Flies

I killed eleven flies this weekend, all in the house. Little fly-bags.

Tire Swing

Wow. What a difference a tire swing makes. I'd like to take all the credit. However, whilst running to the garage to pick up a tape measure I handed my beautiful wife the rope that was hanging the tire swing in mid-air. I wanted to get a few measurements before cutting the rope and the chains.

I arrived back to see a perfect slip knot (no, not the band you punk losers) tied to the lawn chair my wife was using.

"How did you do that?" I asked incredulously. Everything with knots escapes me. I'm a pre-boy scout, pre anything useful. I've watched Terry tie a few, and it's completely over my head.

"What?" my wife asked indignantly, "I know how to tie a slip knot," answering my question as if I knew the answer. I admitted my ignorance immediately. My wife showed me how to tie the slipknot and while I still stared with complete bewilderment in my face, she said, "Let me climb the ladder, I can tie the rope off."

Whew, I thought. The design for this tire swing is different than the grandparent's. I think with this one we should be able to get all three kids in at the same time, although I'm not sure about the branch. The equipment from the hardware store will sustain 420 lbs at it's weakest point (that's the S-Hook the three chains connect).

New Compuer. w00t!

The Dell desktop was taking forever to do anything. I'd been having problems running applications on it for a while. I think it could use more memory and a rebuild, probably an upgrade to Windows 7 would have been good, too.

Instead of doing all that I decided I needed to get a new computer, along with a new monitor, and a much needed new router. The old router was years old, ancient by computer standards, I couldn't do WPA, and I blamed it for all my devices being slow. Now I can walk anywhere in the house with an iPod touch or Nintendo DSI, let alone a laptop, and the performance is great. Plus, I don't have to type in some useless WEP key that can easily be deduced on local traffic observations.

I'm going to rebuild the old systems with Linux and build a squid proxy server. The girls are getting pretty Internet savvy. They're using the laptops to go most places.

I've been geeking out all day moving the stuff from my "legacy" computer, to the new computer.

Another Movie Story

The girls invited friends and we all went to see a movie. We got the girls kid's packs that include Skittles, popcorn, and a coke. Lauren, Madeline's friend, brought her own money and bought a big, huge pack of candy. The movie wasn't keeping the attention of the girls and those movies rarely keep Jack's attention at all. He was wandering up and down the aisles, I had to grab him a couple times. The girls were talking very loud and I had to scold them to be quiet so the other family in the cinema could hear.

Jack was going back and forth to Lauren who still had some candy left over after everyone had finished her/his kid's pack. He was totally riding on a sugar high and marched up and down the aisles. He sat down on steps near where I was sitting and was actually calm. He handed me what I thought was a green skittle and said "Thank you," and put it in my mouth.

Chocolate. It wasn't a Skittle! I was tasting Chocolate and Jack had been combing the floor. "Who knows what he picked up off he floor?", I thought. I spat it out, and started to scrape my tongue. I leaned in to my wife, "Jack just handed me an M&M that he picked up off the floor," I told her. She replied, "Oh, no, Lauren bought some M&M's." I was so relieved.

band hero's

We got band hero last weekend. Terra's in love with it, she's really good on the drums. I'm terrible with the drums. I can't figure out how to use my hands on the drum and cymbals and by foot on the bass drum at the same time.

Movie Weekend

Madeline went to camp with girl scouts this last weekend. Terra stayed home. She gave Madeline a giant hug when Madeline came back home Sunday evening, "Madeline! Don't ever leave again!"

We went to see the movie "How to train your dragon." Terra invited a couple friends to go (Madeline went to see it Friday night with another friend of hers). Jack was restless. He was moving throughout the picture, but when a spot showed that caught his interest he would stop his wandering and look up at the screen. Then he caught the bucket of popcorn of the gentleman in front of us. Jack reached over, Mom stopped him. "Jack, sshh. Watch the movie. Sorry, sir."

Jack saw his moment later. He reached for the bucket, lifted it off the seat in front of him, then over the seat, and SPLASH. The popcorn landed everywhere. I had to go get another bucket of popcorn for the guy, and Mom's purse was filled with it.

Jack is standing in front of me now with his shirt off, holding a book. "Read book, Daddy."

"No, Jack, we've read that book three times already."

I don't think it's wrong to say, "No," even if it's a book. Whoever bought him the "Cars" (the movie) books for Christmas is EVIL. I've read those books a million time, and that was last Saturday.

Sick, Sick, Sick

zomg, everyone has been sick this Winter, it's been awful.

Misty and I were both sick, terribly sick, in the middle of January. Terra was sick the end of January, went to the doctor's office, and ended up missing school. Madeline wasn't feeling well that same weekend and had strep throat the next week. She was throwing up and missed almost a week of school. I was away in San Diego on a business trip, where I thought I was going to enjoy the warm client, away from a sick family, and I got sick -- again. Misty had almost the same thing I had, so I'm guessing we both got it from Terra. Then last week, Misty came up with a cold, aching sinus-like infection, and I fought through the same thing a few days later.

No more sick. This weekend has been nice and we spent as much as we could outside. I could still feel the sun on my face yesterday evening, I pushed Jack in a swing on a treeless school playground for almost an hour. That child loves the swing.