Coach Sid

Well Sid has been blessed by the Allen Youth Soccer Association as the Panther's new head coach. Tim's new work schedule wont let him attend either practices or games for the rest of the season and Sid has stepped up to take over. He is not exactly thrilled about it but after he works out the kinks I think he'll be great. Tonight was his first practice, it went better than he thinks. As extra back up I'm getting mine too but I don't plan on needing it.

Blake Rae

Happy 4th Birthday Blake! We wish you all the best, where ever you are.

Shopping

Brenda and I went on an impulsive shopping trip this afternoon. This was the first time I've been in an actual shopping mall in at least two years. Much as I remembered you have to walk along way to get where you want to go only to find that there wasn't anything I actually wanted there anyway. I do not like clothes, I do not like shopping and I do not like shopping malls. Luckily they close early on Sundays and we only stayed an hour and a half. Brenda did manage to find what she was looking for and I managed to enjoy catching up with her life.

Pleurisy?

It has been suggested to us that Sheela's chest pain is ideopathic pleurisy. That is to say, fluid build up around her lungs that comes and goes rapidly with no identifiable cause and hurts like the dickens. I'll talk it over with Liz at work tomorrow, she is an RN and see if its worth calling the doctor over.

Sheela was sent home from school on Tuesday, she was having chest pain again so I took her to the doctor. Once again they were unable to identify a cause. It was not as severe as before.

Del Frisco's

After a soccer-filled, Saturday morning (the Hot Wheels finally won a game, or would have if we kept score) we took the kids to Farhana's for the night and went out on the town. We caught an early movie (V for Vendetta) and then went out to one of the two nicest restaurants in Dallas, Del Frisco's. I really love a good steak and this was probably the best one ever. We split a 34-ounce, long bone, Kobe steak and an incredible bottle of Henry Estates White Reisling. We finished the weekend with another pair of soccer games and a bonus Kindermusic class.

Underground Railroad

The second graders are escaping from slavery today via the underground railroad. They are dressed in hand-me-down clothes and carrying all of their wordly possessions (read as "a snack"). They will sneak off in groups traveling all the way from one end of the school to the other, guided by singing, where they are searching for the Canadian flag while trying to avoid the marshals. The marshals catch them by making eye contact, as long as the kids hide their eyes behind a banana leaf they should escape in time for a picnic lunch. They could hardly ask for a prettier day for their picnic, we should have brilliant sun and clear skies today. Unfortunately, it isn't actually warm.

Happy Birthday Grandpa-John!

We remembered to call John last night to wish him a very happy birthday. He got to talk to both kids (Sunil with a ton of detail on ALL of his latest advntures).

Kindergarten Roundup

It is official, Sunil has been registered for Kindergarten starting on August 7, 2006 at Anderson Elementary. Say it with me now "One drop off, one pick up". The world is a wonderful place.

Spring pictures are in

Ms DeWaters is on the right, Ms Holacka and Ms Streitmatter are on the left next to Sheela.

Loan Consultant

Yup, that's me. I'm an official Loan Consultant for Chardi Financial. That is the Mortgage Brokerage that Sid is buying. My function will be to pass along potential borrowers to someone licensed to help them..... but I can't wait to pass a card to my boss. Every few months he asks me about the rental protperties and how close I am to retirement. I like to keep him just a little bit nervous.

Pediatric Cardiologist

The official appointment was today. Sheela does, in fact, have a heart murmur and there is, in fact, no reason for concern. It did not even rate "keep-an-eye-on-it" status. They repeated the EKG and did a sonogram. The sonogram was pretty cool.

Happy Birthday Opa!

I did remember to call Dad last night for his birthday. Actually it was a Skype call which should have been even better but neither of us could get our cameras to work. Still, it was nice to get caught up.

Chalk Plantation

The kids planted a garden yesterday. The sign labeling it as a "Chalk Plantation" blew away during the night however I snapped a picture on my way by this morning. These are sticks of sidewalk chalk that were left out to soak in the rain over the weekend and are no longer good. This was as good a use as any for them I guess. I can't wait to see what grows.

The campers lived

Sid and the kids had a great time in Arkansas. Sunil and Sheela both earned their Junior Ranger badges. They managed hiking, boating and fishing before the rain started. They also went to one of the Hot Springs and took the duck tour. Here is a picture of Sunil standing under his bed in the camper, and another of the camper in our driveway. Luckily the camper didn't leak until the last night, and then it leaked only in the kitchen area over the linoleum floor and not in the beds. Hopefully the rain will let up today and we will be able to set it up one more time so that we can clean it out really well before we take it back to Brenda and Jeremy.

Justice

Ms. DeWaters' class lead the morning spirit rally at school today. The topic of this week's rally was: Justice. In the picture, Sheela is the blue blob holding up the "S" (third letter from the left - trust me.)

19 Years

Sudhir and I started dating 19 years ago today. That should seem like a long time.... but it doesn't. I wouldn't change a thing.

Rainy Days

The rain held off until late last night but we've been getting a very thorough soaking ever since. My niece Seema is playing in the State basketball tournament here this weekend. They won their first game this morning so we went out catch the next game. They won in the last 0.9 seconds of the game on a rebound from a missed free-throw. It was very dramatic. Unfortunately the other team contested the match based on a screw up on the time clock at two minutes to go in the fourth period. So instead of being done for the day Seema had to drive back up there to re play the last two minutes of the game. If they won (again) they will play two games tomorrow. If they lost then they played another game already today and have one more tomorrow. They haven't called yet to tell us how it went.

I talked to Brain and Tracy over Skype today. Both the audio and the video worked this time! It sounds like they could get some rain today too but they might get to enjoy the day a little bit first.

I need to go get ready, it's girl's night out. Beckie, Brenda, Cindy and Amy are meeting me up at Joe's Crab Shack for seafood and drinks. Maria couldn't get her babysitter lined up so we are running one short. We may catch a movie later or we may just sit and talk. Traditionally, we get together once a month for our birthday's from April-August. This is a bonus night since the kids are out of town.

Hot Springs National Park

Sid and the kids have gone off on their spring break camping trip. They drove up to Hot Springs this morning. They called to tell me that they've arrived safely and some how its my fault that they are one bathing suit short. Ha! He's an adult, he'll work it out. The camp site is over looking the lake and they've already purchased their fishing license.

I've planned some nights out with the girls and some general housekeeping to keep me busy. What I didn't plan on was the work backlash from Lynn's death. So I'm working late (and much harder than normal). Our ISO 14385:2000 training expires at the end of May and we have to upgrade to ISO 14385:2003. Lynn has been working on this for quite sometime but she didn't disseminate the information. We need to complete one year of work in two months. I've also promised my boss that I would pick up a few other larger projects to free him up. I think that this is the third night I've worked late in the last two years. It's been nice but now I guess I have to make up for it.

Memorial Service Today

We are having a memorial service at work today for Lynn Stimpson and Linda Sawyer. Both women worked here in the Quality for over 15 years and will be sorely missed. After the service we will be planting trees outside in their honor.



This is picture of Lynn was taken on an Alaskan cruise a few years back and the other is Lynn and Andrea from our company Holiday party this past November. I haven't found any pictures of Linda.

Ides of March

Trivia based on my "word of the day email". Julius Caesar was assassinated 2050 years ago today (if you ignore changes to the calendar).

The ides are the 15th day of March, May, July and October but the 13th day of all of the other months.

Norbert.....

Here is a picture of the kitten that we called Monster. He and Jojo are very close to each other in size and their paws are still huge compared to their bodies. These are going to be very large cats. When he went to live with Nancy he was the size of the remote control.

Shaving cream

Sunil's friend Travis spent the night on Saturday. They amused themselves by shaving, again and again.

Fondue weekend.....

After Sheela's game today we came home and made a three course fondue dinner. It took us nearly three hours to eat but it was worth every minute. We tried veggie eggrolls for the first time. They worked out very well.

Sheela's game was pretty good. They lost 4-2, but the opponents were a year older (we'll get a lot of that this year) and the wind scored one of their goals. I like the games a lot more when they are close.

We borrowed a pop-trailer from some friends. Sid is going to use it when he takes the kids camping next week. The weather is still unpredictable around here. It was at least 80 degrees today and gorgeous. I hope it stays this nice all week.
While we were picking up the trailer, we got to visit with Jojo (the kitten we called Belle). It turns out Belle was a boy and not a girl, oooppps. The point is now moot but I'm sure I'll hear about it for years to come.

and we got to watch Brenda and Sprite practice their Frisbee routine for their next competition.

They had to work extra hard to because it was very windy and they aren't used to the heat.

Spring

What a beautiful morning, well actually it was cool and overcast for the soccer games this morning which was even better. But it is beautiful now. I went out and trimmed the hedges around the front of the house. I'm using the manual trimmers because the electric ones freak me out when they get dull... they start catching and jerking. I just know I'm going to flay open my shin. The problem is that the manual clippers are dull too. So my hands are shaking and I can hardly type or drink my Coke. Also I ran out of steam halfway through the redtip. The redtips were the huge overgrown bushes at the corners of the house. Sid whacked one of them down to size last year but there were birds nesting in the other and I wouldn't let him touch it. Now we have one overgrown redtip on one side and half an overgrown redtip on the other.... when Sid gets home I'm going to try to talk him into whacking them both down to size.

BTW - The girls won their game this morning (but it was actually close), and the boys played their best ever (but still didn't score a goal). Honestly, the boys came very close more than once but their aim just wasn't true.

Another tragic day

My friend Lynn passed away yesterday. She fought lung cancer for two years. She woke up coughing, ruptured her lung and bleed out before EMS arrived. She'd just been in to work the day before leading a "Meet and Greet" with the regional FDA office. She was one of the most interesting people I've ever known and I'm really going to miss her.

Open House

Last night Sheela took us up to the school to tour her classroom, the computer lab, the gym, music room, etc. We actually went late (after soccer) so we didn't get to see everything that she wanted to show to us. For the most part we've seen it all before but we did go through all of her work from this year, take a run through the lost and found, and a quick trip through the book fair. I bought her a new dictionary, her old one was better but its been gone for at least six months and I've given up.

"Big A** TV Day"

Sid brought home the TV today. Sunil is watching Shrek 2. Right now it is in front of the entertainment center, but something has to go.

Process Validation

I just completed a three day long training class on the FDA's new approach to process validation. We sent 25 people from our company to the class, actually I guess we brought the class to us. In either case the class was excellent. We came out bursting with new ideas and a strong desire to revamp our whole system. As soon as we got back to the office, my boss had me unload most of my current projects in an effort to dive in completely. Unfortunately, there were at least three things going on that I don't want to get rid or that I'm too tied into to pass off. I'll work them in somewhere.

Jewel of the Seas

We have officially booked a Royal Caribbean cruise on the Jewel of the Seas. We will go in November along with the kids, Dad and Eileen, Karl and Luke and their families. I'm pretty excited about it. We will leave from Ft. Lauderdale go on to Key West, Cozumel, Costa Maya, George Town and then back to Ft. Lauderdale. The kids will both miss one week of school but it wont kill them (Sheela is convinced that it might).

We started to go for a cheap inside (no view) cabin, but for only a little bit more we could get one with a tiny balcony and an extra 40 feet of floor space. We looked a little farther and found out for just a few more dollars we could get two inside rooms with no view and a lot more floor space. So that's what we are doing. I'm sure the kids aren't supposed to have their own room but they are right next door and I'm thinking they can handle it.

Of course the day we decided to go ahead and book the tickets was the day that Dr. Sharma decided he should take us all on a cruise this year for a family reunion with Sid's siblings. Sid wont let us do two cruises in the same year. Bummer. I though it was a good plan.

Spring Season

Well we kicked off the Spring soccer season on Saturday and it looks like we are picking up where we left off last Fall. The boys got trounced soundly and the girls did a fair amount of trouncing of their own. Sheela scored at least five goals of her own and set Claire up for at least three more. They were not the only ones scoring for us.

Sunday we went for a family bike ride up to Celebration and then to go get haircuts. Poor Sunil still has a bike with 10" tires so he has to work awfully hard to ride very far. He will get a new bike for his birthday and we will pass then one on along to another friend with a small boy. The weather was pretty dreary while we were out. It did end up being a beautiful day but by then Sunil had fallen asleep on the lunch table and Sheela had gone to play with friends. I spent some time reading in the hammock instead of going back out to ride.

The second graders came alive as statues today.

Each one dressed up as a famous American (except for Darius who dressed up as King Darius) and arranged themselves on the school lawn. The kindergarteners, first graders and parents walked around and brought them to life by pushing their buttons. The living statue would then explain who they were and what they'd done to make them famous. Sheela was in the Mia Hamm section with the other Mia Hamms. It was a very strange collection of fame.

Bowling Tournament

I went bowling after work last night with the IS department from work. There are just enough real bowlers around here to make it respectable, the rest of us just had a really good time. I did manage two decent games including a new personal best (still only a 133). I did manage to get a turkey. For those of you that don't bowl that would be three strikes in a row. I've actually done that before but I usually balance it out with gutter balls.

Skype

Well we reinstalled Skype last night. Its a new version since I loaded it last. While I was still trying to find my way around I called Brian. He answered so fast that I hadn't even figured out what I was doing yet. I knew I couldn't actually talk to him, we broke the microphone and haven't installed the camera. I wasn't actually expecting him to answer. Hew was a good sport about it though and eventually Sid and Brian got to do some instant messaging (I went back to my book).

Keep an eye on your kids while you shop....

X-rays

I love X-rays. They look cool and the skeleton is very pretty. I never had any desire to study medicine or surgery but I certainly appreciate the complexity and interactions that make us work.

Sheela and I went for a nice long walk last night and we were talking about many things including x-rays. She did not get to see her chest x-ray. So I'm trying to find a way to get her back to the Dr's office so we can look at it. It might be as simple as stopping by and asking to take a look.

Eclectic Day

I love days like today. I started my work day by reviewing old X-rays, CT scans and MRIs looking for a viable pool of patients with intact intact distal radii. This was harder than normal as most of the patients were in the hospital with upper extremity fractures. Out of 60 I ended up with 25 candidates. If we are lucky the hospitals will still have the electronic files of the MRIs and CT scans and will be willing to part with them (or copies of them). With the changes to the HIPPA laws that may not happen. But if it does then I can try to find a company that will use their software to convert the data to CAD models of the bones which our R&D department can then use for some design modifications that they have in mind.

Shortly after I finished that I spent an hour with a woman with very small feet validating a foot pump that is made by one of our sister companies. For reasons that escaped me they sent us the smallest size unit to test. I'm hoping that we get to take over the manufacturing of the unit later this year.

From there I went back in to the warehouse to set up a plan for charging our PDAs while they are still on the shelf. It seems if we leave them back there too long with out charging the custom program gets dumped. Oops!

Then I did the paperwork to release a product line expansion to our new bone substitute product line and had a meeting to discuss the changes needed to the shelf life. The product was made with only a one year shelf life and that doesn't give us enough time to turn it. We are going to need to bring it back and have it reprocessed.

Then I worked on gathering examples of our quality records. We are partnering with a software company to look at a unified quality system for our internal records. But first we have to put together a pretty strong business case for why its worth the money. Its going to be a lot of money.

I even managed lunch with a friend from the R&D side of the house. This always gives me some more insight in to what is going on around me (I don't always notice the big picture). We went to a faux 50's diner called "Bel Aires and Burgers". The burger was excellent and the drive pleasant. Its back in the 80s today and beautiful again.

Mardi Gras

It may not be the same here in McKinney as it was in New Orleans but we had a pretty good time anyway. We use this as an excuse to bring food in to work. I made red beans and rice. We also had crawfish etoffee, stuffed merletones, boiled shrimp, fried catfish, hot links, jambalaya, a dozen side dishes, pies and cakes including king cakes. We even managed to get some work done.

Fourth grading period

Sheela brought home another straight A report card. It's hard not to focus on the grades when they are so obvious but we are really trying to shift the focus off of the grades themselves. Still we are pretty proud. They are doing a great job of keeping her interested and of asking her to do more and more.

Soccer free weekend

Even though today was beautiful Sheela's game was cancelled due to the rain the previous couple of days. So our only commitment today was to go see a play. Sheela and I took her friend Peyton and Peyton's Mom, Andi, to see Alexander, Who Is Not, Not, Not, Not, Not, Not Going To Move at the Eisemann Center for Performing Arts. It was very cute and I like Peyton and Andi.

When 40 hours of sleep is not enough

Perhaps its time to reevaluate your medications. After some 30 years of looking I've finally found a medication that stops the drainage down the back of my throat that make me cough. I've hardly coughed since Thursday afternoon. I've hardly been awake since then either. I would give just about anything to go back to bed for another full day. At least today's soccer games have been cancelled that just leaves Kindermusik. Tomorrow I'll have to go back to coughing.

Christmas Parade Picture

Farhana just sent me this picture of the family at the Christmas Parade back in December. The extra child is Jazmine.

The foster child that never came.

We got a call last night asking us to take in a seven year old, girl from a sibling set of five. She is the second oldest. They thought that they might bring her over around midnight when they finalized all of the kids' arrangements. Apparently CPS didn't like the way the kids were to be split up so they've taken them all to a shelter for a week to create a more considered plan. We may get her yet or they may not mention her again.

"Don't let the night bugs eat you"....

It is finally Winter here in Texas. We've had at least a week of cold and wet with more to come. Almost everyone has either allergies, a cold, bronchitis or the flu. My friend Lynn is in the hospital, she is a lung cancer survivor with a cold. I'm sure she'll get straightened out over the weekend and be back home on Monday. I've finally progressed from allergies to an actual cold so I stayed home from work today to sleep. Actually I've been asleep since 6PM last night and its just now 10AM. I woke up briefly last night to eat and kiss the kids goodnight and again this morning to tell them goodbye. Before Sunil left for school he tucked me back in to bed, gave me a kiss and said, "Dream sweet dreams and don't let the night bugs eat you".

Soccer hookey

I rebelled last night. I refused to drive the girls to their goalie practice. I was tired and cranky. It was cold and wet. There was a pretty good chance that the practice was cancelled but we didn't have a way to check. Instead we went home and spent some time together doing family stuff. Sunil read me a couple of books and then tucked Sheela and me into bed. Then he put himself to bed. Don't tell him but we got back up after he put us to bed. Sheela and I then spent an hour playing on the internet. She looked up the definition of "reign", "monarch", fish (plural) and fishes (also plural), pictures of Harriet Tubman (which Sheela insists on spelling Herriet Tubman so that google will correct her) and the feeding habits of owls native to Texas. Then we spent another 20 minutes playing with different screen savers. Then I went back to bed.

It was chaos but we survived....

We had the parent's meetings for the soccer teams tonight, both meetings more of less at the same time, at our house. That gave us seven boys, eight girls, seven assorted siblings and seventeen parents. We were supposed to be outside on the practice fields but its still rainy and cold (gee its finally Winter). Four girls locked themselves in the bathroom to get away from the boys (who incidentaly were not interested in chasing them anyway), and one of the younger boys kept turning off the lights in Sunil's room and making scary noises which made one of the older boys cry. Its going to be another great season.

Sheela Update

I asked the school nurse to check Sheela's blood pressure today now that the pain has been gone for a few days and its back down to normal. The pulse was still on the high side but not too bad. We did track down the date that Sheela first complained of chest pain and that was way back in October, so it may not be related to the broken shoulder blade. I'm waiting for calls back from a variety of cardiologists.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

by Robin S. Sharma (no relation), I finished another book last night. This one was more or less an Indian version of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It was good, short and easy to read. Long story short: meditate, think only positive thoughts, don't waste your time on trivial pursuits, appreciate simple pleasures, do nice things for other people, critic every action and every thought at the end of each day and you will live a long, healthy, balanced life.

Next up: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver and Losing the Moon by Patti Callahan Henri. Some of my life is wasted in trivia but I do appreciate the simple things and I am happier than most.

Betsy Louise Drawert (3/1/72 - 2/27/05)

I went to a "tea" yesterday held in memory of my friend Amy's sister, Betsy. She passed away suddenly last year 10 days after giving birth to her second daughter. She was a wonderful person and very much admired. It was a nice way to remember her and to get to see both of her girls again. Jenna is now three and a half and Taylor just turned one.

Ice scrapping

I had to scrape ice off my car this morning for the first time this year. Yuck!

Vonage

We have successfully switched over to internet phone service. Our new provider is called Vonage. For one small monthly fee we have unlimited calling (local and long distance), we can transfer calls to another number for example if a call comes in for the Sharmas while they are out I can send it to their cell. We have a mobile router that we can use to make calls while we are traveling (at no extra charge), we can check our voice mail from any computer on the internet. If the internet goes down and we lose our phone service incoming calls are automatically routed to our cell phones. The change became official last night so its too early to say that we like it.

We had to attach another router to our wireless transmitter. The new router ties back into the wiring in the house for the phones (first we had to disconnect all of the phone lines at the box. We managed this all by ourselves.

The Saturday schedules are in

The Hot Wheels have mostly middle of the day games and only twice will they actually conflict with Kindermusic.

The Panthers are scheduled for four games at 8AM, two at 6:15PM and two mid-day. of couse the team pictures are scheduled for half an hour prior to one of the 8AM games. We did that last Fall and the pictures weren't very good.

Now we need the SDL schedule and we can plan our lives.

Chest pain and more

The illusive source of Sheela's chest pain Wednesday night appears to have been a broken scapula (mostly healed). We are guessing that she broke it falling off of Sunil's loft last month. She hasn't complained about it hurting since the day it happened -- though it was plenty sore that first day. They also heard a "click" when listening to her heart, which coupled with the elevated heart rate and elevated blood pressure mean that they want her to go to see a pediatric cardiologist. They've already done an EKG (perfectly normal) and a chest x-ray (great lungs and a healing scapula). Speculation is that the elevated pulse and BP were actually due to pain but they really want us to rule out a heart murmur.

Board Meeting - take two

Well the announcement made yesterday by the Board of Directors was the retirement of our CEO and Group President. He started here about 10 years ago right after I did. His replacement is our recently hired COO. It turns out that they hired him for this very reason but wanted to give him a few months to settle in before taking the top spot. We like the new guy and are looking forward to a new corporate phase.

Hot Grease

While cooking dinner last night I got to see a single droplet of hot grease up close and personal. It jumped straight up into my open eye before I could blink. I may have blinked sooner if I hadn't been admiring the beauty of it. It didn't so much hurt as make my eye really tired and it was very hard to see through for the rest of the night. Much like trying to see through a film of oil, hmmmm. Anyhow my eye rinsed its self clean over night and apparently I didn't actually cook it. I'm back to normal today.

Board Meeting

Roughly once a year the Board of Directors comes to Texas for their quarterly meeting. Usually, that means we spend four days cleaning up our "work spaces" so that we can impress them with our tidiness. Then we all have to come in to work on a Friday in suits instead of jeans so that we may impress them with our professional demeanor. The Board goes to some swank hotel and has their meeting and a few of them manage to stop by for a hurried tour before they bolt back to the airport and jet out of town. Few people actually see the Board and fewer still are actually seen by the Board. It makes the jeans lovers cranky.

This time the meeting is on Thursday (so our jeans day is safe), the meeting its self is being held in our training room, and most of the board members will still be here this afternoon when we all gather for our SOB (State of Business) meeting. This means we can actually look professional in front of a live audience.... it makes the whole thing more palatable.

52" HDTV

Honestly, this isn't really ours... yet. Sid has had to resort to eviction for one of his tenants for the first time. Apparently, when going through this the landlord is allowed to legally seize and hold the tenant's property until the back rent is paid. Should the tenant not pay up before the eviction is completed the landlord can keep the stuff. So he is holding on to the monster television for another week in hopes that she comes up with the rent.

PAL Schedule

The first soccer schedule is in... Sheela has 10 Sunday games over the next 13 weeks. Seven games are against teams a year older and three are against teams the same age. This will also be on a larger field, with a larger ball, a larger goal and more players per team.

We are still waiting on the SDL schedule (also Sunday games) and the two rec schedules (Saturdays) one each for Sunil and for Sheela. Pretty soon we will be able to plan our lives in advance again.

Happy Hallmark Holiday!!

Sid and I were planning to go to dinner after we escape the house for the Gifted and Talented information meeting this evening but we just figured out that its Valentine's Day. This is not a night for going out. Oh well, I'm sure we will find another time in a few months and we can try again.

Gifted and Talented Screening

Sheela has been invited to test for the Gifted and Talented Program. The basic requirement is to test higher than the 97th percentile in one of the three cognitive categories. She was only 93rd in quantitative, but she did 98 in verbal and 99 in nonverbal, and her composite score was a 99. Then you need a teacher's recommendation. That wasn't much of a stretch goal Mrs. DeWaters loves her. The next step is to take both the Iowa Test of Basic Skills Achievement in both Math and Reading plus the Critical and Creative Writing Assessment. Those tests will be administered on the last Saturday in April with results due on the 2nd of June.

The hazards of not pitching in

Soccer team practice sign up began this morning at 7:00 AM. In spite of my request to the parents of 14 other kids not a single person could be found that would agree to go stand in line to assure us a good practice time. The first guy in line arrived at 5:00 AM. The bulk of the coaches arrived between 6:00 AM and 6:30 AM. Our coach couldn't drop off his son until 7:00AM so he didn't arrive until 7:10 AM.

What we were hoping for was a 6:00 PM slot for the boys followed by a 7:00 PM slot for the girls at Celebration Park. Celebration has the right size fields for the boys but no lights for night time practices (at least not on the little fields). The earliest slot available for the boys at Celebration was 8:00 PM -- 5-year old boys practicing in the dark until 9:00 PM. Not a good option.

The girls couldn't get a field at Celebration at all so we moved both practices to Ford field. That's much more convenient for our coach but worse for me. The best time slot we could get was still 7:00 PM, so now the girls will need to be out there until 9:00 PM. This also sucks. So we signed up for both practices at the SAME TIME, 7:00 PM. We will just hope that both of the assistant coaches actually come to the practices. If no one signs up later than us on that field we will be able to stagger the girls back a little bit.

Colleyville Spring Tune Up

Sheela survived the Colleyville soccer tournament. It was only two games on each Saturday and Sunday. But the winds were gusting to 40MPH and Saturday was COLD. Anyhow the girls played well and had fun. They lost one game and tied one game on each day. Participation ribbons were awarded all around (look at the wind blowing the ribbon). As a reward there will be no practice tomorrow. Yay for me, it was my turn to drive.

$20 Monitor............

I owe Sid an apology. He finally bought me a new monitor for our computer, not so much because he was bothered by the corrupted lines across the top but to shut me up. I know it, he knows it, we can live with it. Anyhow he spent a whole $20 on an eBay special. He even drove over and picked it up. It is a 19" monster and the quality is one would expect for $20. We've been using is for a couple of months now and it is like reading underwater. I have done nothing but complain about him being cheap for months. Finally I moved from complaining back to whining again (this is why you never give in to whining -- it just begs for more).

This time I went out and spent $20 on an old monitor from work -- every bit as large as the last one and crystal clear. I checked it out before I bought it. The plan was to take the good $20 one for us and move the terrible $20 one to the kids computer which we are finally setting up for them. So we move the bad one and low and behold its wonderful. Luckily for us, when we hook up the new one it too is great. I was afraid that there was a problem with the video card on the new computer. We could probably have made some adjustments to the old one if I stopped whining for two minutes and actually thought about it.

Sorry Sid, your $20 monitor was a great purchase and you aren't any cheaper than I am.

PAL and SDL

Sheela (and six of her teammates on the Academy team) have been asked to try to play two games every Sunday. The primary team is playing in the Premier Academy League and the second team is playing in the Super Development League. The top competitors will play PAL, the more passive players will play just SDL and those in the middle of the pack will do both. The extra game time is supposed to get them caught up to their peers (who started multiple weekly practices a year or two earlier). Yikes, I can't see either Sid or Sheela thinking that this is a good idea. Maybe I wont tell them and they wont notice.....

Exiling the Nightingale

I learned long ago that I enjoy books more when I read them one at a time. But every once in awhile something comes up and I end up with more than one in process. As a slight variation, I'm listening to "books on tape" in the car and then reading in the evening. The car book is Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori Series, Vol 1) by Lian Hern. I love it and it is one of the few books that I've preferred to have read aloud to me. The pronunciation of the names works better than if I'm making it up for myself. The book that I'm reading in the evenings is The Exile by Allan Folsom. This is the first of his books that I've read but I will have to go back and read the others.

The problem with all of this is that I tend to dream about the books that I read and with two at once the dreams get rather convoluted. Two nights in a row now I've woken up confused rather than rested.

Friendlies tournament and more

Super Blue hosted a tournament for themselves on Saturday. Sheela's team played against another team of the same age, a team a year older and one a year younger. They lost two and won one but they played well and had a great time.

Sunil and I took Travis and slipped away to go see a Junie B. Jones play. The tickets were Sunil's Christmas present this year. The play was great and the boys were very well behaved. I would take them again.

When we got home we cleaned up and turned right around to go have dinner with friends. They have just moved in to our neighborhood and gotten their place all fixed up.

The pharmacist knows me by name......

this is not such a good thing. Sheela was sent home from school today with ear pain and a slight fever. Of course that means double ear infections and a slight wheezing. Maybe the kids are allergic to the doctor's office?!? Anyhow Sheela is home for the afternoon with the Sharmas and I'm back at work.

St. Petersburg at night

I can't believe that it is already February. I've just updated my desk calendar. This year's theme is World Travel. St. Petersburg at night looks a lot like Venice to me.... not that I've ever seen either one for myself.

Funeral

I've decided not to attend Linda's funeral tomorrow. I will go to the visitation at the funeral home this evening instead. Linda felt tired last week at work went home and apparently died in her sleep. Not a bad way to go I guess, but it would have been better if she'd lived long enough to retire and enjoy it. She was one of the first people to make me feel welcome at Orthofix (then American Medical Electronics). She was one of the smokers. I knew the smokers before I knew anyone else. I had to walk past the smoker's porch to get from the main building to my building. Days would go by when the only people I talk to at all were those outside taking a smioke.

If that weren't bad enough, her best friend out here is in the hospital for observation. We are all assuming this is a stress related issue from knowing that Linda died.

And a third smoker has disappeared. She is one of the original company employees. The rumor is that she is out for a medical reason, but usually there is some pretty specific gossip that goes along with that. This time no one seems to know anything and when we ask, the response is "ask HR". No one ever sends us to HR. They either know, don't know or don't want to say. Those are three answers that we can understand. "Go ask HR" just feels funny.

The closet organizer

We finally managed to install Sheela's closet organizer. We bought all of the pieces on Saturday and gutted the space only to realize that our drill is spending some quality time at someone else's job site. So Sheela has hardly been able to enter her room for four days. But its done now and Sheela's room is looking mighty sharp. She even has drawers in there that are still empty and shelves she hasn't used yet.

Ear Drum Blisters

Sunil's diagnosis... ear drum blisters, yet another form of ear infection this one had an actual name that sounded suspisiously like "Blech". I should have had Dr. Kelley write it down for me.

Anyhow we have some numbing drops and an oral antibiotic (Sunil asked for banana flavoring, he already regrets that choice). Aside from the fact that we didn't see the Dr until lunch and didn't get the Rxs filled until midafternoon we had a decent day. I kept him home all day and we went for a short bike ride, watered the lawn ('tis the season for pre-emergent weed control) and played computer games. He is asleep on the couch and I'm getting ready to go for a walk on this lovely, Spring-like evening.

Low key weekend

Sunil felt fine by Friday night so we did manage to go to music class. It was pouring rain (yeah!) so soccer was cancelled. I went to a Southern Living At Home party and on Sunday Sunil went to a friend's birthday party. That was pretty much it. We did go look at some property that Sid is interested in buying down in Dallas. I'll tell you more about that if his bid is accepted.

The big drawback to the weekend is that I let myself get sucked into watching "Miss Congeniality 2" on TV last night. That's two hours of my life I will never get back and it didn't start until 10PM. That becomes more significant when Sunil's ear infection kicked in at 4AM. Sleep is overrated anyway.

The doctor's office opens in 45 minutes. We will be waiting on their doorstep. I wasn't feeling too badly about going in late until I found out that my boss is coming in late too (his dog was mauled by a coyote.) Our department is already running pretty light.

Casual Friday and Jasmine Tea

Two of my favorite things have come together again. Friday is the king of the work days not because we have an eye on the approaching weekend but because we get to wear jeans to work. I am so much happier when I'm wearing jeans. I don't spend as much time as I used to crawling around, on and under equipment but doing that in a dress was never fun. Clearing off my desk is less daunting when I wear jeans, meetings are more comfortable, cooperation is greater. In my opinion a manufacturing site that handles greater than 99% or our public interface over the phone shouldn't have to dress up ever. Of course, I can see from my view of the coffee station why, as a whole, our company can't be trusted to dress down. It's a shame. I'm just glad I don't have to wear some of those clothes.

I picked up a packet of Jasmine tea at the store last night. I get a lot of grocery shopping done while Sheela is at soccer practice. I love Jasmine tea and rarely think to buy it for myself. It's going to be a good day.

Hot Head

When Sunil gets sick you can feel it in his head first. He has a perfect coconut sized head and when freshly shaved down it just begs to have you rest your hands upon his head. This is why I discovered the fever burning up his head long before his body temperature actually came up. He's home today, the fever hit 102 F this morning (early). He's thrilled to get to play with Grandpa all day and when the Motrin has the fever pinned down he's pretty good company. I hope they have a good day. I'm hoping a fever spike in the early afternoon will get him to take a nap so that Grandpa and Grandma can get their nap in too. They are still trying to readjust to our time zone.

Beat Up

Its not often that I get beat up by work but today was one of those days. It actually started yesterday when we found out that I screwed up some international labeling over Christmas. I didn't realize that I was given only one of the two label artworks that I needed to do a job so I used it for both products. Opps! The FDA (and our European counterparts) hate labeling errors.

The reason that the error wasn't caught in-house is that I'm just too darned trust-worthy. Since it was my stuff it wasn't read as closely. That's rather a left-handed compliment but it certainly isn't making me feel any better.

In order to prevent this situation in the future I need to create a standard label (we were deviating from our norm) but the software I use has degraded to the point of insanity. It took me all day to create one of the four labels that I need and its still not as clean as it should be.

In discussion with the software technical support department I was notified that "yeah, that version was famous for these kinds of problems" and "its too old for us to even pretend to help you". "Please buy an upgrade and then we'll talk." An upgrade is typically $2K, today they want $6K. I have $0 in the budget for a software upgrade this year.

They released a brand new version (today) so its a two level upgrade. I can buy the one level but they will only support it for another 18 months (based on their track record that isn't long enough). I don't really want to be the first customer using a new release either, especially not in a manufacturing operation where all the labels print from that software and we just fired the only other person that really understood the program. No pressure.

Cousins

and here is a picture of Seema, Sheela, Sunil and Nita together.

Dhoti

Here is a picture of Sunil wearing his new (pre-wrapped) dhoti.

"Wow! What a weekend!"

Sorry, that's the title of a radio bit on our local station -- but it was a great weekend. Since the kids went home from school with friends and Sid had to do a wine tasting at the last minute, I managed to go to happy hour with some friends. I was too hungry to just drink margaritas so I went ahead and ordered a steak. It was wonderful be to be out.

We managed to gut and paint the closet and pick Sunil up before it got too late. The nieces stayed downtown with Sushama Friday night. Sid was already up before Sunil woke up on Saturday. So the two of them went to pick up Seema and Nita. Then they stopped at IHOP for breakfast. I slept until 9 AM (possibly the weekend highlight)!

Then Sunil and I started his next session of Kindermusik. About this time we figured out that he has pink eye. But its okay because Aunt Ban is a doctor. So she called in a scrip and he's better already (from his point of view). I took all of the kids to the park during Sheela's practice. The kids went to bed at a reasonable hour and the Sharma's plane was only a few hours late. I stayed up until midnight, just long enough to say "welcome home!"

Sheela and I went to her last soccer game of the season this morning. They went out on a high note. We won this one 7-0. Its not official until mid-day tomorrow but we finished 4th out of 5 teams.

The birthday celebration was lunch at Macaroni Grill followed by gift opening at the house and sleeping in front of football. Life is good.

I almost forgot, it started to rain early this morning and hasn't stopped yet. The ground is actually squishy. We really needed this.

In-laws in T-37 hours

Here is the game plan.

Today - Work all day. Go to the grocery store. Clear out the Sharma's closet. Take down all the shelves and supports. Touch up the paint. Go to Home Depot and buy two four foot shelves, a four foot rod, a two foot rod, one four foot header rail, three long support rails, two shelf supports, and six wall anchors. Go home. Hang header rail. Add support rails, rods and shelves. Rehang clothes. Empty drawer unit in my closet (all goodwill stuff). Move it downstairs into their closet.

Sid comes home from tonight's wine tasting. Liquid nail in quarter round trim along wood to tile transition step in family room. But tile to wood flat transition pieces and apply to trench. Find an HVAC guy to come identify and correct the leak in the mini-split unit and recharge the system so that we have temperature control.

Pick Sunil up from Travis' house. Cook and eat dinner. Set up guest room for Seema and Nita (due to arrive around 9PM).

Saturday morning - Pick up Sheela from Claire's house (B-day party overnight). Come home. Trade Sheela for Sunil. Take Sunil to Music class. Come back pick up Sheela, Seema and Nita. Take them all to Sheela's soccer practice (at least there is a really good playground) while Sid details the Taurus and finishes up any closet or familyroom work. Come home bake a birthday cake to be shared by Seema, Nita and Dr. Sharma. Cook dinner. By then Sushama should be back (she is spending the night downtown and going to a medical conference all day). Put the kids to bed. Sid goes to the airport to pick up his folks -- they wont be home until midnight.

Sunday morning - wake up early and take Sheela to her last soccer game of the Winter season. Go back to the house to welcome the Sharmas home. Have a birthday party and then see all the goodies from India. Somewhere in there I need to do some laundry and wrap some gifts.

Conflict resolved.....

I'm of two minds on the house cleaning issue. I think that it is very important for children to know that they have a direct impact on their environment. If they don't pick up after themselves they have chaos. If they clean/straighten as they go its easier to clean up later. They need to know how to clean a bathroom, a kitchen, a bedroom. It is a fundamental truth, "these things don't just magically take care of themselves." On the other hand, there are few things more wonderful than having these things magically take care of themselves. To that end, Yolanda is starting today. She will come and do magic at our house every other week. I've decided that the kids will have to clean twice as much on the off week to keep the lessons fresh in their minds. Hey, bonus for me.

Map of the US of A

Sunil has completed his map of the states. In typical Montessori fashion, each state was traced on to construction paper using a template. The shape is then "cut" out using s straight pin to punch holes around the perimeter until the shape drops free. The shape is then glued in the appropriate spot within the outline of the US which they have traced on to a large piece of paper. The individual state names are then cut out of a list and glued into their correct spots. Sunil can now identify more than 20 states without having to search for/read the names (he can also read the names). The finished product looks pretty sharp.

CogAT Results

The cognitive abilities test results are in.... drum roll please.... Sheela scored better than 99% of her classmates nationwide. I always knew that my child was brilliant (just like all good parents).

Later this week she will be taking the TPRI reading and comprehension test again. Its given three times a year. In the Fall she was pegged at a sixth grade reading level. I don't think that will change much.

Beer Bands available in more than one style.....

All beers are created equal, or so it seems when you're trying to find yours at a party. So just stretch BEER BANDS around your bottle or can and separate yourself from the pack! These stretchy, reusable, durable bands are packed twelve per pack perfect for pool parties or just lounging around the rumpus room. With four varieties to choose from and twelve sayings each, choose the one that says it best for YOU.

Bombed Etc - bombed, ripped, blitzed, tanked, loaded, wasted, polluted, pickled, wrecked, trashed, sauced, hammered

Designated Driver - driver, driver, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk

Personalities - anti-social, bed wetter, control freak, desperate, egomaniac, high maintenance, sex addict, slut, snob, tease, total bitch, wimp

Mine - mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine

Tulane University

Tulane is opening its doors today for the Spring semester. They had to pare down quite a bit but the core is still there. I wish them well.

Car Accidents

Last night another one of my friends was broadsided and flipped. The car is a total loss but she is fine. It was good that she was alone in the car a passenger would not have fared so well. I'm averaging about one friend a year. All of them have been fine (or are again now). That's a pretty good testament to engineering... oh and they were almost all hit by someone running a red light... which is a testament to stupidity and lack of attention.

On a related subject a truck ran a red light last night, hit the DART light rail forcing it off the track and injuring 15-20 people. Most of the injuries were minor. The accident was cleaned up and the track approved for use before the rush hour push this morning. This is not really a testament to much of anything it just caught me attention because we have so few light rail incidents that they rarely make the news. Different from streetcar accidents in New Orleans which were so common that they never made the news.

After Holidaze Bash

Saturday was Beckie and Lee's annual after-the-holidays holiday party. We were able to see many friends that we have been missing and had a great time. The "regift" gift exchange was a little more tame than in years gone by, but the hideous "fry-daddy" potato peeler was back for its seventh consecuetive year. It was the very last gift opened -- we thought the curse had been broken only to be surprised at the very end. We got rather lucky this year. Sid opened a package of chocolates combined with a talking flyswatter. The lure of the chocolate was enough to get someone to steal the whole set. He ended up with a six pack of Shiner Bock Beer and a set of 12 "beer bands". The bands resemble the "Livestrong" bracelets but are sized to fit a beer can or bottle and come in 12 not very attractive colors. Each one is emblazoned with a synonym for drunk: blitzed, bombed, smashed, hammered, etc. I ended up with a set of five makeup bags in a silver and black paisley print.

Breathing Treatments

Sunil went to the doctor after our sleepless Friday night. He started to wheeze around dawn. He took a breathing treatment at the doctor's office and we brought the nebulizer home again. We will keep it at least a month this time. The breathing trouble is what was causing the coughing (which in turn causes both the sore throat and the throwing up). I gave him one more treatment between music class and soccer practice. It perks him right up and gets him back to his normal playful self. He also has a five day course of steroids to help relax his airways. Its rare for kids to develop asthma after they turn four but he's not much past that milestone and its not impossible. We will see where it goes from here.

Bad start to a busy weekend.....

Once again I've over scheduled. After work on Friday I picked up both kids switched cars and took the Taurus in to drop it off at the shop. Sid worked late and then swung by to pick us up. We went to Red Lobster for dinner. Sid and I both had inferior steaks and excellent lobster dinners. Sheela and Sunil ordered chicken. Sheela ate hers. Sunil just looked at his.

By the time we left there Sunil was complaining of a stomach ache and a sore throat. Everyone's allergies are raging. In addition to our normal winter allergens we have all the smoke and debris in the air from the grass fires (and an increasing number of structure fires). By the time we got home he was coughing to hard to fall asleep. Medication helped a little bit (after he threw up) but by midnight he was back up to throw up (on Sid) in the guest room. He took a bath and went back to sleep. Its almost 6:00AM now. He's been back up since 2:00AM. Sid hasn't slept at all.

We are supposed to go to Kindermusik this morning. Sid has some landlord type duties to deal with today so I get both kids all day. Right after music class we go to Sheela's soccer practice where I've agreed to watch Travis. Then Claire and Travis are supposed to come back to our house for the afternoon. (Both of their parents got called in to work). Once we get them moved back out we are due at Beckie and Lee's annual After Holidaze Party. This is one of the few events where we get to see a large number of our friends and their kids all at the same time. We usually stay quite late and let the kids run amok.

Sunday Sheela has a soccer game after which we are due to spend the afternoon watching football with some other friends at their house. I haven't even worked in time for me to buy and install the closet organizer for the Sharmas... and they come home in just a week.

Somewhere along the line I need to find a time for Sunil, Sid and I to take a nap (or two or three). Or we may have to forgo some of my plans.

Multicultural Day

Today Anderson Elementary School is celebrating Multicultural Day. Typically the parents of the children in the classes come in and talk a little bit about their cultural heritage. Neither Sid or I are able to attend today and the Sharmas aren't back from India yet. Instead Sheela is taking a picture of her from her bharatnatyum recital a few years back. She is also takin gin a punjabi dress and all of her dance jewlery and bells to share with the class. In keeping with the theme she asked me to decorate her hands and feet again as we did for the recital. her is a picture of our "handi"work. This isn't the actual picture she is taking but it is the one I keep on my desk at work.

Annual review

I love review time. There are never really any surprises because my boss is very good at keeping me in the loop on stuff. I like filling out my self-evaluation. When else can you get away with describing yourself as "god-like"? Okay, I don't usually go that far but I've always enjoyed taking the time to figure out what I think that I do well and then getting the chance to harp on it. I enjoy the little pat's on the head for doing something well. The raise doesn't hurt but the positive feedback is what really keeps me motivated. This year the "pat" was that people made a specific point of telling my boss that they always wanted to work with me on projects. I just eat that up.

Number 6

I finally managed to get a picture of Sheela in her new uniform. The Winter season has only two more games to go. Then she has two weekend tournaments before starting the Spring season.

From Suduko to Kakuro

As Grammylyn has gotten nearly the entire family addicted to doing Suduko my Suduko book is frequently unavailable to me (Sunil will work the simpler puzzles but needs quite a bit of hand holding -- he can walk away from an unfinshed board with no qualms). So I succumbed to an impulse buy of a Kakuro book at the store. I'm moving Sheela over slowly to this new addiction in order to free up my Suduko book. With Kakuro you aren't working with a full 9x9 grid, but you are still restricted to using each digit only once in any given row or column. This time though the sum of the digits used must equal the numeric clue.

Drought

We ended 2005 more than a foot behind on our rainfall. Large portions of TX keep going up in flames. The freeways keep getting shut down due to grass fires along the edges (stupid smokers). The grass didn't just turn brown this winter -- it broke off right at the ground. Yesterday it felt like rain clouds building in the afternoon. We didn't get any actual precipitation but we woke up to a beautiful, cool fog. Here is a picture taken from the window of the car on my way to work. Hidden behind the fog are row upon row of closely packed homes.

Another sunny Saturday

We are definitely back into our normal groove. Sheela and I took Sunil to his Kindermusik class while Sid was off playing landlord. Then Sunil and I took Sheela to her soccer practice. As it's Saturday the practice was right around the corner next to the fabulous playground. I expected to spend the two hours chasing Sunil and the other younger siblings around the towers. However, as a special treat (for me) Sunil was whisked away with another parent to play at their house. All I had to do was drive Claire home and exchange her for Sunil after practice. I spent nearly the whole two hours walking around the perimeter of the park (down by the ponds and through the trees). I watched part of a cricket match and a very nifty dragon kite flying overhead. I watched a few model rocket launches and spent some time chatting with the other parents. All in all a good use of a beautiful afternoon. By the time we got back home Sushama and her girls had arrived. I took them all to our park to play just to get a few more hours in outside. I'll have to remember this day when we hit the Summer heat. Today Texas doesn't seem so bad.

The damage was minor....

but the scare was memorable. Sheela took a tumble off of Sunil's loft bed last night. Even though she swears that she wasn't leaning over the edge, I know differently. The only way to fall is to lean. She was blowing bubbles down on to Sunil. She thinks that she did a flip but she landed shoulder first so I don't think so. I'm sure it really hurt and I know that it scared her (me too). The screaming pretty well scared Sunil as well but it was mostly to call me to come up from downstairs. Its not broken, its not sprained, it didn't swell and its hardly bruised -- but she can still feel it.

Keeper Practice

Last night was the first time Sheela attended Super Blue's weekly Keeper practice. There were six girls there. It ranges from 2-12 any given week. There was one girl her age but she didn't know her and four girls older. It lasted about an hour and a half.

What a difference an hour makes.

Both the kids went to a friend's house for an hour last night. During that hour Sid and I cleaned, and cleaned and cleaned. The living room and dining room look wonderful! We can hardly walk up or down the stairs but that will be tonight's project. The kitchen is mostly cleared of clutter again but we didn't actually clean it yet. The kids helped me take down all of the Christmas stuff on Monday. Sid and Sheela wrestled it all up in to the attic yesterday. We got to put all of the furniture back and sweep and mop underneath all of the couches, tables and chairs. We are almost ready for the next round of family.

Back to the grind

Actually, I'm quite pleased to be back at work. I get a little bit antsy when I spend too many days in a row with the children if there isn't a specific activity taking up the bulk of our time. I didn't want to plan an actual event everyday during the break. I figure the kids need some unstructured time to let them direct themselves. Unfortunately, their usual direction either involves tormenting each other or tormenting me. It may not have been really that bad, but I'm still glad to be back at work.

The Off-season

Sheela's soccer off-season is getting to be pretty busy. It started out as two practices a week, then it was two practices and one game, they picked up a Saturday practice since some of the players weren't able to make it all the way to the practice field in the evenings. Now they are adding an extra practice for the keepers. We are now looking at five days of soccer each week.

Tox Box

Sheela tells me its a toy box but I know the difference between "X' and "y". She decorated a Tox Box. If you look closely you can see her legs tucked in to both of the boxes. She's reading "Black Beauty" (a Christmas gift).

So far in the book a pack of hunting dogs savaged a rabbit, one of the hunters fell off of his horse, broke his neck and died plus the horse broke his leg and had to be shot. Sheela seems to be enjoying it though its hard for me to remember why it is so good.

Happy New Year one and all!!

We spent a quiet night at home last night (after eating ourselves practically comatose at our favorite Seafood Buffet). Sheela stayed up until midnight with us, but we failed to see the ball drop. We missed it by a few seconds, twice, once for New York and once for us. There is always next year.