Bad pic but a great day

This is my reflection in the glass around the slender tailed meerkat's exhibit.  It is turning in to a beautiful day to be all alone at the zoo.  For the first two hours it was chilly and there was almost no one here but me.  I watched them feed Jade (the. smallest of the giraffes), the asian small clawed otters, the ducks, the harpy eagle (dead rat), Patrick (the silverback gorrillia) and the red crowned cranes.  Now I'm basking in the sun with the meerkats, eating an apple (me - not them). 

I have another hour before Sheela will be done followed by nearly an hour on the train.  She decided that riding alone is not something that she's ready for after all.  There were too many people asking for money and too many homeless people spending the night on the early train for her to be comfortable.   

Funzoids

Today is the DI Tournament.  Sheela's team named themselves the Funzoids.  They are still in the elementary school but are competing in the Middle School division because most school districts include the 6th in MS.

The presentation is Improv - more later.

Maya doesn't always hate Sheela

Training

Sheela is off at Zookeeper training today.  Tomorrow she starts her service. 

Work

I haven’t written much lately because of a combination of travel, a massive workload, an FDA audit, an MRP system crash, some home PC crashes and a serious need to blow off steam.  We’ve spent our free time eating out with the kids.  We’re in a “try something new” mode for our eating out.  Last week Sid took the kids to a German place.  This week we are looking at Greek but haven’t really finalized the details.

It may be right but I don't have to like it.

I'm sulking this evening.  My trip to Palm Springs is about to be cancelled.  Something more important has come along that we don't get to schedule and I need to stay in the office.  I know I need to be here and I know that I can more easily be replaced in CA but I really wanted to go.

It isn't just the desert in winter for what amounts to a four-day party or that I've waited 15 years to be invited to this trip or that I actually had a need to meet with some of the sales team but that I wanted to be included on the culture training and the chance to teach in front of 100+ people.  I'm really bummed.

Hanging out

The kids and I are putting their brand new rec center memberships to the test today.  Sunil convinced us that he can not practice his basketball skills outside when the net freezes; the ball gets stuck in the net.  So here we are unfortunately the basketball courts are tricked out for volleyball on Wed nights and Saturday mornings.  Those are the best two times for me to bring him up here.  We are consoling ourselves with ping pong and air hockey.

Public Transportation

I take every opportunity that I can to ride the DART trains here.  I’m not a big fan of the buses and it really never occurs to me to use them at all but the train is fun and frequently goes where I want to go.  Saturday Sunil and I took the train to the American Airlines Center to see the Globetrotters.  It honestly takes almost twice as long to ride the train as it does to drive but it’s basically simple and its fun; so we do it anyway.  I was a little steamed this time though with how difficult it is to buy the tickets.  The kiosks are entirely automated and come with pretty clear instructiosn but half of them were out of service, none of them take credit or debit cards, half wouldn’t accept bills and half wouldn’t accept coins.  I was unable to purchase roundtrip tickets for us as I didn’t have enough cash so I paid more for one way.  On the way back I had to try three different machines to be able to make the purchase.  The first one warned you that it would not make change and I had a $20 but needed less than three dollars in fares.  The second wouldn’t let me buy both my ticket and Sunil’s at the same time but it did accept my two $1 bills and produced three quarters as change.  Then I had to go to a third machine to use those 3 quarters to buy Sunil’s ticket because it was in a bill only mode.  It’s hard to be excited about it when you have to work this hard.

 

Harlem Globetrotters Pic

Well, he isn't a 'trotter but he has "The Official" Globetrotters ball and that's good enough for me.

Bonus Night

Sid and Sheela are braving the snow for the HATs Winter Campout.  Sunil is staying with a friend.  I wasn't prepared for a night alone and my peeps are all busy.  I toyed with the idea of going to a movie but nothing sounded good.  I toyed with the idea of going to the hockey game but it doesn't seem like it will be fun alone.  I settled for a steak dinner and a Sangria Swirl Margarita at a place close to home.  I'll be curled up in front of the fire with a book by 8PM.  That's good enough for me.

NFC Champions

So many years were such a disappointment that I don’t care whether or not the Saints win the Superbowl; I’m just pleased that they are getting the chance to go.  Winning would be pretty cool though….

 

Sneak shot

I took this before Sunil told me that pictures aren't allowed (his rule).  He is warming up for the first of his two games today.  In between he'll race his car in the Pinewood Derby.

Giants of the Savannah

The zoo is opening a whole new section Memorial Day Weekend.  It will be called Giants of the Savannah and will have large enclosures for a band of 10 elephants (we have only two right now), 12 giraffes (we have only three right now) and a pride of lions (our male lion passed away and the lioness has been off exhibit ever since).  Hand feeding of the giraffes will be allowed and a part of the Junior Zoo Keeper program last the kids got to start socializing the two newer giraffes by feeding them and getting them used to crowds of kids up close.  The Junior Zookeepers get to do one field trip/special event almost every week when they work.  Sometimes it’s a back lot tour of the tiger cages during their training, sometimes it will be a special talk with one of the keepers.  This program sounds so cool.

 

BTW – Sunil wants to have his birthday party at the Zoo this year.

Building Tour

We took the Operations Department and the Quality Engineers to tour the construction for the new building on Friday.  The place is huge.  We are in 70K sq.ft now and the new place will be 150K sq.ft.  The bulk of the structure is open to the “second floor” ceiling line so it is one great big room right now.  Enough of the conference room and office walls are up to get a feel for the place and it feels really nice with lots of windows and glass walls to allow light in.  I’m getting pretty excited we have just over 100 days until the move. 

4 of 5

Sheela had her interview for the Junior Zookeeper position at the zoo this morning.  They told her that most people score a “3”, she scored a “4” out of a possible “5”.  A “5” would mean that someone was perfect so they never give 5s.  That’s pretty encouraging.  But they still have a week’s worth of interviews to do.  She won’t hear until the 28^th or 29^th.

Chilly elephant

It's pretty cold at the zoo today.  They left the fountains on and one of the elephants froze.

A quiet moment

Hectic Times

There are times when so much is going on that I can hardly think straight.  December was one of those times.  Every year, some where along the line in December I start to think “how nice it will be when crunch time is over and we get back to our normal level of activity.”  That is a good thought and pretty predictive but a little while later that morphs in to “I can’t wait until the holidays are over so that we aren’t rushed, over committed and stressed.”  That’s just dumb. We are rushed, over committed and stressed – all the time.  We do it to our selves.  Realizing that the stress didn’t go away after the holidays was worse than having the extra stress in the first place.

 

School is back in session these days which means Basketball practice, DI practice, marathon club, technology club, UIL teams, PRIDE council and Cub Scouts are back on the weekly list.  Kids Club is a life saver because the kids stay at school in the afternoons for Kids Club we don’t have to take them back and forth to most of those other activities.

 

Today Sid has gone to work out, I’m taking both kids to Sheela’s UIL competition.  She is on the “Number Sense” team for her school.  They have 10 minutes to solve as many math problems as they can without writing down anything but the answer.  The award ceremony will be this afternoon.  This evening Sunil has team pictures followed by a late basketball game.  After that Sid and I are going to the last holiday party of the season.  Tomorrow Sheela has an informational session at the zoo.  She is applying to be a Junior Zoo Keeper for both the Spring and Fall sessions.  The whole family may make a whole Zoo day of it but it only about 20 F here and that idea might get scrapped.

Cookie Icing

Sheela tried a little bit to hard to squeeze out the icing.

Applique

Sheela made this for me for Christmas.