Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

Big day of testing for The Madster and 'Nika. We had to get them up early (for a Saturday) to get to Minnehaha Academy for an entrance exam. Yes, it has come to this. TOYH and I are fully supportive of Public Schools, but when our children are involved in the dismantling of a very good middle school program, we need to draw the line. Our frustration with the administration of MPS knows no bounds, and to be perfectly honest we're getting bitter. In some respects, I'd like to just stick the kids in a private school like Minnehaha to "punish" Minneapolis Public Schools. When kids don't enroll in the schools, the schools don't get reimbursement from the state. This is what is happening on the North side of the City. People are pulling their children from public schools and either sticking them in charter schools, private schools or sending them outside the district to another public school. All this flight from the district is precipitating a budget crisis in MPS, and their reaction, it seems, is to wreck a very fine middle school program at Emerson. I just can't get over the stupidity of the administration. If you have a strong program, you keep it, even build upon it. You don't rip it apart. All that being said, I'm not really, truly wanting the kids to go to Minnehaha. It's a fine school, but I'm not sure I want the kids there. I guess I'd rather have them mix it up with the hoi polloi of MPS than the slightly more exclusive M.A. M.A. is our "safety" school, meaning if our other options are unacceptable, the kids would be able to start there in the fall if need be. What are the other options? Seward Montessori, Field K-8, or staying at Emerson. All three are MPS schools. Entrance in to Seward or Field is by lottery, since they are not our "area" schools. That's actually how we started at Emerson. When we registered KyKy for kindergarden 10 years ago we put her in the Emerson lottery and won. Siblings get automatic preference, so the younger two followed her there. We're crossing our fingers for Seward.

The other test the two kids took was for the next level in Karate. They didn't move up a whole belt to purple from green, but they took the intermediate step to get to their purple belts. They passed the test. They are piling up mad skilz in this Karate thing.

TOYH received her official RN license to hang on the wall along with wallet sized portable license. I offered to punch two holes in the big one and put a string through them so she could wear it around her neck for everyone to see. She declined.

Is This Finally Coming To Pass?

TOYH (RN) starts training at her new job on February 1st. She had been playing phone tag with the director of nursing at People Inc this week, and because it was phone tag and not an actual conversation, there was a question as to whether she would have a job at all. Wednesday night while I was at Book Club, TOYH texted me after listening to her phone messages. The message from People Inc made it sound like she wouldn't be able to start until March or April and there may be no full time employment for quite a while. Major depression. TOYH called them back on Thursday, left a message (of course), and later that day she got a message (naturally) saying that she could start soon, just not full time. All this miscommunication has been a bit nerve wracking. People Inc thought that TOYH wanted full time work right away, but they didn't have the budget for that now. They didn't know that TOYH wanted to start ASAP, full time or part time. TOYH heard the messages during this little saga and assumed the worst, specifically that she couldn't start work for a few months. She finally had a real live phone conversation with the Director of Nursing today and was told to report next Friday. Major relief.

I think part of the problem with this game of phone tag has been TOYH's cell phone. A few months back it was stolen from her desk at the Massage Parlour. She found it later after it had been dropped down the stairs in the building. It hasn't been the same since and it has been acting really funny lately. It powers down, resets itself and then powers back up multiple times a day. TOYH could very well have missed phone calls because the thing was on the fritz. She brought it into Verizon this week to replace it. You have to understand that this thing is a Palm Pilot and email device besides being a phone. Cost to replace: $400.00. But...it turns out that in 7 days our 20 month contract runs out and she can get a new one for half that price. Must....hold.... on.... must....delay....instant.....gratification. So if you're trying to reach her by phone for the next week or so, don't be disappointed if she doesn't get back to you right away. Blame it on the phone. I know she will. I'd really like to get iPhones, but I don't want to switch to AT&T's crappy service.

In the near term, particularly while she's working part time at People Inc, TOYH will continue to rub nekkid people at the Massage Parlour. It looks like our friend Jess will eventually take over the Massage Parlour space and TOYH will be able to rent back a few hours a week as needed. The best part of this change in employment(besides the money) - no more Saturdays. If I were to guess, I would say that between work and two schools (Aveda and St Kates) TOYH has had around 20 Saturdays off since 2002. This job at People Inc is M-F, days. Whew.

You Can Thank Me

I feel that I can take most of the responsibility for this. I can't figure out why they did not interview me, it would have answered a lot of their questions.

If You Could Stop Whining For A Moment

TOYH passed her boards. Was there ever any doubt? She is now certifiable, errr certified.

You may resume whining.

And The Whining Will Commence In 3.....2.....1......

It snowed about half an inch yesterday. Just enough so that when the plows went up and down Park and Portland Avenues they left a pile of crud in the bike lanes. When I drove to work today I passed a couple of bikers and they had to take the lane of traffic because the bike lane was impassable. In other weather related news, it was -4 when I took the kids to the bus stop (which they missed because they were monkeying around instead of getting ready). I'm getting tired of the cold, mostly because of the static electricity in the office. Every time I touch the metal part of my desk after getting up and walking around, I get a shock. Speaking of the cold, or rather colds, I've picked up this extremely annoying head/chest cold. It's like this half cold. Sinuses are partially plugged but not draining. Chest is congested but not enough to cause me to cough a lot. I'd rather have a full on, miserable, knock you off your feet cold for just a couple of days than this middling little nuisance that has lasted for nearly a week now. TOYH is haggling with an Insurance Company over services rendered at the Massage Parlour. Lessee, what else? Oh yeah, I'm tired of being poor.

Feel free to add your own grievances in the comment section.

Can We Actually Relax Now?

Yesterday 'Nika and I finally escaped from Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters at about 3:30. I had told KyKy that I would take her to the downtown library so she would be able to pick up some materials for a school project. (Just as an aside, The Minneapolis Public Library exists no more after 122 years. It appears the past few years (decades?) of mismanagement or lack of funding left no alternative but to merge MPL with the Hennepin County system. Nothing against the HC system, in fact their rescue of MPL has increased hours at libraries and opened branches that were previously shuttered. It's just that the Minneapolis Public Library system was a point of civic pride for me. For a relatively small city population wise, it was a great system. But no more.) The whole family ended up going. We piled in the car and drove to the Lake St train platform, took the Hiawatha downtown to the shiny new Cesar Pelli designed library. I've taken the girls down there a number of times, but TOYH had never been there. We split up to find some things to bring home, met up again, took the train back to the car and ended up going to Matt's Bar for Jucy Lucys. TOYH ended up checking out a bunch of videos to celebrate her liberation from studying. After nearly 3 1/2 years of that nagging feeling of, "I can't enjoy anything because there's always some studying I could be doing instead of what I'm doing now," she's free to do what she wants. That means vegging out in front of the teevee. It's a fine weekend for doing just that. The temperature dropped below zero at about 5pm yesterday, and it might stay there until sometime on Monday.

It Is Finished

Just got off the phone with TOYH. She finished the test at 9:40. 75 questions. 75 is the minimum number of questions you can answer, I think 200 is the maximum. The test is taken on a computer and it rates your competence in certain categories as the test goes along. If know your stuff the computer will shut off after 75 questions because it figures you've answered enough questions correctly and what's the point of wasting any more time. Conversely, if you really don't know your stuff and you're bombing, the computer will shut off at 75 questions because what's the point of wasting time if you're such a moron? So what do you think? Pass or fail? Discuss.

Update

TOYH started the test at 8am. 'Nika has strep throat and is at work with me. The Madster just texted me saying she's not feeling good. Jon is on a field trip with his daughter. Temp is 1F windchill is -19F. Coffee is hot. Pandora is pretty cool. Stay tuned.

'Nika Sick, TOYH Stressed, Laser Printer Out Of Toner

That pretty much describes our household at the moment. I'm hoping that it means I get to leave work early today. Yesterday I was supposed to leave work a bit early so as to get 'Nika and The Madster to karate, but through the incompetence of DHL, I ended up leaving work late and the kids missed out on beating on each other. This was probably a good thing because when I finally made it home from work, 'Nika said she had a sore throat. I made her skip church youth group too. By the time I got home from dropping The Madster off at youth group, 'Nika was a bit weepy and looking peaked. We watched a bit of TV together, I gave her some Tylenol, and I sent her off to bed. TOYH came home from the Massage Parlour, and I went off to Book Club. I got to bed at about 1am and have vague recollections of 'Nika coming into our room last night. Turns out she got TOYH up. The poor kid was feverish, sore throated and body ache-ish. No school for you. Unfortunately, this was the day that TOYH was going to do absolutely nothing in preparation for the big test tomorrow. (Remember the NCLEX and all the encouraging notes you are sending her?) Studying is done. It was to be a kick back, run a few errands, take a long bath, clear your mind kind of day. 'Nika being home doesn't completely wreck her plans, but it does alter them. This is why I'm wanting to get home early, good husband, father etc., etc. etc.

On a completely unrelated note, two of my Book Club friends have been talking up Pandora internet radio. Without getting into the details, you simply log on to the site, plug in some artists or songs and the service starts playing songs on the "radio" that some computer algorithm thinks you might like. So far, I'm reserving judgement. I guess the algorithms do work pretty well because Pandora has been playing a bunch of artists that are on my iPod, but were not given to Pandora as my own musical preferences. I should say I was nearly immediately won over with the first song they played for me. I simply entered Tom Waits and Pandora started playing "Chocolate Jesus" one of my all time faves. You can rate the songs that the service plays for you, so maybe that starts to shape the playlist that is generated for you. Anyone else using this? Jen? Francis?

Oh, and the printer is out of toner at home, and it seems like everyone has a project due this week.

At Least The Days Are Getting Longer

That's what I tell myself. It was -4F this morning at the school bus stop. We get a bit of a respite, then back into the deep freeze starting Thursday night. Saturday morning the weather geeks are saying it could be -13F and cold temps could stick around for 7-10 days. Sigh. On the whole, I'll take cold weather over hot and humid weather. (Here's a tip for you. When it gets cold, wear more clothes.) The problem with both the extremes of hot and cold is that it limits my biking. I've gotten to the point where I can manage about 10F on my bike for an hour at a time. My feet get cold, but the rest of me is fine. When it gets colder, my feet are uncomfortably painful, and I get the old ice cream headaches. When I'm not biking, I find the cold weather rather invigorating, if the wind isn't blowing hard. Then all bets are off. It was actually pleasant this morning at the bus stop with the kids. For the next week or however long the cold snap lasts, I'll be spending quality time in the basement with my trainer bike. Ick.

TOYH's interview yesterday went very, very well. It looks promising. She's excited about the work she'd be doing, and the company seems like a good outfit. They are one of the few, perhaps the only home health agency in the metro that deals with their clients' mental health and medical problems not strictly defined as mental health issues. It drives insurers nuts. They want visits to be limited to medical or mental health. (Note to self: another reason to despise the insurance industry - mental health is not considered a medical condition.) There is also a great deal of autonomy for the nurses. They schedule their own appointments with clients and management isn't looking over the nurses' shoulders all the time. No weekends, no holidays, unless you want to carry a pager and be on call those days. A full time appointment would not be available until sometime in March, but she would be able to start part time soon. A formal offer has not been extended, but the Director of Nursing said that TOYH would be a perfect fit for them.

When TOYH moves into full time work, we are left with the issue of the Massage Parlour. It doesn't make any economic sense to keep it open, although she'd like to be able to keep working with a couple of her long time clients. I suppose she could do it if she wants to net about a buck fifty an hour after all her expenses are paid. Enter the serendipitous phone call. A friend of TOYH's who is a massage therapist/personal trainer asked about the space. She's interested in working on her own and needs a place to set up shop. This would be perfect. If TOYH has the time and energy (that's a big if) to do a massage here and there, she can just rent the space for an hour or two from Jess and everyone would be happy.

Now if we could get Madster and 'Nika's school placement to fall into place like TOYH's work situation seems to be, life would be a lot less stressful, I think. We went to the Mpls school placement fair on Saturday to talk with folks from other schools. We added one possibility and subtracted another one from our list of potential schools. Whatever we decide, we're really going to have to work the system hard to get them moved. The district discourages moving around, for good reason. But we think we've got better reasons for moving the kids to a different school. We'll see what happens.

Big Week Coming Up For TOYH!!!

Monday she has a job interview, and this could be promising. It's an organization called People Inc. The have their hands in a lot of things, but what we're hoping for is a visiting nurse type job. TOYH has a former colleague from ACR Homes, Christy, who works at People Inc as a nurse and is always telling TOYH how much she loves her job. People Inc was very impressed with Christy's experience at ACR and they sounded very interested in hiring another former ACR employee. As well they should be. TOYH would be an outstanding employee. She probably won't be getting into the work that she'd really like to be doing, namely working with at risk teens and young mothers. But hey, it's a start and it's in community nursing, rather than being a wage monkey on a hospital floor. (Not that there's anything wrong with being a wage monkey. I've done it for years. If you know TOYH, you'd understand that shift work is not her thang.)

Friday is the dreaded NCLEX, or national nursing boards. Every pre-test she's taken has indicated that she'll pass just fine, but she's sure that it will be awful and she won't do well. Sigh. I guess it's just more of the expect-the-worst-and-when-the-worst-doesn't-happen-you'll-be-pleasantly-surprised attitude. I've basically given up on trying to convince her that she's good enough and she's smart enough, and doggone it, people like her. Ok, she doesn't need to be convinced that she's well loved by everybody. Deep down she knows it, but honestly, if she can't see that then maybe she is kinda stupid. Anyway, drop her a line at tkstocking@gmail.com and tell her she'll do just fine. She doesn't read this crappy blog or the comments (I told you she's really smart), so anything left here would be unread by her. Please do it, she won't listen to her dumb-ass husband, but she'll listen to you.

Third and most important, tonight is the start of Jane Austin chick-flick extravaganza on PBS. 6 productions of her novels. As I write this, I've been relegated to the living room so that the women (except for 'Nika, it's on too late for her) can drink deeply canon of Western Literature in my bedroom watching the teevee. Dumb-asses like me aren't interested.

Commuted by bike twice last week. I'm trying to psych myself up to do it tomorrow when the temps will be hovering around 10 degrees.

So Very, Very Tired

I went to book club last night and ended up getting to bed about 1 a.m. That in and of itself wouldn't make me so tired, but I woke up from a sound sleep and a rather vivid dream last night at about 3:00. You know that feeling you get when you awaken from a deep sleep where you feel like you're coming out of the tunnel of the subconscious to consciousness? Where, as you are waking up, you realize that you were just in a very deep, satisfying sleep? That kind of waking up. Unfortunately for me when I woke up, that pleasant feeling of the sound sleep was replaced by insomnia. For some reason, I started thinking about Hillary Clinton's "Portsmouth Moment."

For those of you bored by politics, particularly my politics, skip the next part.

[I first read about her choking up in the diner a few hours after it happened on a blog I read. I was perusing the comments on this news item and there were the requisite, "See she's human," and the "This is just a cynical manipulation of the media," responses. Last night on NPR I heard an interview with the woman who asked the question that set Hillary off, and they also played a long unedited version of Hillary's emotion filled answer. After hearing that, all I can say is that if this was a ruse Hillary is the most accomplished actor in the campaign. Even better than doddering old Grampa Fred "Law and Order" Thompson. She sure sounded genuine to me. I was pretty disgusted by the Edwards camp claiming crybabies are not fit for the presidency. Au contraire. I am no fan of Hillary, but if all the candidates out there are truly pressing the flesh with "real" people practicing the retail politics of Iowa and New Hampshire, they all should be choked up about the sad state of our country and our kid's future. It's a mess. We need universal single-payer health care. We need to get out of Iraq. We need to get our Constitution back by repealing the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act and enforcing FISA laws (with no telecom immunity). We need to figure out how to send our children to college without burdening them with a shitpile of debt. We need to get the country out of debt. We need progressive tax fairness. Unfortunately, the "viable" candidates are controlled by their corporate puppet masters and real change will never happen. We will continue down the road of the commodification of everything, let the corporations write the laws and silence all opposition. There's no Teddy Roosevelt take on the corporations. There's no Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson to use the power of the government to address poverty. We've lost. Big business won. And that makes me want to cry.]

To get my mind of off Hillary, I finished reading a book Kent loaned me "The Wal-Mart Effect." That's a fine piece of business writing, and while it took my mind off of emotional politicians, it did little to ease my mind. I eventually got back to sleep sometime after 4:00 and my alarm went off at 5:40. By my calculations that puts me at less than 4 hours sleep, but I could be wrong, because I'm so very, very tired I can't think straight.

You Know You're A Nerd When.....

In the last 6 months of my working in the Emergency Department at Fairview Southdale, I started to take the bus to and from work. This meant getting home after 1 a.m., but hey, I like riding the bus. I quit my job at Southdale when Jon started Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters, and I tried taking the bus to work there. There was a problem though. From door to door, it took an hour and a half each way. Too long. When I worked at the hospital, it didn't really matter how long I spent on the bus because I was getting home when everyone was in bed. At my new job, I was leaving before the girls left the house for school and got home at about 6:30, which is too late most days. I started riding my bike again in August 2006. In late August or early September of that year, I started riding my bike to the express bus stop, taking that bus to downtown St. Paul and then biking from downtown to work in Maplewood. That cut some time off my commute. Soon there after I started biking the whole way and eventually got my commute down to 55 minutes or better. During nice weather, I tried to bike to work at least half the time every month. What does this have to do with being a nerd? Well, I saved all my SuperSaver bus passes. In February of 2006 I started keeping track of how many miles I was riding my bike, including commutes. So I can say with a high degree of confidence that since Thanksgiving 2005 I've saved myself 4200 miles on the car by not driving. It's gotten to the point where I've started to keep track of the miles not driven when I take the girls to karate on the bus. With my bike GPS unit (yes nerds have those things), I can very accurately keep track of all the miles I'm riding. With Google Maps I can map out the the miscellaneous car trips that were replaced by bus rides. Believe me, I'll be doing it. Is that nerdy or what?

Speaking of nerdy, I figured out how to add links on the side of the page so you can easily click through to read them. One of the links is a family related blog, by my nephew Caleb. The other link is to the one person outside of my family who reads and comments on this garbage, and who also claims to be a nerd, Neil. He thinks he is a nerd. Pffft. You just wait, brother. One does not reach the ranks of Nerddom until one's children are embarrassed by your nerdiness and tell you so, often. Mission accomplished for me. Just ask my kids. As far as links go, I'm going to be pretty circumspect. I would add the blogs that I read regularly, but I doubt any of you would be interested in what I spend my time doing at work. If I find something of general interest, I'll put a link in the body of this crappy blog since I figured out how to embed links without making you cut and paste urls. (I did it in the previous post)

Finally, A Winter Bike Commute

The conditions were favorable for a bike commute today, so I went ahead and did it. The recent warm weather has melted much of the slushy ice off of the bike lanes and the sides of streets, so I felt comfortable taking a shot at riding in the dark at rush hour. No problems to report other than the winter beater bike is a chore to ride compared to the SS Deathstar. Either that or I've fallen woefully out of shape since November.

Not much else to report. The girls are back in school. The transition from vacation was relatively easy. I think they secretly wanted to get back to see their friends.

We spent the weekend doing the usual running around with one added trip. The girls and I went to see cousin Caleb's basketball game on Saturday. Now normally I don't feel any pity for the cake-eaters from Edina, but Woodbury (Caleb and Jeff's team) thrashed them so soundly (73-17 I think) that I couldn't help feeling sorry for them. After the game I talked to Jeff, who is coaching the team, and he said he tried to get Woodbury moved into the more competitive A bracket, but was told by officials it was too late to make any changes to the schedule. The Edina team they played against was apparently trying to play "up" a bracket from C to B, and ended up against the Woodbury buzz saw. I don't know much about basketball, but I can say that Woodbury looked very well coached and Caleb played an excellent game. After the game, the Blodgett family came over for pizza. We sat around and ate ourselves silly. I'm surprised that Caleb and Jeff were able to coach and play their evening game without hurling.

As long as we're talking about all things Caleb, check out his blog at

Caleb's Blog

He can occupy your time when I'm too lazy to write anything.

January Thaw?

After a December which saw below normal temperatures, the first weekend in January is shaping up to be a pretty nice one. Temps are predicted to be in the upper 30's, and if we get some sun, we may melt some of the ice and packed snow off the roads and trails. I checked on the Bike Club web site, and as it turns out, there are only a couple of rides in which I'll be able to participate and even one of those is iffy. The problem on Saturday is that the younger two need to get to Karate in the late morning, which nixes any morning ride. TOYH works every Saturday and is unavailable for taxi service. This evening is another possibility for a club ride, but it means that the girls will be home alone for quite a long stretch in the afternoon/evening. I went on that ride last Friday, and it was very nice. Cold, but nice. If you have a trail to ride on, I think winter biking is more relaxing than any other season. I should be more specific. Riding in a group in the winter is more relaxing than any other season. Let me qualify further. Riding a TCBC ride in the winter is more relaxing than any other season. Why? When I go out on a TCBC ride, I am nearly always the youngest rider in the group, sometimes by more than twenty years. The retirees I ride with are not going to burn up the trails, so it is relatively slow going. On last Friday's ride the moon was trying to poke through the clouds and it was cold enough that the moisture in the air was condensing into snowflakes. There was no wind. The trails are isolated enough that you don't feel like you're in the middle of the city. 15 degree temperature feels good at that pace. Add all those things up and you've got one nice ride. The same thing happened on Sunday afternoon, except you need to replace the moon with the sun.

The girl's two week vacation from school ends Monday morning. Even though I've been coming into work off and on during their layoff, it's been so much less hectic in the mornings. We can sleep in a little more, and we don't have to pester the younger two to get moving so they can get to the bus on time. The Madster is not looking forward to going back. It's not the old, "I don't like school, I'd rather be on vacation," complaint. She is really not being challenged at all and is starting to dislike some of her teachers. We've really got to get her into a different school next year. Our problem is that transferring to different schools within the district is not easy. There are a couple of schools we would like to see her get into, but of course there are a ton of other parents thinking the same thing. Essentially we would enter her into a lottery for a particular school, and if she's chosen, she gets to go to that school. Since there is sibling preference in school choice, 'Nika would get to follow. I am secretly hoping that a rumor we've heard turns out to be true. If the district simply axes the middle school program at Emerson, we can go to the district and demand to get the kids into any school we want. Ultimately we just need to get The Madster through her 8th grade year. The High Schools don't seem to be as messed up as K-8 in the district. If we get the girls out of Emerson, it will be a sad, sad end to a era. We really, truly liked that school, and up until this year, the girls were getting a great education. Not anymore.

TOYH is still busily studying for her boards and is poking around for a few jobs. Nothing is turning up yet.

Can It Get Any Worse?

Well yes, it can get much, much worse, but there are a few things piling up that just make life a little less enjoyable.

First, I went to church last night (uhh, that didn't come out right - please don't misunderstand me, church does not make my life less enjoyable) for the first time in quite a while. Sunday nights have been hectic lately, and I just haven't had the gumption to get up and go. When I got there, I looked through the bulletin and found out that the Music Director's position will be cut because of lack of funds. This really, truly bums me out. I should back up a bit. The church I've been attending for nearly 2 years is Mercy Seat Lutheran Church in NE Minneapolis. We meet on Sunday nights because we're using a different congregation's space. Two of the pastors were in school with me when I was at Luther Seminary, an they are really cool people although one of them has since left Mercy Seat on a medical leave. The church is kind of artsy, which normally doesn't do anything for me. What really attracted me to the church was their creation of a jazz liturgy. The soon-to-be-ex-music-director Jon Pemberton is well connected in the local jazz community. Every week he would assemble a remarkable group of musicians that would play anything from Dixieland to Free Jazz. I'll admit that hearing jazz in church was a bit jarring at first, but I've really grown to love the liturgies he wrote. I'm really going to miss the music. There are other great things about the church. Kae and Mark's preaching is consistently thoughtful, poetic, funny, and true to the Lutheran tradition, it always has the euangelion at its center. They claim to be "critically orthodox," which I appreciate very much. This is not a namby-pamby, feel good about yourself church. Nor is it a church that reduces the Gospel to a left wing political agenda. Jesus is not just a nice teacher and example, but the Word Incarnate come to save us from ourselves. I always leave church humbled but feeling well fed and taken care of.

Second, I just discovered that one of my favorite local bloggers, Smithers Minneapolis, is giving up blogging. He wrote about cycling, politics, family and the pumpkin loaf at Starbucks. Very smart and funny. Even the commentators on his posts made me laugh out loud. Sigh, no more. I suppose I'll keep doing it as long as I'm working here and have all this time on my hands, but there is no guarantee that I'll be either smart or funny like Smithers.

Third, on the way to work this morning I noticed that the City of Maplewood has done an utterly craptastic job of plowing the streets. Even worse than Minneapolis. This is the last mile of my commute to work, and the sides of the streets look unridable. It may be a long time before I bike to work again.

In other news, The Madster went to her first karate session with the big folks, 13 years and up. She was the youngest one there, obviously, and the only female. She was quite intimidated and didn't want to mix it up with these guys. I insisted. It was quite an intense workout and there was some practice sparring. She was pooped when she was finished, but she had a big smile on her face.

TOYH has scheduled her nursing boards test and is now busy studying for that. Not much movement on the job front. There is one promising lead right now.

Christmas Is Almost Over Now

One family gathering left to attend. TOYH's family is all getting together tomorrow at EG and DM's place. Kent, Ross and their families are in from Shanghai and Denver respectively.

On Christmas Eve, Evil Grandmother and the Dreadful Man came over for Clam Chowdah, assorted finger foods and conversation. On Christmas day, we spent the early morning opening up presents. Nothing spectacular. Madster and 'Nika got the first two seasons of "I Love Lucy" on DVD. To me, it's more entertaining to watch The Madster watch Lucy than it is to watch Lucy herself. Madster sits on the edge of her seat, mouth open in a smile, nose crinkled up, waiting in eager expectation for Lucy's next pratfall or the denouement of one of her harebrained schemes. Lucy rarely disappoints and Madster ends up cackling at every episode. I received the 1st season of "30 Rock" and end up cackling at that much in the same way Madster laughs at Lucy.

Later on Christmas morning our old next door neighbors, Sue and Sherry, came over for brunch. We spent a few hours catching up and watching a warrant being served on one of the tenants next door in Mabel's old house. Merry Christmas! You're going to jail! I have no idea what he was arrested for, it was not very dramatic. Plainclothes cop comes up and gets no answer at the front door, leaves. Plainclothes comes back with two uniform cops, they collar their man and leave. No beat downs. No weeping and wailing. I felt kinda bad for the cops. I suppose the only thing more depressing than arresting someone on Christmas Day is to be arrested on Christmas Day.

Early in the afternoon we headed up to Cambridge for my family's Christmas celebration, complete with ham and lasagna and borscht. Mmmmm. I spent far too long talking about prostates with Opa. That type of conversation really makes me feel like an old man, although I was talking about other people's prostates, not my own. I can safely say that the conversation did not fill me with Christmas spirit. The Christmas spirit did visit the Holm household though. Last week I read about a play that was being performed somewhere in the metro. It tells the story of the Allied and the German troops laying down their arms on Christmas Day in 1917(?). They visited each others trenches, sang with each other and shared food. For one day, the grunts doing the fighting and dying quit fighting and dying. In the same way, there was no talk of "White Christmas" or "It's a Wonderful Life" the whole time we were up in Cambridge. Our little Christmas miracle.

Yesterday, there was a big sledding, or sliding, or sleigh riding (as the Dreadful Man calls it - must be a Wyoming thing) party with as many of the cousins as we could gather. KyKy skipped out because she looked like death warmed over. We had a lot of fun. We went to Como Park where there are some pretty steep hills in the NW corner. The old farts went down the hill a few times, except for Ross of course, who went down a bunch of times. We tried the mass start with anywhere from 18 to 20 people. Going down single file with each person holding on to the feet of the person behind them didn't really work. But on the last conga line like attempt, the line kept together all the way to the jump that no one wanted to try out. It was very funny watching the whole line of about a dozen or so kids (plus Ross) hit the jump perfectly and wipe out.

Today was the first day back to work for me since last Friday (where did you think I found the time to write this?). We'll leave early for a company lunch, hopefully Famous Dave's. Back to work on Monday for a couple of end-of-year housekeeping things. After New Year's Day it'll be time to hunker down for the winter. We picked up another 4 inches of snow on Christmas day so the streets are pretty sloppy and still not fit for bike commuting for me. Lots of early snow makes things pretty for Christmas, but it also makes winter seem to drag on and on. The one post-holiday consolation for me is that the days are now getting longer.

A Correction

In Sunday's edition of "Whaddup With Us" it was reported that "White Christmas" had won a People's Choice award. This is incorrect. The statement should have read, "'White Christmas' has not been acknowledged by AFI nor has it won any awards, even a crappy People's Choice award." We regret the error.

Socks And Underpants

These were the thoughtful gifts I received from my family. I'm not sure what they are trying to say, but I'm taking it as a general approval of my wardrobe since what they gave to me is covered up by other pieces of clothing. We spent the morning lazing about the house, and then at noon we left to go meet Kent and Anne and the girls at Pepito's for brunch. Ahhh Pepito's Sunday brunch. My arteries clench up just thinking about it. After brunch, we adjourned to K & A's place in St Louise Park for cheesecake. Kent and I sat around watching football while the ladies did, well, whatever ladies do. Kent seemed really interested in watching the Patriots squish the Dolphins. I ever being the polite guest feigned interest in the game. It would have been better if the sound was turned off so I didn't have to constantly be reminded by Jim Nance and Phil Simms that the New England Patriots are truly gods walking among us. We left KyKy and The Madster behind as they were attending the ballet with their cousins. Nutcracker at the State Theater if I'm not mistaken. The rest of us uncultured slobs piled in Crapmobile and fought our way home through the snow. 3-4 inches worth it appears. No work for me tomorrow, so I get to pull out the snowblower and clean up around the place.

People Who Think "White Christmas" Is The Best Christmas Movie Make Me Laugh

You know why? According to my blog it just won the People's Choice award! This movie deservedly takes its place alongside other People's Choice winners such as NSync, Drew Carey, and "Two And A Half Men." I say it fits right in with those winners in terms of quality.

"It's A Wonderful Life" on the other hand is number 20 on the American Film Institute's top 100 films of all time. Let me repeat - OF ALL TIME. It is also number 1, numero uno, top dawg on AFI's list of most inspirational films.

"White Christmas" could not be found on any AFI list, not even the Top 25 Greatest Movie Musicals. It was beat out by such greats as "The Band Wagon" from 1953.

Enjoy your People's Choice award!

Land of Biking Enchantment - Then I Get Crabby

Today was the one Saturday of the month where 'Nika and The Madster did not need to be at karate. This means it's the one Saturday I get to sneak down to the far reaches of S. Mpls to Hiawatha Cyclery to go on their Saturday morning ride. On any given Saturday, the ride is populated by a bunch of middle-aged men (except for Jim T, who hasn't quite met the middle-age threshold) who are witty, wonderful conversationalists that have a love, even a passion, for biking. The rides entail meeting at HC, riding to a coffee shop for treats and conversation, then riding back to the HC - flapping your jaws the whole time. (Neil - Lunatic Biker, VelociPete and of course Mellow Velo were on the ride this a.m.) Anyway, I got up early to be able to get to the ride. The weather dorks had predicted snow overnight, and they didn't lie. There was enough snow so that the plows of Mpls were out scraping the main arteries before I rolled out of bed. I was afraid that the snow would be too deep, and the ride would not happen. I pulled myself out of bed, got dressed and hoped for the best. I was not disappointed. The ride down to Hiawatha Cyclery would fall short of the designation "magical," but it was damn close. When I left home, the snow was not too deep and it was the heavy, wet kind, totaling about an inch or maybe an inch and a half. The winter beater with the studded tires ate that crap up with no problem. What was so enchanting about the ride was the fact that it was early enough for there to be virtually no traffic, all the while the snow was falling in large wet flakes. And it was warm, (right around 32F) with no wind. The combination of no wind and heavy wet snow left the trees and shrubs flocked with a white loveliness. It was a very enjoyable ride down to HC except for the fact that my glasses fogged up and were pelted with snowflakes, so I was reduced to putting my head down and looking over the top of my glasses so I could see where I was going. I'm fairly sure that without my glasses I approach the threshold of legal blindness, so looking over the top of my glasses only gives me a slight advantage to looking through the mess that was on them. I got to the ride early, so I was able to take in the quiet of the snow falling illuminated by the streetlights, which happens to be one of my favorite ways of enjoying a snowfall in the city. The ride itself was nothing special. We decided to simply go to Melo-Glaze, possibly the greatest doughnut place on earth, to drink coffee and eat treats. We did, and afterwards, we made our way back to HC. The ride home from the shop was a bit dicey. The plows had come through, pushing all the slushy snow to the side of the road where bikers ride. I stayed on the bike paths and side streets to avoid the high traffic areas. The temperature had dropped about 8 degrees from the time I had left the house, so the side streets were starting to resemble skating rinks. Blech.

Now the crabby part. 'Nika's cousin Gabby had a birthday party today, and it was celebrated at one of those bear-building stores found in malls all across this land. 'Nika and I left early since I thought that the combination of weather and traffic (this being the last Saturday before X-mas) would slow us down considerably. I was wrong. We were there about 20 minutes before the start of the party, and as it turns out, Auntie Clary was 20 minutes late. Yipeee!!!! I get to spend three quarters of an hour in a temple of consumerism doing absolutely nothing but waiting!!!! Now normally I try to think the best of folks and not judge people by their appearance. But to be perfectly honest, every person I saw today at Rosedale was ugly. Nay fugly. It was all perception and context though. I realize that most of the herd today was out buying X-mas presents for someone other than themselves, but I always associate malls with aimless wandering to spend money on crap that is not really needed. It is a totally selfish, solopsistic purchase. (It occurred to me today that the phrase "That is sooooo cute on you," is uttered dozens, maybe even hundreds of times during the day at any given mall) These benighted consumers are bored and think that the cure for boredom is shopping (Ride your damn bikes and save some money fer crying out loud. What a great way to cure boredom!) and that, in my opinion, makes a person ugly, no matter how physically attractive they may be.

I escaped from the mall, the whole the way home feeling like I need to take a shower because of my presence there. When I get home, TOYH asks if I can run to the store for a couple of things. Grrrrrrr. All I want to do is come home, forget about having been to a mall, and do the crossword puzzle in the paper. But no, TOYH needs a pound and a half of flax seed for Christmas present for Opa. (Ha! Bet you can't figure out what's going on with that) She also needs a bum-jug of burgundy wine. This development, as it turns out, will brighten my day considerably. I set to my appointed tasks, cursing all the way. When I get home, I find out that the wine is for making mulled wine. This, in and of itself, is not significant. But given the recent flame war in the comment section over the superiority of "It's A Wonderful Life" vs. "White Christmas," it becomes crucially important in the game of one-upsmanship I've been playing with my sisters. I am totally vindicated and proven right in the petty, nonsensical, invalid, unprovable argument over which movie is better. The crowning achievement, the piece-de-resistance, the in your face, conclusion to this dispute is that my sister Tracy, who defends "White Christmas," asked TOYH to bring mulled wine to our family Christmas celebration. Mulled wine is what Clarence the Angel in "It's A Wonderful Life" orders at Nick's bar. Ha. She's asking for something that a main character orders and therefore tacitly acknowledges the superiority of my movie. Bwahahahahahaha. I win simply because I make the most ridiculous argument in the history of humankind to win my point.

Merry Christmas

And tomorrow is my birthday.

Edit - If you want to refer to the dispute about Christmas movies and my complete and total victory, see the post "Man It Was Cold"

Bear With Me, This Will Be A Long One

I've been meaning to write about something work related for a while now, but the timing hasn't been right. It's time.

I need another job.

It's not that I don't like my job here at Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters, nor is it that Jon and I don't get along. It's just that there is hardly anything for me to do here anymore.

When this enterprise started up in March of '06, there was plenty to do. Jon and I had to do some remodeling work on the space being leased. We had to go out and purchase equipment, furniture, supplies etc. I had to learn how to use the accounting software for the business. All that was pretty fun for me, especially spending someone elses money on stuff I would be using. Early on after we started up, Jon placed a winning bid on a ton of test equipment from one of the big dealers. Actually, it was probably more than a ton. I do know it was 6 pallets worth of stuff. All of those units needed to be entered kept track of in some way shape or form on the computer. While doing that, I continued to figure out how to use our accounting software - entering in customers and vendors, trying to get a handle on how to do payroll accurately. I also started learning more about selling on eBay, preparing high value shipments for international delivery and getting my head wrapped around a little bit of accounting/bookkeeping. I was usually busy at work.

I suppose it was about a year ago that things started to slow down for me. Transactions became routine. Multiple listings on eBay? No problem. International shipment going to Australia needing a Commercial Invoice and Shipper's Export Declaration? I can do that in my sleep. Work around Quickbooks' stupid design that does not let us prepay for purchases without marking them as received before they physically arrive? Yawn. Things were getting quite easy for me and the amount of real work I was doing every day was gradually decreasing while my time spent reading (and writing) blogs was increasing. Jon's work, on the other hand, was not decreasing. He's in charge of buying, pricing, schmoozing dealers and customers, and fixing broken equipment. I'm here to record his activity.

As time wore on, it was becoming clear to me that I have absolutely no interest in learning the biz of test equipment. None. Zip. I still don't know what Vector Network Analyzers or S-Parameter Test Sets do, nor do I care frankly. Jon knows people who are successful dealers in test equipment who are just as clueless as me, but they know sales and how to work a deal, something else I'm not at all interested in. In the end, it's probably easier for Jon to keep all the wheeling and dealing in his head, rather than running into potential problems where two of us would promise different customers the same unit.

For a few months now I've been mulling over the idea of going down to part time here and picking up another job. I've gone so far as talking to Jamie at Sunrise Cyclery about working for him on a part time basis. Truthfully, I am an anchor on the company bottom line here. I get paid for full time work and the company pays half my health insurance costs. It's not a king's ransom by any stretch of the imagination, but it is certainly enough that I feel pretty guilty drawing this amount of pay and benefits for sitting on my arse. As I envisioned it, I would propose to Jon going down to part time when TOYH got a job with benefits. That way I could get paid for actual work done and not have the company shell out money for my health insurance.

Jon brought this same topic up in a conversation just this week, so we began talking about when and how this could take place. We do have one huge problem to deal with though. Jon has stage IV prostate cancer. He was diagnosed a little over a month ago. He's doing fine now, responding well to early therapy and is now weighing options for more radical treatments. Faced with his own mortality, Jon is re-evaluating what he wants to do with the business. Growing it is pretty much out of the question, not just because of the illness, but because after over 20 years of doing this, Jon is getting tired of it. Maintaining what we're doing now is an option, but it would be good to cut some overhead, namely get me down to part time. A third option would be to shrink it to the size where Jon could run it out of a much smaller space or maybe even his home. Option 3 appears to be unlikely. Here's why. Our company's health insurance plan with Health Partners is set up for small businesses with more than one employee. If the company goes down to one insured employee the policy would be cancelled because it is set up especially for two or more enrollees. What we don't know yet is whether there is portability for Jon to continue with the Health Partners, just under a different plan that he would pay for out of pocket. If Jon can keep getting insurance from HP, then we've got options. If he can't, then I need to keep working here until he hires someone else, or to put it delicately, Jon doesn't need insurance any more. Switching to another insurer would be impossible because of Jon's "pre-existing condition."

Are there really people saying that we still have the best health care in the world? If there are, they are full of shit. Full. Of. It. Not only are there, what, 53 million people without insurance in this country, there are people like me and Jon whose decisions about where they would work are dictated by health insurance. Not pay. Not interest or passion. Not ability. Not location. Fucking health insurance. And all the bastards who make policy decisions about a national health plan or those who decide who is insurable in our screwed up privatized system are never ever faced with these kinds of decisions on a personal level. They will always have plenty of health coverage. And please don't say anything about how awful "socialized medicine" is. If you think it's so horrific, don't you dare sign up for Medicare when you reach that age. Why would you want to stain your golden years by participating in a system that is so ruinous to the American way of life?

Merry Christmas

More Things Fall Apart

The Taurus, not getting as much attention as Crapmobile, decided to make a scene. On my way to work the thumping from the front end got so bad that I just drove to Perry's and left it with him. Took the bus the rest of the way to work. I'm secretly hoping that he'll tell me that it's just not worth it to fix the beast and we should just put a bullet in it. It would be a great excuse to go down to being a one car family.

On a happier note, KyKy's concert last night was excellent. 20 different pieces by 15 different combinations of choirs, wind ensembles and orchestras. It was organized incredibly well so there wasn't much waiting between pieces for the next group to set up. KyKy's orchestra sounded really good playing "Sugar Plum Faries" from Nutcracker. To me though, the highlight of the night was the massed choir singing Leonard Cohen's "Anthem." They printed the lyrics in the program, and it was so fitting, given the times we live in. If I can find that program, I'll post the lyrics. It was a good thing the concert was held in the Basilica, it was filled up front to back. It's not a huge space, but just big enough for this event. All those people never would have fit in Southwest's auditorium. Unfortunately, the accoustics were only ok. We could hear everything, but her earlier concert at SW was much easier to listen to.

Update Perry just called to say that it was the right front bearing and that he fixed it already. Curses. We remain a two car family cuz I'm too chicken to simply do the deed and go down to one.

UPS just delivered a box of shortbread cookies from one of our vendors. It only took $80,000 of purchases on our part to earn this lovely gift.

Things Fall Apart The Center Cannot Hold

TOYH is taking the Crapmobile into Perry's for a going over. What's wrong? Lessee... Windshield wipers stuck in permanent, hillbilly-looking "up" position. Broken tail light lens. (Honestly, this is the third one we've replaced. I really believe there is a minivan tail light vigilante roaming south Mpls. Ours isn't the only one I've seen smashed. I have no other explanation.) Power door locks do not work. Oil needs to be changed. I'm sure there are other things, and when TOYH made the appointment for the repairs, Perry said he'd just write down "crappy van" on the work order. Bingo.

My 10 year old Taurus still runs, but it's making it's cold weather complaints. Some, but not all cold mornings there is a whining belt or something coming from under the hood. It's not an awful screech like you hear on most cars when they start up cold. It's truly a whine that doesn't easily go away even when the engine warms up. The cold weather thumping from the front end has also returned. I first noticed it last winter. It is most pronounced when my foot is off the accelerator and not on the brake. In other words when I'm coasting. As soon as I step on the gas or the brake, the sound pretty much disappears. It quit making the noise over the summer but now it's back. Maybe I should call Car Talk so they can call me a moron for not taking it in to Perry to have it looked at. I really don't like automobiles. I'm glad for the ones we have - they're paid for - but it seems like you either limp along getting nickeled and dimed to keep them running or you spend a ton of money to buy new or almost new.

I find the whole car culture rather depressing. It's like people need a living room on wheels because they spend so much time in their vehicles. I see the traffic reports on the morning news, and I just shudder. Since people have to have their 4 acres and a mule, they live miles and miles away from work and as a result 5 days a week twice a day, they sit in traffic in their $25,000, depreciating-every-day-so-you'll-never-get-your-money-back, living rooms. It doesn't make sense to me. Spend money on a house far away from everything because far away land is more affordable, but then all the money you save is eaten up in having to buy a comfortable vehicle because you live so far away and sitting in traffic to get to your far away home just isn't worth it unless you're sitting in your rolling living room. The money part may end up being a zero sum game, but now it's 10-15 hours a week lost to commuting. Blech.

KyKy has been complaining that her room is cold. Baby. I did take a look at the boiler downstairs and the pressure was pretty low. I called the Dreadful Man, since he has some kind of provisional boiler license to run the boilers at church. He told me to release the pressure valve coming from the overflow tank and then fill the system back up to 20 psi. When I released the pressure valve, I got a few gallons of rusty, nasty smelling runoff from the tank. It kept dripping for an hour or so, so I did it again. Same result. It ended up dripping all night into a bucket since our ancient house does not have a floor drain to run a hose to. It may be that the pressure release valve is gummed up and will not seat properly, thus the drip. I sure hope not. I don't want to call in someone to fix this at great expense, nor do I want to have to empty buckets of nasty smelling water for the rest of my life. Maybe it'll just go away, or maybe my basement is flooded right now. Sigh. The radiators do feel warmer though.

KyKy has a concert tonight. I think they're calling it a Holiday Concert, but it's being held at the Basilica. Wrap your head around that one.

We Broke Out The Bubbly

Hit the 5000 mile mark today. If you're at all interested, see if this address works

2007 Bike Mileage

This is a spreadsheet that I used to keep track of my miles. Is it exact? No. I didn't really start tracking things until February, so January was pretty much a guess. That month included a couple of commutes and a couple of rides with the Nerds on Bikes club, (aka Twin Cities Bicycling Club) so I simply made a guess. So did I really do 5000? Well, there are bunches of little rides that did not get recorded, and if I wanted to be all jerky about it, I could include a couple-o-hundred miles on the bike ride to nowhere, riding on the trainer in the basement. Highlights include July 29th, the day I did my first century ride. That was the ride where I drafted off of Neil most of the way. Thanks again, man. I knew it was going to be close, so I was afraid I was going to have to ride around the block a few times when I got home to make that 100, but my odometer really did read 100 miles when I made it there. The whopping 2.1 miles on December 1 was the truncated TCBC ride during our first snowstorm of the season. April 13 was the day I took delivery on the SS Deathstar and about 3700 of the total were put on that bike. I don't have the exact figures here, but somewhere between 2000 and 2500 miles of the total was my commute to and from work. Basically any time a 27 is entered, that's a commute. That means the Taurus has 171,000 miles on it instead of 173,000. Anyhooo... we had an extra bottle of champagne left over from TOYH's finishing up school, so we popped the cork on it. Okay, okay, it was cheap Asti Spumante and not real champagne. Martini & Rossi anyone? Cheers to me.

I Got Nuthin

I've been preoccupied with the Christmas movie smackdown in the previous thread.

Man Was It Cold

I started the weekend with 4943 miles logged this year. Since commuting is still pretty much out of the question, I'm reduced to being a weekend warrior on the bike. Saturday, I went out on a TCBC club ride. It was slow an cold, about 6 degrees the whole time we were out there. We basically stuck to the paths around Mpls. There was one rider who was very slow, so a couple of us just took off at a whopping 13 mph. After we'd pull way ahead, we'd either double back, find a parking lot to ride in circles, or just stand around and wait. Ended up doing 21 miles that day. When I got home, I hopped in the shower to warm up. I had to hop right out again. My toes were so cold that I couldn't stand in the shower for more than a couple of minutes without excruciating pain. I was wondering if I had frostbite. When I had peeled my socks off, my toes were absolutely pale and numb like each had been shot up with Novocain. When I got out of the shower they were a frighteningly mottled purple. They recovered, but it took me a while to warm up. Sunday was a solo ride, except I rode 31 miles. (Do the math, 5 miles to go until 5000) Greenway to the river, West River Road paths to the lakes, lakes to Hopkins via SW trail, Hopkins back to Mpls via Cedar Lake trail. I probably should have ridden with someone or at least taken my phone with me. It's pretty lonely on the trails west of the city when it's this cold, and there are some stretches where a walk to get help would be quite a hike. At mile 26 my feet were soooo cold and I was sooo tired. Head down, power through. When I got home I was smart enough to take my shoes off and warm my feet up by one of the radiators. Then I hopped in the shower, and stayed in there for quite a while, so long, in fact, that half an hour after I got out, KyKy was asking me why there wasn't any hot water for her bath.

We finally picked up the Christmas tree on Saturday night. Madster was at a sleep over, KyKy was visiting a friend and TOYH was cooking. So it was just the little Christmas elf, 'Nika, and me who went to Home Depot to get the tree. We've been going there for the past few years because they have decent trees for a good price. We got there about 6 o'clock and it must have been about zero degrees, and I was still chilled to the core from my bike ride. Normally picking out trees is an ordeal. We pull one out of the pile, smack it on the ground so the branches fall down in place to see if it is misshapen, and then move on to the next tree. After we pick one out, they kindly cut off a few inches from the trunk, and bale it up in netting to make it easier to carry. Then we tie it to the top of the crapmobile and go on our merry way. It was so cold Saturday night that the branches of all the trees were frozen in the "up" position, so we couldn't see if the tree was nicely shaped or could be used as a stand-in on "A Charlie Brown Christmas." We grabbed one that was the right height, and the guy at the store cut off the bottom few inches of the trunk. There was no need to wrap the thing in netting since it was frozen in place like an unfurled evergreen umbrella. Because it was just the two of us, I shoved the blasted thing inside the van to forgo the 15 minutes of tying down and securing it to the roof. When we got home, I put it on the porch and told the kids if they want it put up that night, they'd have to do it themselves. No takers. It did get put up on Sunday, and it looks pretty nice. Decorations tonight.

Sunday was the last swimming event of the year, the banquet. It was very nice. Lots of people there. TOYH and I ended up sitting with the moms of two of the captains and had a nice little chat with them. The captains gave out goofy awards to all the swimmers. KyKy got the 13 going on 30 award, since she doesn't act like a teenager. Very perceptive on the part of the captains, I thought.

Stoopid Mpls

So on Tuesday, we get about 3 inches of snow, with the threat of a couple more inches on Thursday. The city did not declare a snow emergency Tuesday night, I'm thinking, because they thought they could roll up both snowfalls into one big plowing orgy on Thursday. Well the snow did not really show up for us on Thursday and the city decided not to call a snow emergency. Idiots. Now the bike lanes are not clear, and the side streets are all rutted and half-plowed. This will greatly curtail my bike commuting, since I don't want to navigate this stuff in the dark during rush hour. On a related stupid is as stupid does note, the Minneapolis Park Board apparently is going to charge the users of the off road trails in Theo Wirth Park a $25.00 fee for a yearly pass. These trails have been free up to now. What is annoying the off road community is the fact that it was off road cyclists, with the blessing of the Park Board no less, who created these trails. People had been bombing around the Park, tearing things up willy-nilly until a group of cyclists developed a sustainable trail system (minimizing erosion) and set down some rules for use (don't ride on the trails after a rain when they're muddy). Now in thanks for the thousands of volunteer hours, the Park Board is going to make 'em pay. Morons.

In other news, tonight is TOYH's big night. In an ancient, secretive nursing ritual whose origins are lost in the mists of time, she's going to get poked....er pinned. I'm all excited to see if they learn a secret handshake, and more importantly if she's going to start wearing one of those cute little nursing hats like Dixie did on that old timey teevee show "Emergency!" (Ahh Johnny and Roy, the odd couple of the paramedic world) The whole family is going to the ceremony to whoop it up. They are going to have treats but no beer unfortunately, even though it's a Catholic School. So drop TOYH a line to tell her she did a damn fine job getting through school. Cuz she did. We're all proud of her.

Guess What?

More snow for tomorrow's afternoon commute. 1-3 inches predicted. Jeff, just don't bother going into work, okay? (See previous post comment section) I packed it in at about 4 o'clock yesterday, and just before I left, I took a look at MDOT's metro traffic page. The interstates I use to get home, 35E and 94, looked relatively free-flowing, so I hopped on thinking that I might be home in 45 minutes or an hour tops. Wrong. Stop and go the whole way. 94 the opposite direction was worse, as Jeff can tell you. I heard on the radio that traffic was backed up from Mounds Blvd to Broadway. That means it was jammed up from downtown St. Paul all the way to the north side of Minneapolis. Ish.

Today is clear and bright and cold. Tonight is "Book Club" night, so I'll pedal on over on the winter beater. One day I'm going to try winter riding on the fixie but I'm too lazy to take it off the trainer for right now. Man that's lazy. In the "Club" we've been reading "Christ," by Jack Miles. Miles is a ex-Jesuit, Ancient Near East scholar who has written a couple of books about God by reading the Bible as a literary critic, not as a theologian or biblical scholar. The books are pretty dense, but endlessly fascinating. He doesn't ignore the orthodox Christian understanding of God, it's that he just he leaves those issues in the background to concentrate on how the story is told. It's amazing to me that someone who has been steeped in the traditional ways of understanding the Bible can step back and write about it from a literary perspective. Take, for example, Moses encountering God in the burning bush. Miles' take is that God has yet to name himself to humanity. In meeting Moses in the burning bush God successively tells Moses that He should be called "I am who I am," "I AM," and "Jehovah." (Exodus 3:14,15) Miles doesn't get hung up on where the names come from, the old Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, Priestly debate, or how the editor put these verses together. He is only concerned with the final "edition" of the text. Three names in two verses. I've read that section of scripture probably dozens of times and didn't think twice about the different names. After reading Miles on this passage, it's almost if God is saying something like, "Call me Joseph. Wait, call me Joe. Ahh whatever, just call me Dude." If you are concerned with scriptural inerrancy or are tied to an Augustinian view of God - the timeless deity, unmoved and unchanged and all that - don't bother reading Miles' books. They'll just make you mad, and that's not the point. If you want to see God portrayed in ways that you've never seen before, by all means give his books a try.

More Snow

I get to look out my window at work and see the snow fall. It's purty. They're saying 3-5 more inches, I'm thinking it'll be on the low side of that. The streets are going to continue to be messy, which will curtail my commuting by bike. I just don't feel like riding in the dark on slippery streets alongside drivers who have forgotten how to drive on snow. Since I'm not able to ride outside much lately, I've set the trainer up in the basement. Bleh. No matter how cold it is down there, I end up drenched in sweat after a few minutes of spinning, and I'm not spinning that hard. I hooked up a crappy little odometer and figured I did about 9 miles in half an hour. I'm doing it on the fixed gear, so there's no real rest, just pedalling for however long I can do it without going crazy.

The Christmas decorations are going up in the Stocking household. There has been constant nagging by the younger two to get this done. On Sunday morning, while I was trying to enjoy my coffee and the paper, there was a tremendous scraping noise coming from the basement. It was 'Nika dragging the big plastic bins of Christmas crap across the floor to the stairs. Kinda like the dog smacking his food dish around when we are late feeding him. Soooo, Sunday the decorations started going up, sans tree, since neither TOYH or I felt like driving around in the aftermath of the snowstorm. After today's snow, we're not going out tree-buying tonight either. There was the usual cursing by TOYH because half the lights she has strung on the fake garlands were "burned out." Then they'd pop on. Then they're off. Last year we just had a half-lit garland. Apparently this holiday obscenity will not be repeated this year, and a whole new string of lights has be applied to the garland. Christmas is saved! The girls put up strings of lights in their rooms. KyKy tried to explain to me that her lights were intermittent, and then there were sparks, and then the lights would come on. Turns out one of those little mini-bulbs broke and there were exposed wires arcing. I know because I touched them and got a shock. I told her to keep her lights unplugged until we replace the bulb.

In the past 5 minutes TOYH called from her trek home from Costco and Jon called me from picking up his son at school to tell me that the roads are terrible. I guess I'm going to leave now and sit in stuck traffic all the way home. Woohoo.

A Disappointment

Our foot of snow is ending up to be about half that. That isn't so disappointing, but the attempted bike ride today was. It was incredibly slippery. The winter beater has fat tires with studs on them, but those really don't make any difference. Riding on the street was treacherous, even with only 4 inches of snow. We have a powder on top of a kind of sleety mix, and the combination is pretty awful. You are constantly correcting the for slipping, which can put you in the middle of the street, not a good thing. There are a couple of schools of thought when it comes to riding in snow. Some people ride skinny road bike tires that cut through the snow. The other option is to go with the 4 inch wide tires on a specially built bike (ahem, a Surly Pugsley with Large Marge rims and Endomorph tires for about $1900.00. If you, faithful reader, win the lottery and can waste money on me, I will gladly take your charity). Oh, well. I'll just wait for the City of Minneapolis to plow the streets and go riding when they're done.

It's funny, I really don't feel like I was prepared for snow. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who whines about winter (in fact, I hate those complainers, just move the hell away from here if you don't like the weather). To me there is something spiritual about going through the cold death of winter and being revived by the new life of spring. But today, when I look out the window at the white landscape, I feel like I'm looking at something that just doesn't belong. Maybe I'm in denial. I've been riding bike for a year and 4 months, and even though I rode last winter, I guess I just assumed that the white stuff was not going to factor into my little, insular cycling world. Well, it's here and now, and I have to deal with it.

Speaking of dealing, the Xmas season is upon us, and I don't deal too well with Xmas. Here is what I like about Christmas. 1) Getting together with family is by far and away the best part of the season. 2) "A Charlie Brown Christmas," half hour television special and kick-ass soundtrack. 'Nuff said. 3) Time off from work. That pretty much sums it up, the rest is pretty much crap. Oh, wait - 4) The Christmas tree - with the advent of the soft-needled, good-smelling, needle-retaining Frazier Fir, Christmas trees make my list. But the actual celebration of the birth of God Incarnate .... that has been reduced to an irrelevant footnote.

There is a rule that I have laid down in our household - no Xmas music until Thanksgiving has passed. Well, we are past Thanksgiving and now I'm subjected to the seasonal music. Don't get me wrong, there are some lovely Christmas tunes. It's just that they're 300 years old, and every fading pop music luminary has decided that the way to boost sales is to release an Xmas album of crappy rehashes of these songs. That being said, there are some Christmas albums that I do like. The aforementioned Charlie Brown Christmas. I don't know about Vince Guaraldi but I'm glad Charles Schulz picked him to do the music for this teevee special. Bruce Cockburn, "Christmas." If his version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" doesn't take your breath away, just count yourself as an indifferent agnostic. By the way, Cockburn wrote the best Christmas song of the 20th Century, maybe of all time (even better than "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"). It's called, "Cry of a Tiny Babe" and you can find it on his "Nothing But a Burning Light" disk. This song packs so much theological meaning into the Christmas story. It brings tears to my eyes to listen to it. Finally, for pure indulgence, listen to Harry Connick Jr. "When My Heart Finds Christmas." He sings more than one verse of "O Holy Night," which you just don't hear from everybody, and which has some great lines. Unfortunately the production is so over-wrought and dramatic, it comes close to to degenerating into schmalzy dreck. Other than that, there is some fun stuff on that disk. The dude has some talent. Unfortunately for me, our iPod Xmas playlist is filled with a whole lot of stuff that I could care less about. Therefore, when I started this post, I was listening to "Nevermind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols."

One last music related item. If you haven't listened to Mike Doughty's "Haughty Melodic," please, please do so. I am obsessed with that album. Favorite line:

My circus train pulls through the night
Full of lions and trapeze artists
I'm done with elephants and clowns
I want to run away and join the office.

Bring It On

Just got back from the grocery store. It was cloudy when we went in, and it was snowing when we got out. The weather dopes are now saying we may get up to a foot of snow. But the larder is full, there is fresh gas for the snowblower and after my bike ride I can sit in my chair and watch the snow fall while I drink coffee. So come on Mother Nature, do you worst. Well except for an ice storm. That can stay in Iowa.

It Is Finished

Well, mostly. Last night was the final class for TOYH. She was scheduled for one more on December 6th, but apparently St Kates is giving the students time off for good behavior. She still has a paper to finish along with some other odds and ends, but her class requirements are over. No more Thursday evenings. No more Tuesday evenings. No more Saturdays. No more Sundays (yes Sundays, at a Catholic institution no less). What. A. Relief. Now she just has to pass the Boards, get a job, and then we can start paying back the thousands we owe. Yep that's right. As poor as we are, the only financial aid we received was the opportunity to go into hock up to our necks in student loans. God bless America. I guess I really should qualify the statement that she is finished with class. She and her classmates are going to meet on December 6th for a bit of carousing in lieu of class. Effin' a right. They are college students you know.

Now for the important news. Yesterday I was bored at work (that's a whole 'nother story for later) so I pulled out the paper and started the crossword puzzles. I'm not really good at crosswords, although I like attempting them. The local fish-wrap has two crosswords, The NY Times and one called TMS. The Times puzzle is fun because it starts the week easy, and it progressively gets harder until the super-mother-bad Times Sunday crossword. TMS is generally easier to complete than most Times puzzles. That doesn't mean I finish them. Like I said, I'm not so good at crosswords. In the past I usually gave up trying to do the Times after the Tuesday edition. I told you, I'm not really good at these. So yesterday in my boredom I sit down to the crosswords and voila! I finish both of them. Okay, okay, I admit to cheating a little bit. I looked up which Atlantic 10 conference team is nicknamed the Rams (University of Rhode Island) and I also looked up a title of a book by C David Heymann (Liz). I was so proud of myself that I cut the section out of the paper and hung it on the wall.

Speaking of words and crosswords, I have two movies to recommend, both documentaries. The first is Wordplay. It's about the national crossword championship and features Will Shortz, editor of the Times crossword and a weekly guest on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday. People in that movie finish Times puzzles in 2 minutes (me 2 hours). The second movie, and probably the most entertaining documentary ever made, is "Spellbound." It's a movie about the National Spelling Bee. "An entertaining movie about spelling?" you ask. Trust me. It is poignant, funny and nerve wracking. Please do yourself a favor and rent it.

The weather dorks are predicting 6 or more inches of snow, to commence falling tomorrow morning. I am determined to get out on my winter beater bike and ride around with the club, sore back or no sore back.

Effin' a right.

Still No Biking

My back is still pretty tender, although the debilitating spasms have gone away. Tonight I'll ride a few blocks to my "Book Club" and hopefully it will feel alright. It's been really annoying to not ride because I'm withing spitting distance of 5000 miles for the year - less than a hundred to go. Also, my winter beater bike is up and running, though I'm not necessarily looking forward to putting lots of miles on that thing. I rode it to work last week and it was a chore. It felt like driving a tank compared to the SS Deathstar. It'll be good for the slow, winter-season group bike rides, but commuting will not be as much fun. It's all moot until the back feels better.

Madster and 'Nika are back kicking and punching at karate after a week layoff. Just before T-giving, they tested and received their green belts. They are now considered intermediate level and can begin sparring with other students. They carry around a big duffel bag full of protective gear, kinda like hockey players except not nearly as stinky. Madster should probably be sparring with the adults, but at this point we're not ready to start hauling kids to 6 different karate sessions a week.

TOYH will be done with classes on December 6th and gets pinned on December 7. Once she's officially graduated she'll be allowed to take the national nursing boards. December 2007 seemed like a long way off when she started school back in August of 2004, but she made it. She's trying to land a job with the MN Visiting Nurses Assn., so we're crossing our fingers about that. Normally they don't hire new grads, they want nurses with some clinical background. Hopefully she can get around that hurdle because this is what she really wants to be doing.

I'm Getting Grumpy

After Thanksgiving dinnner (well it was lunch, really, Tracy had it early which was very nice - no spending all day thinking about the food), I took the girls and the dogs up to Opa and Oma's for the night. Everything was cool until bedtime. I went upstairs to lie down and read at about 9:00 because I was tired. I couldn't go to sleep early cuz I needed make sure 'Nika and The Madster were ready for bed before I went to sleep. When I got back up at 10:00, my back was a bit stiff. I didn't think about it until the next morning when I tried to put my socks on. Spasm city. I made it through the day OK, but when we got back home and I went upstairs to read before bed, I thought I was gonna die. I was getting up to brush my teeth, and in the process of swinging my legs around and rolling out of bed, I ended up squatting next to it unable to move. Trying to straighten out and stand up was so excruciatingly painful that I was frozen there for about half a minute. Visions of my father rushed through my head. I almost yelled out, "Florence!" (all family members can close their eyes and hear that voice) but caught myself. I managed to right myself without any assistance, brush my teeth and get back into bed to get some sleep. I was supremely bummed out about these spasms because I had arranged to get home for the Saturday morning Hiawatha Cyclery ride. I missed that, obviously, and haven't been on a bike since Thursday morning when I went on my annual Ride-Around-Downtown-Minneapolis-When-There-Is-No-Traffic-Thanksgiving-Day-Ride. Saturday was to be extra special because I was to go Hiawatha Cyclery to pick up a prize I had won, a "Banana Bunker" (it's clever little thingy to carry around a banana in your backpack, briefcase, etc. without crushing it - but it looks like something you'd pick up at Sex World). I won it in a baby naming contest. It was the consolation prize so apparently my suggestion of "Thor" for a child whose last name is Thill wasn't exactly what the parents were looking for. When I told TOYH that I had won said BB in a baby naming contest she asked, "Is there something that you're not telling me about?" Well duh, I just told you. I won a Banana Bunker in a baby naming contest.

Back By Popular Demand

So we pile on over to Tracy and Jeff's for T-giving and I was asked why I haven't been blogging. I tried to explain that since I'm so clued into current cultural trends, I have determined that the latest and greatest trend in cyberspace is to quit blogging. Nobody bought it. I then reminded people that there are 4 other contributors to this piece of junk and that they haven't added anything since, oh, say, April. Nobody cared. So I tell everyone I'm lazy, uninspired and insensitive to my reading public. Bingo. Everyone understands. So I decided, for the time being, to crawl out of my self-absorbed reverie, and post something. Here it goes.

Thanksgiving was very nice.

The Last Meet And A Halloween Story

Tonight is KyKy's last swim meet. They are calling it JV sections, but what it really is is the JV City Championship. The section that Southwest is in is filled with suburban powerhouses whose JV teams would probably give SW's Varsity a run for their money. Coach would rather have the girls compete with programs of similar ability, and I agree with her on that. Minneapolis schools are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to facilities. Because South and Southwest share the same pool for practices and home meets and the divers practice in the mornings not allowing the swimmers to swim, Minneapolis teams simply can't get the yards in to field competitive teams. It's pretty sad, but that's just how it is sometimes.

TOYH and Madster and 'Nika trekked up to Vadnais Heights to Trick or Treat with their cousins. Lolls live on a circular road that has plenty of houses, so the kids make one circuit and come back with a bit of candy, but not too much. I stayed at home because KyKy was at Varsity City Championships and needed to be picked up. After I got her home, I went over to my neighbor's for our "book club." I looked across the street at the trick or treaters going up to the big house on the corner. It was lit up with Halloween lights. It also has these big cast aluminum storm doors that are meant to look like big scrolled iron gates. They are pretty stout since the idea is to prevent break ins. Anyway the trick or treaters would go up door, knock on it and the owners would come to the door. Rather than opening up the door for them, the owners would shove the candy out to the kids through the mail slot. Only in the 'hood I guess.

It Was Five Years Ago Today.....

That I was working FedEx route 9 on a dreary, cloudy day in South Minneapolis. I was at Franklin and Blaisdel, when TOYH called me on the phone to say that the plane carrying Paul Wellstone had crashed. I was sick to my stomach. Wellstone was the first politician I gave money to. He was the first politician I put a sign in my yard for. He was and is the only politician that I thought was truly looking out for working schlubs like me. When he died, I honestly felt that the voice that spoke for me and my concerns in the halls of power was lost. No doubt he was a polarizing figure, and his politics turned off many people. But the political was not the personal for Wellstone. He was friends with Jesse Helms, his opposite and nemesis in so many ways.

I want to leave you with two things.

What if there were more pols, Democrat and Republican, like Wellstone who could be passionate advocates for their causes without engaging in the politics of personal destruction and childish, vindictive, obstructive game playing? People hated Wellstone's politics, but they did not hate him. Maybe if they were more civil with each other, government might actually work.

Think about these quotes from his Senate floor speech opposing the authorization to use force in Iraq. This was the speech that would supposedly have cost him the election.

"Of first and greatest concern, obviously, are the questions raised about the possible loss of life that could result from our actions. The United States could send tens of thousands of U.S. troops to fight in Iraq, and in so doing we could risk countless lives, of U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqis. There are other questions, about the impact of an attack in relation to our economy. The United States could face soaring oil prices and could spend billions both on a war and on a years-long effort to stabilize Iraq after an invasion."

"We have succeeded in destroying some Al Qaida forces, but many of its operatives have scattered, their will to kill Americans still strong. The United States has relied heavily on alliances with nearly 100 countries in a coalition against terror for critical intelligence to protect Americans from possible future attacks. Acting with the support of allies, including hopefully Arab and Muslim allies, would limit possible damage to that coalition and our anti-terrorism efforts. But as General Wes Clark, former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe has recently noted, a premature go-it-alone invasion of Iraq 'would super-charge recruiting for Al Qaida.'"

Worst. Commute. Ever

Yesterday I had to leave work at 3pm to get home so that we could pick up Madster and 'Nika from their after school programs, go to KyKy's swim meet in New Hope and then to KyKy's first orchestra concert at school. Oh and the gas company needed to get into the house because they were replacing the line from the house to the main line out under the street. Anyhoo... I leave work at 3pm and I had to fight west winds of 30 mph with gusts to 40 mph. I think there were spots where I headed into gusts well over 40 mph. There were tumbleweeds on the transitway. I had grit on my teeth from all the sand being blown around at the Gopher Stadium site. I followed a guy on Portland Ave for a bit and we were both weaving around the bike lane because of the big cross winds. At least it was relatively warm during that mess.

KyKy did OK at her meet. She was under a bit of duress because her genius of a coach put her in 3 events. Here's the deal. KyKy told her coach on Friday that she had a concert that began at 7pm the day of the meet. The meet was in New Hope and started at 5pm. Coach was miffed because KyKy would have to leave the meet early. I, on the other hand, was extremely miffed because: 1) There were no exhibition heats that would use up swimmers to fill race spots 2) It was a 5 lane pool, so Southwest could not put 3 swimmers in every event. Therefore, there should be plenty of swimmers to fill the varsity and jv events, and KyKy would be able to leave early to get ready for her concert. But no, she HAD to be in a jv 200 free relay and thus did not have time to shower after the meet. We also had to stop and get something to eat because the concert would not be over until 8:15. What I don't understand is why coach can't juggle the lineup with 5 days advanced notice, and why there are not accommodations made for school events where participation is actually part of her grade. It sounds like passive-aggressive bullshit to me. Coach rarely pays attention to the jv, and now it's a big hairy deal that KyKy has to leave the meet early. I also feel there is no recourse to complain to coach or to her superior because coach is also KyKy's math teacher. With the level of maturity she's displayed so far, I wouldn't put it past her to knock KyKy down a few notches in school because her parents complain about her coaching. In any case, there is just one more meet and the season is done. If KyKy wants to swim next year that's cool, but it will be her wanting to be on a team. If she wants to improve as a swimmer, she's going to have to join a club to get better coaching.

KyKy's concert was lovely. 3 different ensembles played, and the director chose a few classical pieces and a few by local composers, one of them was a recent Southwest graduate. KyKy's orchestra sounded good, and she was excited to play in a concert with a group as opposed to recitals where she plays alone. A friend and neighbor of ours plays with the Minnesota Orchestra, so I'm hoping to get a few reduced price tickets to see what is by many accounts one of the top 5 orchestras in the world today. There you have it. The Stocking family, slightly more cultured than yogurt.

They Lost In A Heartbreaker

Last night the Southwest and South girls swim teams went head to head for the second time this season. South won the first meeting pretty handily, as they have been doing for the last 25 years or so. Southwest's coach juggled the lineup a bit to try and pull this one off. After the 100 breaststroke, SW was ahead by 2 points. A win in the 400 free relay would guarantee a win, a 2nd and 3rd place finish would result in a tie. Unfortunately SW took 2nd and 4th in the relay and lost the meet by 2 points. There were a few girls crying after the meet. They really thought they could break the streak so this ended up being the biggest meet of the season, and to lose by 2 was a bit much. There was a little bit of gloating on the part of the South fans (the students, not the parents) which was hard to take, but I guess it becomes a lesson in losing gracefully. KyKy split at :29 on her leg of the medley relay, dropped her time about 35 seconds in the 500 to 7:40 and had a 1:12 on her split in the 400 FR. I'm still not sure what to think about the coach and the team. The coaches, in my estimation, haven't been developing their junior varsity swimmers, which if they want to beat South, they're going to have to do at some point. KyKy has 2 weeks until j.v. sections, and then the season is done.

While we were at the meet TOYH called from home to say that her phone had been stolen from her studio while she was working on a client. This is not just a phone, but her calendar, all her contact information, school stuff - a good chunk of her life is on that thing. I've tried backing up her info on the computer, but the software on the two machines doesn't really work together. To lose this thing would be a gigantic pain. As it turns out, there are some teens doing some kind of group therapy in the same building. TOYH went over and told the group leaders what had happened, and they said they would look for her phone. They found it in the stairwell of the building. Someone got bored with it pretty quickly I guess, or else they figured out that she doesn't have any games on it, so it wasn't worth keeping. All is well for now.

This Weather Is Getting Depressing

It seems like it's been cool and rainy for two weeks now. Most importantly, I've missed a couple of days biking because of the weather. Yesterday, however, was glorious. I got up early and hooked up with the gang from Hiawatha Cyclery. I didn't really know what to expect, but it turned out to be a bunch of middle-aged guys riding their bikes and chatting with a stop for coffee at about the midpoint. Really nice, friendly group. I actually met the infamous "Lunatic Biker." He's a local biker/blogger who writes some very amusing (rated R for language) stuff. The ride itself wasn't that great (except for the company of course). It was so laid back and relaxed that at one point I looked down at my heart rate monitor and my pulse was a whopping 69. While riding my bike. I'm in fair shape, but this is really slow. Next time I go with them, I'm riding my fixie because at least when I'm on that, my legs are moving all the time.

Now this morning I went out on a TCBC ride. It kept threatening rain and it would spit on us every once in a while. I like the folks I ride with in the Club but sometimes I don't understand them. I think I was the only rider to actually ride his bike to the start of the ride. Everyone else rolled up in their cars. A couple of them had bikes worth 3 grand or more, and most of them were outfitted in at least $400.00 worth of cool weather/rain gear. I showed up on the cheapest bike (my fixie) and about $100.00 worth of cool weather clothing. Toward the middle of the ride somebody flatted out, so we all stopped until he had it fixed. It was in the mid 40's with a breeze so stopping and starting is a real pain. Until you get moving and warm up, it can be a bit chilly. As we continued on, we reached a point where the ride can be cut short or we can do the whole thing. The rain started dribbling again. Guess who was the only one to complete the whole route? Yup, Mr Cheap Bike wearing jean shorts and walking shoes. Some of them were cold, or didn't want to ride in the "rain" despite the fact that they has spent a lot of money on clothing for just this situation. Sheesh. Now I've spent a lot of money on bike stuff, including clothing, but come on, if you give up when it's 40 outside and you're wearing all this high tech stuff, it seems to me you've just wasted bunch of dough. My goal this winter is to keep riding until the temp drops to zero. We'll see.

Today was the day that all the ladies in the family were to trek up to Brooklyn Park to get their hairs cut by our fabulous hairdresser friend. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Tanya had to cancel. TOYH had it all worked out so that between multiple trips all of us wouldn't have to spend the whole afternoon and part of the evening at Tanya's. I guess they're going to try again on Thursday. I myself don't have Tanya cut my hairs anymore. It just takes too dang long, although she does a fabulous job. A few weeks ago, I went to Phil's Barber Shop on Nicollet and Diamond Lake Road. (That's spitting distance from Nana's last apartment before she moved to the "home") Phil did a fine job, but I think he needs a hearing aid. When I would make chit chat with him, he wouldn't respond or would ask questions about something I had already told him. Maybe I'll go back or maybe I'll try and find another barbershop. It seems like most of the shops around here cater to African American clientele, so I'm not sure what they'd do with me.

Aaaand They're Off

The Madster had her braces taken off yesterday. Beautiful. She was pretty dilligent about hooking up the rubber bands the last few months which pulled her teeth into place and expedited the whole process. These braces were brought to her at great expense. I believe she has been through 3 dental plans, each one paying progressively less for orthodontic coverage. I used to joke with my old FedEx colleagues that I would stay with the company as long as the kids needed braces because their dental plan covered for half of any orthodontia. Would have saved me a couple of grand if I was able to do so. When I asked her how it felt to have them off her response was, "Slimey." Delicious. Well it's two down and one to go as far as braces go cuz 'Nika is definitely going to need them. Only a couple dozen more trips to Family Orthodontics and the Stocking curse of Hillbilly teeth will be broken.

The daily grind is well, the daily grind. Multiple trips every week to karate, swimming, youth group etc. I have a much greater appreciation for all the trouble Mom went through when we were growing up and needed to be taxied about. I'm beginning to dislike the constant drives to SW High School. There is a freeway and a couple of lakes that stand between us and the school, and it's a pain to get there. When KyKy is done with swimming, she'll be able to take the school bus home - until track starts, which she is threatening to go out for. I'd like to see her bike or take the city bus, but at this point in the school year it' getting a bit cool (and eventually too dark) for her to be riding around.

We're counting the weeks until TOYH is done with school.

Still Don't Feel The Need To Get A Gun

See the October 4 post. Also, last evening 'Nika and I were watching old M*A*S*H re-runs when we heard a pow, pow, pow. It wasn't firecrackers cuz of the way they repeated themselves. It was probably some dimwitted homeboy busting a few caps. Neighbor kid called in a panic, but 'Nika was on the phone and we didn't answer because she didn't click over on call waiting. Cops didn't even respond. I don't even worry about those things anymore. Gunshots have been very infrequent this year in our neighborhood.

You Can Just Call Me The Angel Of Death

So Tuesday afternoon I pick up KyKy from swimming, and as we pull into the garage, the dogs are going nuts in the yard. I'm thinking that they're just excited to see us. This was not the case. They had managed to catch a squirrel and Max was worrying it. The squirrel was squealing, KyKy started yelling at Max, and 'Nika came out and started yelling at the dogs also. Max dropped the squirrel, so Grover picked it up and started shaking it around, more yelling ensued until we got the dogs to leave it alone and get them back in the house. So there is Mr. Squirrel lying in a puddle of mud, twitching. I dispatched it with a couple of blows to the head with a shovel. Yuck. As of today, I still don't feel the need to go out and buy an orange vest and a long gun to reinforce my bona fides as a killer. I guess that means I can cross Blackwater off of my list of potential employers. I do wish the dogs would pursue the mice in our house with the same bloodlust they apparently have for squirrels.

Monday Nights Are Done

TOYH is done with Monday night classes. For the first time in 3 years she'll be down to one class a week. Only three more months until she's finished. Last night she took the practice NCLEX test, which is the test to pass her national boards. (I think) Nursing schools are having their students take this preliminary test to get an idea of where their students are at. TOYH was pretty mum about how she thought the test went. This means she probably did very well on it. Normally after a test, she comes home and feels all depressed because she thinks she did such crappy job. "I'm a failure and a fraud, and I'm going to die homeless and 10 pounds overweight," kinda thing. And she ends up getting an A. Always expect the worst is her motto I think.

She also received a job offer from Abbott Northwestern yesterday. This is a great news, but probably not something she is going to pursue. One of the conclusions she came to on her internship was that working as a floor nurse is not what she'd really like to do. It would have to be a pretty sweet set up for her to take a job there. 6 shifts every two weeks and no evenings. I don't think that'll happen. She's getting her name out with the Minnesota Visiting Nurses Association hoping to land a job in the public health setting. That would be sweet.

The girls spent the weekend with The EG on a photo trip on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Photo ops were pretty slim because it rained quite a bit. They did have an adventure on the way back though. The EG thought she had lost her wallet on the day they were to come back. Luckily they had gassed up the van the day before, so they wouldn't be stuck. As they toddled back home eating grapes and Teddy Grahams and drinking Gatorade, KyKy discovered she had $9. Stopped for ice cream bars, of course. When they were unpacking the van at our place, EG's wallet showed itself in the back of the van. Relief.

'Nika almost didn't go on the trip because she found out on Thursday that she had gotten a D on a test and would have to re-take it on Monday. She was distraught. "I'm a failure and a fraud....." Turns out that she was supposed to make note cards to study for the test. She didn't finish her cards because she was using the dictionary to look things up and it was taking a loooong time. What she didn't realize was that she was to make the cards using the glossary in her textbook. She re-took the test on Monday - B+.

Yesterday we received the results from the MN Comprehensive Assessment (or whatever it's called), the benchmark tests that the kids take in school. I am happy to report that all the kids are meeting or exceeding expectations in math and reading. I am not happy to report that there is an inordinate amount of time spent in the classroom teaching to the test. Thank you No Child Left Behind.

The weather has generally be craptastic for the past 4 days, so not much bike riding. I'm itching to take my fixed gear out for a longer ride. Rob T gave me some bullhorn handlebars that I actually installed myself on the bike. It's not the prettiest job, but not too bad for an amateur.