Pics from the first photo safari

When I first brought the camera home we went crusing around the neighborhood getting a feel for it. This was back when the sun would shine even on a weekend. Ah, the good ol' days.


Sunil immediately took possession of my old camera. Unfortunately even though it always says it's charging it never gets a full charge. I'll have to buy him a new battery.

Fort Worth Zoo Pics

This was my favorite shot of the day. I love the lions and am thrilled that Dallas will soon host a whole pride.



This was Sheela's best lion shot.



The rest of these are all Sheela's pictures - at least I'm pretty sure. She rarely let me have my camera back.



I love the expression on this guy.


It was a pretty quiet day at the zoo with rain keeping the crowds down but the new "Museum of Living Art" was packed. This is essentially the reptile house and it is gorgeous.


The coyotes and the ocelots are neighbors in the Wilds of Texas. You can't tell by looking at Mr. Relaxed here but there is apparently some tension between the two groups. If either moved fast the others would startle and run, which would make the first one startle and run.

Landscaping in Lewisville

Sheela and Hunter came with me to check out the landscaping progress at our new building.



They are standing close to "my" window.



This is the formal entrance.



This is the training suite.



This let's you see how big it really is... 150K sqft.



The sign facing the road.



The visitor's parking by the front entrance.


This is the view from the street as you first turn in. My cubical space will be on the first floor at the edge of the picture on the left.

Yucca

Sent from my iPhone

After the rain

Darn the rain

Sheela, Hunter and I are at the Fort Worth Zoo today in the rain. 
There really aren't many animals out but it is still beautiful. It 
could be worse; Sid and Sunil are camping and canoeing.

Sent from my iPhone

New courthouse

First time Ive been here-it's pretty

Spring Photos are here

AME Reunion

It was a pretty good group that showed up to celebrate their memories of American Medical Electronics coming from as far away as Africa.  The founder of the company now runs a missionary school in Ghana.  That’s him in the center of the picture next to me.  I’d never met him before but he was quite charming.  We also toasted the memories of the friends we’ve lost through the years and there were more of those than I liked including my former boss, Dr. Nama Doddi.  We drank a little, talked a lot, ate some barbeque, went for a hayride and fed the animals: Long horns, goats and sheep.  A very nice time indeed.

Texas country

I'm off to Celina, TX to a reunion for the company that hired me when I first moved to TX 15 years ago.  I still think I work there but really they were purchased and bunch of folks have gone on.

iPhone count down

My iPhone is due to be delivered on Monday - I'm pretty excited.

Progress

It's not carpet but at least the warehouse racking is looking good.

FYI

We still don’t have carpet in the new building.

Lunch

This is my "typical" Texas lunch - half a pound of chopped BBQ beef on a loaded baked potato.  This could feed me for three meals easily.

Eye Exam

Sheela went in for an eye exam today.  It's time for some new lenses and new frames.  The prescription changed and the frames broke. 

Now it's personal

The rain is starting to threat my move schedule.  If the rain doesn't stop the slab won't dry.  If the slab doesn't dry the carpet won't adhere.  If the carpet won't adhere the installers won't install it.  If the carpet isn't installed the city won't award the certificate of occupancy.  Without a CO we can't move in.

The carpet is almost three weeks behind now.  I have a two week window left to get it in before we have to move our date.

Spring

The last day of Winter was a beautiful 75 degrees; the first day of Spring was a miserable 35 degrees capped off with about six inches of snow.  Our weather has been whacked all year.  This makes our fourth real snow of the year.  Sheela was supposed to work a double shift at the zoo today but when she called to say she’d be late because the roads were bad and they were switching to the train they told her to stay home.  None of the animals will be out, there will be no visitors and the full time staff can handle the chores.  So she has a bonus day.

38 Days

We have only 38 working days left until THE move.  I am no where near ready and I don’t believe anyone else is either.  I can’t get myself ready because I’m still focused on other projects that didn’t get accomplished on time.  I’m officially working nights and weekends now playing catch up.  I’ve actually never been happier.  We will get this done and it all will get done on time.

 

Plans

I planned to de-gunk Sheela's room but it was much too pretty today.  We planted flowers, trimmed hedges, adjusted the spa chemistry and igured that was good enough.

We could plan on de-gunking tomorrow but it is supposed to be even prettier.  We may go to the driving range or the park instead.  We may just kill a whole day at the zoo.

15 years

Next week marks my 15^th anniversary at work.  In honor of this celebration I’ve chosen a gift.  Sid lobbied hard for a Coleman “Roadtrip” grill, while both kids wanted either the Hatteras hammock or the Daiwa Fly Fishing Pack but I held tough and got to make my own choice.  I’ll be receiving a Fuji “Finepix” digital camera with 12 MP, 18X optical zoom, 3” LCD screen, face detection technology and image stabilization – not to mention a luggage tag engraved with my name.  It will be 2-4 weeks before it arrives and then another week or two for me to plan my own award lunch.  In the meantime Sunil has already taken possession of my other camera.

 

Live Strong

I’m messing around with a Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong.com website to track my daily food consumption, weight, mood and exercise.  It has a 45 day free trial and I’m on approximately day five.  I mostly checked it out to find out how many calories are really in the sandwiches that they bring in for lunch here 2-4 times each week.  The busier we get at work the more likely they are to bribe us with food to keep us close which is not unappreciated by any means but the same old thing over and over again gets old not to mention we all just keep getting fatter.  SO I find that my favorite of the lunch sandwiches (Panera’s Roast Beef with Asiago Cheese) runs 710 calories and is half enough food to fill me up – sometimes I eat two, sometimes I eat a cup of the Broccoli Cheese soup (230 calories) and sometimes I go straight to the dessert platter (too many fabulous options to choose just one). 

 

I am rapidly becoming addicted to the site.  So far I haven’t changed many of habits (except for that second sandwich thing) but I’m getting a feel for what I need to change and what my better options could be.  Today I started to play around with the exercise “loops”.  I put in the route Sheela and I take on our evening walks and it calculated the distance and the elevation changes (this is Texas – I didn’t know we had elevation changes).  It’s fun.

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.

Taffy tart making

New Year's Day 2010

Was pretty much a non-event.  We slept late, watched a half dozen episodes of Mythbusters and napped.  We did end on a high note.  Sid's friend Mike has an interest in an authentic Chinese restaurant down in Garland.  Tonight was their grand opening (under their management) quite tasty.  Sunil's new favorite is won ton soup, Sheela's is chicken fried in cheese.  Now I'm saving seats for the late showing of Avatar in 3D while Sid drops the kids back out the house.

Life skills

Sunil learns to open my champagne for me.

The OLD climbing gang

Mack, Cindy and I took the kids rock climbing yesterday.  It was great in spite of advanced age, increased weight, and degenerated joints.  The kids didn't know how much better we used to be and we were too busy trying not to break to worry about it too much.  I should have some better pictures posted by the weekend.

science benchmark test

The following is an excerpt from an email Sunil’s teacher sent yesterday.

“I have good news. Sunil's grade on the science benchmark was originally reported as an 80, however, he actually scored a 95!  
The tests were scored by a scantron machine.  When I went back and graded them the "old-school" way, by hand, my grade was different from the computer score on a few students. I gave the information to our test administrator. She double checked and now the computer system reflects his actual score of 95.”

I was pleased enough with the 80 but this bump puts all three of his benchmarks (Science, Reading and Math) in the high 90s and as impressed as I am by this I’m even more impressed that his teacher double checks the computer.  I love this school district.

Christmas Shovel

Sunil is thrilled with his folding camp shovel.  Unfortunately his next camping trip is two months away.  In the meantime I've given him this small grassless plot to dig.  It was left grassless when we moved the basketball goal a few weeks back. 

Nostalgic moment

Sunil (and Sheela) are using the Tandy leather kits to make stuff this morning.

Not pretty but white

Merry, Texas Christmas (y'all)!

Sheela and I

Skated too.

Not falling

This is Sunil skating very well at the new community rink.  The skates are fabulous padded hockey uppers with figure skate blades.  Very comfy.

It's official

My new job title is "Business Process Improvement Manager".  I still report to the Director of Operations but also report to four of our five Presidents.  The 5th one stays in California.

Rib roast

Sunil learning to cut the rib roast on family cook night.

Great Day

I had a great day at work today.  I can't say much work got done but it was good.  We had two more "culture" meetings with the masses (only a few at a time).  I love hearing everyone's opinions about the company and their suggestions for making it better.  Then if that weren't enough of a feel good moment I agreed to "mentor" someone through their career decisions (presumably because I give such good advice).  I followed that up with a feedback session with one of my favorite managers.  She actually used tha phrase "walks on water" to describe me.  I'm pretty sure that went straight to my head.  She did promise me some constructive feedback on Monday.

Surprise Audit

Well a government inspector showed up at the office today for a surprise audit of some of our processes.  She actually didn’t expect to perform an audit as her records didn’t show that we performed those processes even though her scheduler told her that we did.  We do and she did.  There was only one tense moment and it was mostly tense because she couldn’t decide if she wrap up for the day and come back tomorrow or if we should work late and get it finished.  The draw back to her working late would be that we’d all have to work late and I had to pick up the kids. It made for a very long but very successful day.  We wrapped it up and I beat the pick up deadline by almost 6 minutes.

Sheela's birthday dinner

The “official” dinner was held at Macaroni Grill this year.

Stunning Lake Walmart

For a few minutes every morning parking across the street in the Walmart parking lot is not too bad.

Found

One pair of black boots... If they're yours please contact me so I can make the appropriate arrangements.

Greece

Sheela is making a topographical map of Greece.  The base is a 15" ceramic tile spray painted blue.  She projected the image on and traced the important parts.  Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania are all painted green.  Greece is white.  Here she is adding texture with a spray can of latex caulk.  We spent days mulling over ways to glue on her clay mountains before deciding to try the caulk.  She likes the caulk so much she isn't even going to use the clay.

I molded mine

Grammylyn's turn