South Park.

Springfield bound

In the morning I'm heading up to Massachusettes for a few days.  This close to Easter the flights were pretty full so I'm flying out earlier than intended and not coming back until late Saturday. I'm excited about the trip.  First I'm traveling alone for a change.  I enjoy the group dynamics but being alone can be like a vacation.  Second the purpose of the trip is to get a big start on updating our labeling software.  This has been a hot topic for me for the last four years.  We should have upgraded long ago.

Season opener

The Angels opened their Spring season this morning.  It was cool and misty during the game.  The fans grumbled some but we all know what it will be like come June so we didn't grumble much.  They started off with a double play which was pretty much the field highlight of the game.  The rest of the excitement was all about the batting.  In the end it was a tie 15:15 but it went down to runners on second and third when the third out was made.  One time each the teams scored 5 runs to close an inning rather than three outs.

Windy Day

It was another blah sort of day around here except for the wind.  It was a good, hard, sustainable wind with even harder gusts to keep it interesting.  It finally pulled the back off of our shed but Sid's already put it back on.

Receivership

One of the lending institutions for Sid's business has been taken over by the FDIC.  It shouldn't effect his business (except he has one less relationship with a lending institution).  Still the world is becoming a scary place.

Not for the politically correct (or the sensitive)

I was introduced to a new book today Our Dumb World it is an encyclopedia of countries of sorts.  It was compiled by the editors of my favorite website www.theonion.com.  Unfortunately I won’t get to spend the rest of the day reading it… I’ve got to get back to work.

BMX track

Sunil has fallen in love with our local dirt bike track.  He's not quite strong enough to get up every "hill" every time but he's doing better than I expected.

The youth center here is for teens only - big screen tv, game systems, air hockey.  Outside they have the country's largest community skateboard park and two roller hockey rinks.

Mosaic window

The window is up and I like it.  I hope it shows up in this picture.

Unusual day

Sunday was a rarity for me.  I went a full day without reading anything.  I can’t remember the last time that happened.  The kids and I helped the Cub Scouts help their charter church set up for their consignment sale.  Mostly we unloaded the pieces and parts of the racks and shelves and then helped assemble them.  It was more fun that it sounds and I was glad we went for a couple of reasons.  First I like the kids to help out as often as possible.  It’s a good habit to develop.  Second as the Cubmaster pointed out, our charter organization rarely requests assistance and without them we wouldn’t have a pack.  Third it was fun.  Fourth it got us out of the house and almost a third of the time we were outside and fifth they feed us chili, chips and chocolate.  The white chili was particularly good.

 

After that we dropped Sheela at the house and Sunil and I came up to the office to install my cube shelves.  I’m packrat enough to want to keep all of this junk close to hand but overwhelmed enough that I can’t work productively with it all on my desk at the same time.  They worked out just as intended.  Now I need to bring in the two pictures I’ve been saving for out here and the book ends to neaten up the piles.

 

Then I sewed on Sunil’s new rank and awards.  The rank was pinned on (upside down) until he performed a good deed.  He thinks he earned the right to flip it right side up by working as Sheela’s slave for a day but I’m counting the consignment sale set up from this morning.  The rest of the stuff I thought I’d already done.  But it turns out I ironed it all on but didn’t go back to stitch them on.  They all fell off the first time he wore them.  So in addition to his Wolf badge I had to sew on six arrow points and replace last year’s quality patch with this year’s.  He has one more award (world conservation) but I don’t know where it goes.  That’s probably just as well as my fingers are numb from pushing and pulling on the needle.

 

I even spent a few minutes out in the yard working with the compost pile and the jasmine bushes.  It was a beautiful day.

Ta-Da!

Cube Mods

Sunil helped me attach shelves around the edges of my cube today.

Random Photo

I took a picture of Sheela just because she didn't run away when I tried.

Renewal

The time has come for me to renew my driver's license.  In TX they moved to a 10 year cycle so I'll renew this year and then again right before I turn 51.  10 years with the same picture and me with a cone head haircut.  I can delay as much as seven more weeks by then surely I'll have better hair.

Hole damage

So what do you think?

Bluebird House

I cleaned out the bird box this week to make room for this year’s broods of house sparrows.  They are prolific little buggers and they took over the bluebird house as soon as we put it up five years ago.  I would prefer actual bluebirds but there aren’t that many in this area so we make do with watching the sparrows.  However it looks like someone else is trying to make a move on the house.  The opening is being widened daily by someone with a very sharp beak.  Based on the birds in the area I’m guessing it will be the starlings but I haven’t seen them near it.

22 years

Wow Sid and I started dating 22 years ago tomorrow.  That’s more than half my life, more than half of his too.

Server errors

It appears that the Blackberry server took the weekend off. I've been unable to send or receive email since Friday night. That's not such a bad thing really. It was the weekend and the missed emails were all work related so I didn't really want to see them until this morning. I did try to send a series of pictures here though to document the homemade pizza making efforts from yesterday. The recipe that we choose for the crust didn't say how much crust it would make so we used the whole thing on the first pie. The kids ended up with a super-deep dish pizza. It was easily two inches thick (and quite tasty). My pizza was made on a larger pan so it wasn't quite so thick, only an inch and a half or so, but it had Italian sausage, ground beef, pepperoni and mushrooms. Sid's was made last and buy then we understood about the dough puffiness. He used only half of his dough and topped it out with, Italian sausage, pepperoni, sun-dried tomatoes, onion, mushrooms and jalapenos. We were all quite pleased with the results and well more than half of it remains even after breakfast today.

VIP Day

Today was VIP Day at the elementary school.  Each class presented a song or two and then the kids were released early for Spring Break.  We sat way in the back so don’t have pictures or video to share.  Suffice it to say the kids were cute and the songs fun.

Bad haircut

I’ve given it five days for me to adjust to my most recent haircut.  It was supposed to be a trimming up of the same rather drab cut I’ve had, more or less, for ten years.  I never love a new cut.  It always takes a few days for me to figure out the subtleties.  Do I need to dry it forward before brushing it back or should I dry it back?  How far to the side can I move the part?  The subtleties of this one still elude me.  It gives me an unattractive cone shaped appearance.  It’s much short to have it redone and yet it is still too long over the ears, much too short on top, the bangs are still in my eyes and from the back I look like a boy.  It is too short to curl under and layered wrong to brush back leaving me the only option of hanging dismally around my ears.  There will not be photo you’ll just have to imagine the effect.

Quote of the month

It is from one of my many calendars.

 

“I can handle reality in small doses, but as a lifestyle, it’s much too confining.”  - Lily Tomlin

"The Misfits"

Sheela and I went to see a friend of hers in the original, middle school musical review "The Misfits". Her friend Jaz played Jazmonica the most independent of the misfits at school. Songs from 12 musicals were cobbled together with an original script (written by the drama and music teachers). The storyline was pretty standard. The new boy at school is trying to decide where he fits in, everyone turns on the popular girl because she's mean, etc. It was great unfortunately I still have "Anything you can do - I can do better. I can do anything better than you" stuck in my head.

Behold

My new 24" monitor on my work computer.  I wasn't expecting it but I think I'm going to love it.

Pellet parts

Sunil has completed another second grade right of passage. He dissected his owl pellet. This year the finds were cleaned up (marginally) and glued to an owl silhouette. He has a row of skulls, a row of femurs, a row of claws and a row of teeth from his pellet (the remains of at least two but more likely three rodents). All of the rows look pretty similar until you get really close up. He liked it so much that it is hanging on his bedroom door. (actually I like it too!)

Guess what time of year it is.

That's right!  It's time for allergies and colds.  Sunil and I are skipping baseball practice to pick up a nebulizer.  This time they want him to do it right away so they can check him after.

Library display

Sheela's representation of the American flag and a bald eagle was selected for display at the public library. Here is snapshot taken of the piece on display.

Dress for the weather

Texas can be such a roller coaster ride.  We hit the upper 80’s mid week last week and were down below freezing a few days later.   Yesterday was in the 70s, today it’s in the 40s.  The daffodils are almost done blooming but the Redbuds and Bradford Pears haven’t peaked.  I need a fan at my desk and a coat in the conference room (but that’s another, smaller story).  It makes it hard to decide what to wear around here from day to day.

Condolances

My friend Marina lost both of her parents this weekend in an automobile crash.  Once again I find myself wishing I could somehow make it better.

Cat on freezer

Sheela is so proud

Tournament Day

We got off to a nail biting start this morning.  Most of the team came to our house so that could bring them all in together.  That went well, neatly eliminating the wait for the one parent that inevitably gets lost.  The whole team was present and accounted for 40 minutes prior to their first appearance.  Then when the manager went to register the team we realized that we didn't fill out the medical release forms and we didn't have but the one blank copy.  The registrars refused to take the information handwritten on paper they need the official form signed by the parents we neatly left at home.  The manager managed to find an open copy shop, make the copies, repark (there are thousands of cars here today) and then we got to teach the children the finer points of. misrepresentation.  We didn't sign their parents names as that would be forgery but signed our own names as if we were qualified hoping they wouldn't notice. 

Registration was completed two minutes prior to show time.  The kids then had to haul across campus to the challenge site.  I assume that they have been allowed to present (as they've not returned yet).  When they do come back we need to collect their props and move to the building for their main challenge.

Sweetheart Dance - The formal picture

 

Not a busy weekend just a busy day

It looks like all of our commitments for the weekend will fall on Saturday. It's days like this when I don't see how anyone can handle more than one child per parent. Sheela's DI team will meet over here at 7:30 AM. I'll drive them down to the competition. They need to be there by 8AM. They have their instant challenge first. The parents don't get to see that part and the kids aren't even allowed to tell you about it until the end of April (by which time they don't remember). Their main solution presentation will be over by 11AM. This leaves us stress free time to watch the other other team's solutions to their challenge and maybe explore some of the other challenges. I personally prefer the improve challenge.

Sid is taking Sunil to "Sam Bass Days" here in Allen. I don't remember who Sam Bass is but I figure I can ask Sunil Saturday night. Then he has a baseball practice.

In the evening Sid will take Sunil to the Blue and Gold banquet. Sunil will graduate to Bear Cub from Wolf Cub and collect all of his arrow points. I'll be sewing stuff on to his uniform for weeks to come.

Sheela and I will head back to the DI award ceremonies. It is pretty much a long, boring affair but if you win the chance to continue to state or a special award it becomes worth it.

X-ray day

As I was at the Dr this morning for a routine visit I went ahead and asked about the increasing pain in my right knee. On Christmas Day I was sitting on the floor watching the kids play the Wii when I stood up my knee was sore. It was very minor, hardly even rating "uncomfortable" on my personal pain meter. But instead of getting better over time it has gotten worse. Now nearly two months later it rates a "twinge" when I bend the leg too far or try to twist it. I've given up on my morning exercise class (core exercises three days a week) because of the twisting. I'm still either riding the bike or using the elliptical machine without problems (now five days a week to make up for that core class). I was pretty sure that the bones and joint are fine but I've torn something. My Dr went ahead and took a few x-rays just to be sure. I've been given a few exercises to try and offered a series of visits with a physical therapist and a course of anti-inflammatories. With a meniscus tear I don't see therapy helping much and I don't see any inflammation. Instead I've opted to just take it easy for awhile and see how it goes.

A favorite time of year

It's Girl Scout Cookie time!! A few boxes of Thin Mints, a few Do-Si-Dos and a pair of Trefoils. Life is good.

A truely little thing

It doesn't look like much but it represents the pinnacle of my ambitions for my day off.  For the last three months my favorite reading chair has been buried in clean clothes.  My second tier ambition is to have lunch at the elementary school with the kids.

Partial success

I managed the suit jacket and the hat (slightly chewed by Maya) but not the beard.

Statue Garden

The second graders presented their statue garden today.  Sunil dressed up as Honest Abe and presented a two minute speech describing him every time someone pushed his "on button".  I didn't get to see it but Sid, Sheela and the granparents all did.  I'll try to get him to dress up again for a photo but doubt that he'll be game.

New cube home

I had to move out of my old cube -- I've been there for eight years.  The new cube is at the end of a long bland hall of identical poorly lit cubes on the edge of the mfg floor.  Isn't it lovely?

Tutenkhamun exhibit

As today was a school holiday I took a day off to be with the kids. We ended up going to the Dallas Museum of Art to see "Egypt and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs". We made a family trip out of getting both Grandma and Grandpa to come along. Sid ended up working but fully expected to see photos later (of course photography was not allowed). Tickets are sold in advance and allow you only a 30-minute window during which you get to enter. Then they place you in groups of @75 to pass through the first video clip room. It turned out that Cindy and Mack were in the same starting group. Their kids were in school today so this was a mid-day date. We more or less left them to themselves after the initial "hellos".

The exhibit was good but a little bit wearing for Sunil. I did tell the kids in advance that they were required to praise the event heavily within my hearing as it was a little on the pricey side. They complied beautifully. I believe Sheela actually enjoyed parts of it -- she's read up on Egypt and King Tut previously. Sunil may not have enjoyed it a great deal but he did make a good attempt and I appreciate him all the same.

The dreaded Hallmark holiday

It's that time of year again when everyone here is pressured in to monetarily expressing their heartfelt and undying affection even for those they don't like. I've disliked valentine's day since high school. I can't say I really thought much about it before then but I clearly remember guys coming in to by a bouquets of flowers or dozens of roses for their multiple girlfriends and asking to have us write out the cars (presumably poor penmanship making that task too difficult). One guy had me write "To my one and only " on three different cards. More common though was "I need gift and it doesn't matter what it is but I'll catch hell if I come home empty handed". Just sort of screams undying affection doesn't it?!? I had friends in college that would go in to a decline when their fathers failed to send them flowers (or more accurately when they were delivered a day late).

Now I dislike it for the last minute pressure to provide valentines and candy for all of the kids classmates, teachers and friends. In addition to a card for each of the kid's classmates (which wasn't mentioned until Tuesday) they've been soliciting donations for "Val-o-grams". For only $1 a piece I can have a scented pencil or a small candy bar sent to the student or teacher of my choice. I refused to send any but the kids both ponied up some cash. Sheela sent one to Sunil, one to each of her best friends, her favorite teacher and herself (just in case no one else thought to). Sunil sent one to Sheela and to a couple of his friends. When they thought I would pay they were going to send them to dozens of other kids.

Aaarrrgggghhh

With only five meetings left to prepare the team manager offered to let the team skip the meeting to go watch critterman (the snake guy) then got mad when the kids wanted to go see the snakes (after a 10 minute discussion). 

Rain

Two days in a row now we've had rain.  Yesterday it was fun, novel and exciting.  Today it's dark, depressing and tiresome.  What a difference a day makes.

On the good news side lunch was brought in at work today and I was too busy to notice the rain the rest of the day.  Now I'm sitting in a restaurant bar looking out over the canal - the view is much diminished.  There should be 15 - 20 of us for dinner tonight and the reservation is for 10 minutes from now and yet I'm sitting alone feeling pathetic.  I just got here and I'm already bored with the view.

DI countdown

With only three weeks until the DI competition Sheela's team has added a second weekly practice.  Even with that they are horribly behind.  Part of the issue is the collective attention span of the team but a big part is the three month delay in arranging the teams.  Either way it's even harder for me to keep my opinions to myself.  I had to walk out tonight to sit in the hall.

Sweetheart Dance

Tonight Sunil and I went to the annual Sweetheart Dance.  This year they changed it up a little bit making it a little bit more formal and skipping the western wear.  Of course I didn't think that all the way though until last night.  I had to go buy Sunil a new dress shirt and myself an actual dress.  After all that we stayed only a little bit more than an hour.  Without the rodeo theme the horse roping and other games were not included and Sunil was quickly bored with the dancing.  They let the boys (and their dates) up on stage to perform Rock Band style.  But they only had time for twelve couples.  Oh well, we had our formal portraits taken, it'll arrive in a month or so.  Until then we have just this shot...

HATs Winter Campout Pictures

Sheela and Sid only took a few pictures and a couple of seconds of video. But it's enough to show you some of their activities: Rock climbing blind-folded and an obstacle course.

Replacement

This used to be our neighborhood playground.  As you can see the play structures have been removed.  We are hoping that they are replacing them with updated equipment.  But it has been at least three weeks since to old stuff was carted off.   There was a neighborhood meeting nine months ago to explain it but I showed up late and everyone was already heading home. At this point I'll probably cave and try to look it up in the city records.

Unexpected Quandry

Sid and Sheela are off on their adventure. So I planned a day of errands:  laundry, groceries, library, gift shopping, post office, etc.  Now as a last moment sort of thing the Sharmas have taken Sunil with them to visit friends today.  Should I squander my precious alone time on errands and if not when will those errands get done?

Winter Campout

Sid and Sheela leave this afternoon for a weekend of Winter camping with the HATs program.  They will be at a ranch/pecan farm up in Oklahoma for an orienteering competition and two nights of sleeping in the cold.  Actually it could be much worse weather.  It will be above freezing at night, barely but above and up in the 60s during the day.  Sunil and I will fill in those lonely days with a visit from the cousins, Seema and Nita and a baseball practice.

Sunil's Car picture

It must have been lost in Cyberspace.  I'll find the car later and take another picture.

Sheela's entry - sibling division

The derby

Tomorrow is the Pinewood Derby.  The kids (and Sid) helped set up the track tonight and made a few test runs.  When they got home we watched the movie "Down and Derby" about some overly competitive fathers taking over the event.  I enjoyed it.

They've added a concession stand this year in an attempt to raise enough money to add two more lanes to our two lane track.  I managed to. avoid working the concessions by volunteering as the official timekeeper (for the wolves).

Report cards again

It was another great grading period for both of the kids and we are officially more than half way through the year.

Science Fair Projects are due tomorrow

Sheela has been working on the effects of soaking pinto and black beans in water, sugar water or salt water. I'm a little bit miffed that it is due in the morning and she is just now typing it up... it doesn't seem to bother her.

Welcome home to the Sharmas

Grandma and Grandpa came back home today after a quick five month world tour. In addition to the obvious time spent in India they also managed to work in Thailand, Malaysia and Australia this year. It's good to have them back.

Formal Picture

This is the photo (and frame) from the Daddy-Daughter Ball.

Dull

It seems that life has been pretty quiet around here lately.  I didn't realize how few posts I've made (or how little that they said). 

We still haven't packed away Christmas but should have it done today.  We haven't finished the Pinewood Derby cars and the race is next weekend.  We haven't installed the cat door to the computer room (we moved the cat box).  I haven't done any laundry yet this week.  I never did clean out my closet.  Sheela just started to make a white satin cape for her "good witch" costumes (both North and South witches).  We haven't freshened up the Sharma's bedroom and they will be home on Wednesday.

But the sun is shining and it is almost 70 degrees today.  I want to go out to play instead of working.  We've all done too much working lately.

I spent all week in training classes (Design Controls and Risk Management - both very important in Medical Device manufacturing) and then trying to keep production rolling along by going to work before and after class. 

Sid has had a fair amount of hand holding to do to keep his current deals on track plus set up the tax office. 

Sunil is doing his Cub Scouting. He just earned his Wolf rank.  The last activity was cleaning up the creek through town.  His baseball team is trying to practice on pretty days too.  At school he is dissecting owl pellets.

Sheela is working on her Destination Imagination challenge.  Their solution will be a musical version of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" presented in the style of a music video with original lyrics and a grand entrance or grand exit.  She also read nearly 2000 minutes in the last six weeks and is working on her Science Fair project: The effect of sugar and salt on the water absorption of pinto and black beans.

So life here is trucking on along at what we've accepted as our normal pace.  Sheela just left for the movies.  Sid is watching football.  I'm going to start a load of laundry and then see if Sunil will come for a bike ride with me.

Technology stress

Sometime Wednesday our work email system suffered a catstrophic failure. Around the clock support from our IT department and some of our tech vendors cobbled the system back together... mostly. I still can't send or receive messages on my blackberry. This week I'm scheduled for a full week of offsite training (Design Controls and Risk Management) and will have to be working essentially blind. We're taking nearly 20% of our company to this class, which means there will be very little in-house support for manufacturing this week. Email is what makes this system bearable so this week will be a challenge.

Right in the meddle of all of that, my label printing software (that I hate with fair degree of passion) appears to also be corrupted. I've done all I can without access to the main server so I'm at work at 6AM hoping there is even one IT person that is still awake that can get me in to the server to complete the reinstallation before 7AM when I need to leave for class.

Changes

Sheela's teacher turned in his notice today.  He has an opportunity to pursue something besides teaching and has decided that he needs to give it a try.  I'm pretty disappointed.  He was an excellent teacher.  But now that he's said that he is leaving I'm ready to move on.  I want to know who his replacement will be and how the kids will handle the change.

Brimmers

We made a quick trip to Sushama's to visit with the cousins.  Seema is almost as tall as I am now.  We stayed just the one night and then had to hurry back.  Sid and I did manage to ditch the kids for a few hours so that we could go on to the casino in Shreveport and catch a comedy show (Brad Lee and Little Bro').

Maya's welcome home

After leaving her home alone all night Maya was in need of some extra reassurance and togetherness.

Spring?

It is beautiful here today, sunny and 80 degrees.  Sunils's baseball team called an informal practice.  I'm watching the ducks swim in the pond and listening to the "ting" of the bats.  It feels a lot like Spring... it won't last.

A slow start to the New Year

There is not much going on around here. Sid is out and about today doing that work thing. The kids are just here being here. I want to go out to run some errands but I don't want to take the kids (these errands will make me whiney so I won't blame the kids when they get whiney but that doesn't mean I want them with me.)

New Year's Eve Cookies

Sheela has put herself in charge of our holiday sweets.  Stop by for a cookie if you get a chance.

Goals

I'm only working two days this week (and the first one is already done).  I have a very reasonable goal for today - the completion of one little report.  Unfortunately it isn't an interesting report so I'm having some difficulty getting in to it.  Once I get it done, and I will get it done, I will earn five more days of home time.  Again my goals for that time are very reasonable: repair one seam, patch one knee, clean one closet and replace two ironing board covers.  That's not even one task a day but again they aren't interesting tasks and I won't have a reward to motivate me.  I bet everything gets done except the closet.  I really hate cleaning closets.

 

Family Day

The kids didn't actually let us sleep late but they did let us laze around all day to make up for it. Santa brought the family a Wii system with a couple of extra game packs including Wii Fit. That pretty much set the tone for the whole day. I've jumped off the same mountain a hundred times (Ski jump) and still end up as a giant snowball half the time. I've been hit in the face with countless cleats and panda heads while trying to head soccer balls. I've bowled five strikes in a row and beaten at tennis (repeatedly) but I've done it all with the family so I'm pleased.

Girls

Christmas crown

We spent Christmas Eve with Farhana and Jazmine and their friends.  Merry Christmas everyone!!

Grand Prize Winner

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a friend from work and her husband won the grand prize in the Italian version of Funniest Home videos for this video of their cat playing dead.

Since I can't get the link to work here is the URL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgsA7KgL4Wg