We got our annual inch or so of snow last night. Alex got up at 2:00 to see it….his birthday party is today (he turns TEN tomorrow, how cool is that?). Anyway, it’s supposed to sleet/freezing rain all day, so I’m just going to stay inside all day and watch it. Playing in the sleet is no fun.
All of my yankee friends are talking about how this is nothing, but I like this better than northern snow, mainly because it will all melt in a couple of days.
As frequent readers (Hi Mom!) of my blog know, my kids have a habit of throwing up on me. I was hoping that as they grew older, this would stop happening. As kids age the stuff they spew out of their mouth goes from a couple ounces of fairly innocuous spit-up to liters and liters of PUKE. Christmastime has traditionally been a time where my kids take an opportunity to throw up on me, but this year I have avoided it.
Until today….
Jake won the 2010 award for “first person to throw up on Daddy”, when he got me this morning. We had been at my mom and dad’s for New Year’s Eve, and my mom helpfully washed my sheets, which Jake got all dirty again. Now, I have to go over to Jenny’s house and wash them before Jenny gets home from her trip to Missouri. That sounds like fun.
He doesn’t seem to have any other symptoms, but we’re watching Mythbusters now while everyone else still sleeps and he doesn’t seem to feel any better. Poor Jake.
(The picture above is from a couple of days ago, when Jake lost a tooth. He looks like a vagrant.)
This year, like last year, Eric and Alex entered Munching In Marvin, a cooking contest that one of the towns near here holds every year. Last year, Eric came in 2d place with his chill, and Alex got honorable mention. This year, Alex came in third, with his peanut butter pie, and Eric got honorable mention for his 3 bean chili.
While I like both dishes, they’ve been working for a couple of months, perfecting the recipes, so I’m kind of tired of them now. They both had a great time, and Jennifer and her mom had a good time helping them out. They entered too, and WON their category, which is surprising, because they were against the fire department, who I figured would get the prize just for showing up with 20 people.
Eric went with the cowboy theme with his chili. It was really good, to the point where I saw people walk away with their sample, and then turn around and come back after they tasted it to tell him how good it was.
Alex was very nervous about his entry, because he spent a lot of time getting it right. He was so happy to win 3d place too; there were about 20 contestants.
The website hasn’t been updated with this year’s information yet, but it probably will be soon. I wonder what they’ll make for next year.
Yesterday afternoon Jennifer called me and said that the school called about Eric: he was sick. So I went and picked him up, and he DID look a little peaked, so I gave him a Motrin and let him chill out for the afternoon in front of the TV. He seemed OK last night.
This morning, Jake decided that HE was sick, and he felt a bit warm to me, so I let him stay home. He was offended though, because I wont let him watch TV until after school. If he ACTED sicker, I probably would let him, but he seems kind of normal acting to me. I probably should make him go to school, but it’s kind of nice that he wants to hang out with me; it wont be long until he’s too cool to be seen with his dad. I kind of dread that phase.
Doesn’t he look sick?
I think halloween is second only to Christmas in my kid’s pantheon of holidays. I mean, FREE CANDY…you can’t really beat that. This year, Eric was a whoopie cushion:
Alex was a Zombie (at least I THINK that’s what it is)
Jake was a soldier (or a hunter)
And Izzy was, of course, a princess:
We trick or treated for a long time, and Jake probably made the best haul. He doesn’t really like candy all that much though, so he was really good about sharing his haul with everyone else (except Alex, with whom he has a love/hate relationship. Mostly hate)
My great grandfather got off the boat from Finland, and went to Corning, New York, to make a new life. A couple of years later, he went back to Finland to get married, and he came home a year or so later with my great-grandmother and infant grandfather in tow. The great thing about having a messed up last name is that it’s really easy to track where the family has been over the years.
Ellis Island Records is cool. You can see Matti Loytty’s passenger record, it shows that he was from Kymi, Finland, was 24 years old, and came over on a ship called the Teutonic. and arrived in the US 100 years ago today, October 28, 1909.
Have I mentioned that Eric is very smart? He’s brilliant. He reads everything he can get his hands on, has a really quick mind, and a very dry sense of humor. He’s also kind of unorganized.
Yesterday, he brought his report card home: Math, A. Science, A. Spanish, A. Language Arts, B (lack of organization got him there….the B is actually an improvement, a few weeks ago, his average was 4. FOUR. Out of A HUNDRED. Next grading period, that will be an A). Finally, he got a D in gym. GYM. I lost the stern “you got a D, so you’re going to get a talking to” face and laughed. Apparently, you get graded down when your uniform isn’t cleaned. We wash it whenever he brings it home, but he seems to lose things. He gets that from his mother.
I switched teams at work recently (they reorganize often…it gives them something to do). Yesterday was my first team meeting, so I got there early, brought something to take notes with, and settled in, ready to be bored out of my mind.
The first order of business was them giving me my 10 year service award. I had actually forgotten about it, because since I’ve worked at Microsoft twice, they adjust my “official” start date to something other than when I really started, to make the calculations correct. In the 10 years I’ve been at Microsoft, I’ve had:
- 3 Jobs (VB6 Support Engineer, Solution Integration Engineer, and Application Development Consultant)
- 9 Managers (Max, Garrett, Cheryl, Karla, Tony, Maxine, Jim, Tom and now Mike)
- About 50 computers running about 15 or 20 different operating systems (from Windows 3.1 through Windows 7, but also Macs, OS/2 and even an AS400).
- Probably 15 or 20 offices and cubicles (over three buildings)
- Countless trips to various places, both cool (Seattle, Washington DC, Bangalore, London) and not cool (Richmond, Boston, Philadelphia).
- Met lots of fun people, played with some cool technology, and am still having fun. It’s really great to be able to have your hobby and your job be the same thing, I’m a very lucky man.
I wonder if I’ll be here in 10 more years? There’s a lot to be said about moving on after a while, but I’m still having a good time and working with great people, so I’ll stick for a while, I guess.
Look, they gave me a glass statue:
It weighs about 10 pounds and is real glass, with my name on it and everything. Its nice, but they used to give out 10 shares of stock on your tenth anniversary. I could spend that. But this will be useful in case I need to break a toe or something.
Look for my 20 year anniversary post in 2019. See you then 
.
One of the great things about working from home is that Izzy and I can spend some time together. Sometimes, she can entertain herself, which is good…but she can get herself into mischief if she gets half a chance. Last Wednesday, she found a set of scissors, and gave herself an impromptu haircut. Then, she rolled around in something and got her hair in a big knot, and I had to cut it out.
Her mother took her to the barber and tried to get it all fixed up, and of course, she looks beautiful. I feel sorry for all of the other kids, because they all look like old shoes compared to Izzy.
Tuesday was the first day of school in Union County. Eric started 6th grade at the (brand new) Cuthbertson Middle School, and Jake and Alex are now in 1st and 4th grades at Kensington Elementary. For some reason, I was a lot happier about it than they were.
Eric is really smart, I have no idea why they make him go to the “Slow Children” bus stop.
Jake and Alex still have to go to the bus stop very early. They don’t like it.
And Izzy always likes to go to the bus stop with Eric, if she can. She just adores him, its really fun to watch.
|
