A Warning

Don't feed Soren cake after... say... midday. He had some bites of my cake (no frosting bites, mind you) and he's completely off his rocker. Also, I ran home from the train station again. It was nice, but I got caught at two lights, so it seems sort of less awesome.

Chilly Morning

A wee bit chilly this morning.

Treed

Obtained a nice looking tree. It is now mounted in its stand and chilling on the balcony. We'll light that sucker up tomorrow. Such nice smells, the various fir tree aromas.

Unusual

It's not yet 6:30pm, here, and my entire family is asleep. Up to and including cats. Susan and Eleri had a rough night with El's coughing and waking up (I'm a bad man, taking advantage of the extra bed in Soren's room, on a school night) throughout. Soren is also sickly. So I sent Susan for a nap, then lulled Soren to sleep singing Christmas carols with youtube, and conked Eleri out thereafter. No explanation necessary for the cats, I trust.

Fugazi vs. Destiny's Child "Independent Room"

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvhTjiOHP0g&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Fun Times

Set free early, today! I used part of my early release to go swimming. I did 1000 yards, all at once. Whew.

Nearly Enough to Make One Cry

This slide show from Foreign Policy depicts Kabul in the 50s. They went dramatically backwards in time after that, with all the horror and deprivation that entails.

Pessimism

From wikipedia (though the source is US Census data). The lowest annualized growth rate there was the median percentile (though the 10th, 20th, and 50th percentiles all grew more slowly than the 80th, 90th, and 95th percentiles.

Strange

We moved office again, to a different suite in the same building. One of the folks in the office (who usually gets in at 0630) was, when I arrived (and still is), power-sanding a small table.

Exercised

I ran home a bunch of days while we were working our little civil servasses off. It is only a mile and a half, but there's about 150 feet of climbing involved. A couple of hills. Tiring.

I also managed to sneak a swim on a Saturday. I did 800 yards, all without stopping (the lifeguard was about to go on break, so I figured I had to wrap it up quickly).

Of course I now have a cold. Not loving it. Little germ-riddled monkeys gave it to me.

The Handball on the Goalline not Enough, Suarez?

Wow--apparently he bit a dude in a recent match.

Navigation is Never a Problem with a GPS Unit, Right?

Well. Not exactly. More about that later.

We drove out to a place called The Applehouse, a restaurant in Linden, about 65 miles away. We met our friend Alice for lunch. The Applehouse was chosen because they make sparkling cider (and donuts, which is apparently a thing with cider mills) and have a BBQ smoker and what looked like a super tasty, super reasonable, menu. Alice wanted to get some locally-made sparkling cider for a cool "themed" Thanksgiving celebration her cousin is hosting. So we drove out there.

Lunch was every bit as delicious as I'd hoped. The donuts were very tasty as well. After, it being a beautiful day, we thought we might hit a park to let Soren run off some of his energy. Consulting the GPS, we saw a likely candidate and started off on the way.

This was the point at which things got silly with the GPS. There was a sign showing freeway access nearby, off to the left. The GPS said to go right. That still looked okay, because the frontage road and freeway ran parallel, and the GPS map showed an on-ramp off to the right. We followed the GPS, and drove past what might have been the on-ramp during the Eisenhower era.

So the route we took was... somewhat circuitous. We drove 10 miles to reach a park located less than 3 miles away. Through the little town of Front Royal. Eventually along a one-lane road sharing both traffic directions (via a timed traffic light). Into a strange residential area. Past some dilapidated, kudzu swallowed, old houses. In the middle of nowhere, with nothing at all to indicate the presence of a park, the GPS chimed in "arriving at Owl Park on the right." Yeah. No. No dice at all. Alice and Susan and I laughed about our quality scenic drive to the non-existent park, and decided to head out (us to our home, Alice to hers).

Again following the GPS (because why not, right? In for a penny...), we head back. This time we apparently took the short portion of the long circle and... ran into a park. About a mile away from the Applehouse. We pulled in and played with Soren for a while. A fine time was had by all. After all that trouble.

It was a fun day, nevertheless. Always nice to hang with Alice, and it was really lovely out in the VA countryside.

Big Yawns

I'm sleepy this morning. Soren's little vaccine reaction made him a whimpery, squiggly lad who wouldn't fall asleep in his bed alone or with me in the spare bed. Finally brought him into our room and snuggles with his mother did the trick. Still, he was not well settled, which ate into my sleep.

Mom, Dad, you have my deepest apologies for the whole Night Terrors thing.

Fun Movie Line

Lloyd: I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.

Does "data" count?

Game

Played some indoor soccer today. Team had only one woman, who had to play the whole game. Fortunately she's very skilled and healthy. But as a consequence of having just one woman, we had to play down a man. So we rotated subs in regularly and eventually figured out a working strategy. By that time (halftime) we were down 8-3. Implementing our improved strategy worked! We won the second half 8-1, taking the game 11-9. I didn't do awesome, but at least okay. No injury, so I can't complain too much.

Another Adventure

A bit after 2 a.m., Soren came running into our room last night, hoping to climb into our bed and sleep between us (because he loves to do that, and does more nights than not). It seems (I say this because we really haven't done the forensics necessary to tell exactly what happened) that he tripped and fell and whacked the bejeezus out of his forehead on the bed frame. A loud "THUMP!" followed by crying and confusion.

Susan pulled him up onto the bed to try and calm him, but after a scant few moments noticed either that there was too much fluid for it to just be tears, or she felt the big gash on his head, and carried him to the kitchen to discover it. Cue application of cold pack, and direct pressure for the bleeding. Baby Motrin for swelling and pain. "Gee that's pretty deep, I think he might need stitches." "Let me see. Yep."

So Soren and I, he now with cleverly dressed wound and I with sandy-and still probably wild-eyes, drove down to the nearby Emergency Room for some stitches and accusing glares (respectively).

Just kidding, nobody thought I'd beaten him. Far as I could tell.

He was a pretty good trooper through it all, though he did not like being wrapped in a sheet and strapped to a child-sized spineboard for restraint. And nobody likes stitches. It took 5, I think, though I wasn't counting that so much as trying to comfort him and hold his gaze. We checked out, drove home, and were sitting in bed by 4. Weirdly, the parking space I vacated at 2:20 a.m. was taken when we got back.

So, how was your night?

Persistent

I stil--STILL--cannot believe California ever elected Arnold Schwarzenegger. Baffling.

Something You Don't Want to See (On Your Calendar)

Meeting scheduled: $XYZW-UTC (UTC means until completion in this context). Going to be another marathon meeting from 1:30pm until we finish everydamn thing.

Yikes

Running home stinks. I forgot how much steeper things are when running.

Work

Have something special going on at work which is necessitating early mornings, evenings, and working nights at home. So I'm busy. And already so tired. Boo! I did manage to vote this morning, so hopefully $MyCandidates will win. Unfortunately this work will really cut into my exercise time, so I'm planning on running home from the metro station for as many evenings as possible. Wish me luck (and wish me no side-stitches--always a danger in brisk weather).