Those Martins

I’m sitting in the living room of my parent’s apartment, in Waxhaw, NC. Football is on TV, my mother is packing up Christmas ornaments (to go home with their owners). We’ve just finished reviewing home movies (most people ignored most of them) and are anticipating a quiet end to the day.

Christine, Esther, and I arrived in Waxhaw at midnight on December 22 (or 23, depending on how you look at it). We left Oregon at 6pm on Friday the 21st. We were surrounded by a dense fog, from the moment we left our driveway. I couldn’t see further than 10 feet ahead until sometime after we crossed the Illinois border. Even then, the fog only thinned out. It never quite left us.

We drove from Oregon, WI to Indianapolis, IN on Friday night. We didn’t pull into Indy until sometime after midnight. Fortunately, Esther slept during most of the drive (and was willing to play during the other parts). Once we got to the downtown Days Inn, we setup the Pack’n’Play. She fell asleep pretty quickly. So did we.

Saturday morning, we hit the road by 10:30am, Eastern time. The drive through Indianna was pretty boring. (So was the drive through Wisconsin and Illinois the night before. But the fog obscured that.) Things got better once we crossed into Kentucky. The scenery in Kentucky and Tennesse kept me awake all day long. We stopped several times during the day. Our first Kentucky stop was just outside of Louisville. We took Esther on a walk around a local shopping center and enjoyed our first warm weather since early November. Our next stop was for lunch, sometime around Lexington (I think). I had Arby’s, Christine had Wendy’s. (It’s the story of our lives, in microcosm.)

The drive through Tennesse was absolutely gorgeous. Once again, I thought about moving down to Tennesse. What’s not to like, after all? Beautiful scenery, low taxes, moderate politics, and friendly people. We stopped for dinner in Knoxville — the home of Glenn Reynolds and Helen Smith. A month and a half ago, I e-mailed Dr. Helen and asked her advice about what to see (if we had time) and where to eat. On her recommendation, we stopped at Calhoun’s on the River for dinner. (Thanks!) We enjoyed it so much, that we’re stopping there again on our way home. Next time, we’ll arrive hungrier so we can eat more.

Unfortunately, we weren’t too hungry when we stopped for dinner. Christine and I had wings for dinner, then ordered a double-chocolate cake for dessert. Esther didn’t much care for the wings, but she absolutely loved the cake. I think she had more than I did!

From Knoxville, we drove south to Spartanburg, SC; back north to Charlotte, NC; and finally back south to Waxhaw, NC. That really was the quickest route. We hit rain outside of Knoxville and it followed us most of the way into Waxhaw. A bit of rain always makes nighttime driving more fun.

We greeted everyone, in a state of exhaustation. Then we went to bed.

Last night, Esther had a great time playing with Uncle Nate. We captured a few minutes on video, just for you.

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Esther’s grandparents gave her a drum kit, complete with drumsticks, tambourine, bells, and xylophone. She isn’t too good at making noise, yet. We expect that to change soon.

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We gave Esther a Playskool Busy Ball Popper for Christmas. So far, I think it’s her favorite present. It only took her about 3 minutes to figure out how to start it up and she loves making the balls fly around the room.

Watch and see.

[flv:http://disk2.wordflood.net/public/Esther/2007/12270910%20Esther%20and%20the%20Ball%20Popper.flv 320 180]

It was an interesting end to the week.

Friday started out like pretty much any other day, but developed it’s own identity at lunch time. An ex co-worker was back in town and organized a group to go out to TGIFriday’s for lunch. Because lunch started at 12:30p, I missed the first part of my last training class. I left lunch at 1:35p and got to class around 2:00p. Class only lasted another 45 minutes, after I showed up.

Around 3:00p, I started driving back to my Madison office (from the Verona offices, where classes were being held). At the intersection of County Road PD and County Road M, my car stalled out. In the left turn lane. As the engine shut off, the dashboard oil light turned on. At this point, the road was on a slight incline. Fortunately PD isn’t heavily travelled, so I was able to wait one light cycle, then back the car away from the light. This allowed left turning traffic to easily go around me.

The next step was to get the car off of the road. That proved more challenging. I needed to cross a lane of traffic whether I went off to the left or off to the right. The left shoulder was closer, so I wanted to do that. Because the car was on a slight incline, I couldn’t get it moving fast enough on my own to push it across the lane. I made two phone calls. The first was to Christine, asking her to come pick me up and to bring some oil with her. The second was to Mike, asking for his help in pushing the car off of the road.

A note: A surprisingly large number of people pulled up behind, failed to notice that I was 30 feet from the light (with no one in front of me) and that my flashers were on. Having failed to notice these obvious indications that my car wasn’t running, they then proceeded to honk and glare at me.

Fortunately, most people that drove past weren’t jerks. One man initially started to pass me, suddenly slowed, then pulled off to the right side of the road. He came over and helped me push the car over to the left shoulder, in between waves of traffic. To whomever you are: thanks!

Mike pulled up about 2 minutes later and let me warm up in his car until Christine arrived. When Christine arrived, I put a quart of oil in the engine (after checking the level and seeing that it was slightly low). The car still failed to start up.

It was at this point that I first suspected that I’d run out of gas. I had good reason for not suspecting it before: based on average miles per gallon, I thought I had about 20 miles left before I ran out. Also, the gas light completely failed to come, both when I was driving and when I was stopped. I still didn’t really think that I was out of gas, but I figured it was worth a shot before calling for a tow.

Christine drove me over to James & Liz’s house (quicker to drive there than to our house and back), where we borrowed a gas can, and filled it up. I poured it into my car (spilling some on myself in the process), then tried to start it again. After a few seconds of cranking, it caught and started up. It ran rough for about 30 seconds, then smoothed out. Well! I guess it needed a fill-up after all!

We drove back to Verona, put a full tank’s worth of gas in the car, and returned the gas can. I finally arrived home around 6:00p; with cold, numb hands; and clothes that smelled like gasoline. As if that wasn’t enough, my iPod decided to call it a life and committed suicide.

The rest of the day was boring and anti-climatic by comparison.

I woke up around 6:30a and actually spent most of my time getting ready for work. Thursdays are also Christine’s day to work at the pharmacy. I take Esther over to a babysitter on my own way to work. Today, some friends from Oregon were going to watch her. I was ready to leave for work by 8:30a but Esther decided to take a nice, long morning nap. She finally woke up around 9:00a. I dropped her off at the sitter’s, and made it into the office by 9:35a.

I had a general blizzard of issues come at me as soon as I checked my e-mail. I ended up re-prioritizing my to-do list. There’s no way I was going to get to everything originally scheduled for “This Week”. Life granted me a bit of reprieve, when my trainer e-mailed to say that class wouldn’t start until 1:30p (instead of the original 1:00p).

Class went well this afternoon. We had to create some hierarchical rules for routing lab results to the people. The system will use the first — and only the first — matching rule that it finds. It’s very important that the rules are ordered from most specific to least specific. If not, some people might never get the results that they were expecting to get. The practice exercises for that section were a bit challenging. But the rest of the day was pretty easy to compensate.

I started for Oregon at 5:00p, to retrieve Esther from the sitter’s. I stopped at home first to drop off my work gear and print out directions to Babe’s. I had Esther picked up and loaded up by 5:50p. We ran into a spot of traffic driving to Babe’s, so we didn’t arrive until 6:20p. I drove past the parking lot to find that early arrivals had packed it beyond full. They had also filled up the surrounding parking lots and side streets. I found a mostly empty lot attached to a corporate park about 2 blocks away. Esther and I walked back to the bar, after bundling up against the cold.

Mike and Alicia had arrived early, but not early enough to get a table. They signed the waiting list for a table, but that ultimately proved fruitless. The bar was standing room only. People were packed in every nook and cranny of the building. The wait staff had a constant struggle just to carry food and drinks through the facility. Because there was nowhere to sit, I had to hold Esther and place her diaper bag between my feet.

Christine arrived around 7:00p. She was pretty hungry after a full day at work. Rather than having her and Esther stay, hoping to get food, I sent them home. It turned out to be a good decision: I didn’t get any food until after 9:30p.

I spent the next 2.5 hours standing. I also spent the next 2.5 hours watching the Packers - Cowboys game, so it wasn’t all bad. As expected, it was a bit of a dogfight. Injuries proved to be decisive. The Packers were without their starting right corner (Charles Woodson), backup right corner (Aaron Rouse), and pass-rushing defensive end (Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila). That allowed the Cowboys’ receivers to catch more passes and prevent the Packers from putting a lot of pressure on Tony Romo.

To cap things off, Brett Favre was injured midway through the second quarter and never returned to the game. Backup quarterback Aaron Rodgers entered the game for the first real playing time of his three-year career. One could almost hear the crowd deflate as they watched Rodgers come onto the field. The Packers were already trailing by 10 points and things did not seem to be looking up. Rodgers quickly showed, however, that he’s been putting his limited practice time to good use. He was able to complete passes, find open receivers, run for first downs, and generally do a pretty good job of leading the offensive. He finished the night having passed 18/26 for 201 yards and a touchdown. Not bad at all! (And better, it should be noted, than Brett Favre’s 5/14 for 56 yards and two interceptions.)

Ultimately, it was a losing effort. Even Rodger’s heroics couldn’t overcome the hole that the Packers put themselves into through injuries and stupid penalties. The final score was 37-27, Dallas. The Packers are now 10-2.

I stayed at Babe’s until the bitter end, then sprinted for the warmth of my car. I finally came home for good at 11:00p and was in bed by 11:30p. No late night reading for me! Just some short conversation with Christine before turning out the lights.

I woke up and around 6:30am, grabbed my Bible, and finished reading through the book of Ezekiel. I was enjoying the book right up until the point where it delved into the minutia of how to construct a new temple. I think I see hints of what the future will be when Jesus is present in the temple, but I have a hard time really focusing on those passages.

I also spent a chunk of time using Bookpedia to organize our library. I went through and identified which books were mine, which were Christine’s, which we both claimed, and which are Esther’s. Eventually, I’ll update my LibraryThing profile with my collection and probably my iRead profile on Facebook as well. At the moment, my profiles have a mix of my books and Christine’s books. They’re also out of date.

Arrived at work around 9:45a and had my usually eventful morning. I was in class again this afternoon. I didn’t leave work until 6pm. On the way home from work, I listened to a discussion about Peak Oil and whether or not we’ll ever run out of oil. This really caught my attention:

Light sweet crude (less than 1% sulfur), running out, but plenty of sour crude: easier to make gasoline out of light sweet crude, but easy enough to make diesel fuel and other things out of sour crude. “We have never and will never run out of anything.” As prices go up, people find more ways to find more of it; and as prices go up people find more ways to do without it. Alternative fuels will become more economical, we will switch to them, and never run out of oil.

We had dinner as soon as I get home (chicken enchiladas! mmmmm), then left for Life Group. Tonight we discussed whether or not “Sex is Dirty”. (It’s not.)

Home by 9pm. Changed Esther and put her straight to bed. She’d tired herself out during the day, so she fell asleep with no arguments. I read through my news feeds while Christine arranged a substitute babysitter for tomorrow (Liz and Joshua are sick, so they can’t watch her like normal). Now we’re watching a Cosby Show episode, then off to bed.

I woke up around 5am and wasn’t able to fall back asleep. I got out of bed, read some news feeds, confirmed that my fantasy football team clinched a playoff spot, and finished writing yesterday’s journal entry. I checked my computer and noticed that my photo backup hadn’t been running for the past month. I fixed my backup script, then kicked it off. It spent over an hour backing up our latest photos to Joyent Strongspace.

While eating breakfast, I started reading The Downing Street Years by Margaret Thatcher (now that I’m done reading Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan). I quickly realized one thing: I’m familiar with the concept of the British parliamentary system, but I’m completely lost on the details. The book is very interesting, but also very confusing.

I finally managed to put it down and leave for the office. After a quick stop to pick up some contacts for my wife, I got into the office at 9:30am. The morning was busy but not overwhelmingly so. I spent the afternoon in class once again, but was able to leave by 5pm.

Five minutes after I walked in the door, the entire family walked back out the door. We went down the street for dinner at BrouxNellie’s. I had the chicken finger club sandwich, Christine had a burger, and Esther turned her nose up at some delicious macaroni & cheese soup. Esther spent most of her time twisting every which way in her high chair to check out the other diners.

Christine dropped us off at home while she went out with some of the other mothers from church. I read while Esther played on the floor for about half an hour. (I also played on the floor with her, some.) Eventually she crawled over to me and looked like she was ready for bed. I changed her diaper, put her pajamas on and had her in bed by 7:40pm.

Five minutes later, she let me know that she was ready to get up again. Once she got up, she drank some water then played some more. After she pooped her diaper, she again crawled over to me and acted like she wanted to go to bed. I again changed her and put her to bed. She whimpered in the crib for about 15 minutes, so I got her up, rocked her a bit, and put her back to bed. This time she only whimpered for about 5 minutes before (apparently) deciding to fall alseep. Time alseep: 8:35pm.

I’ve been reading reviews of Amazon’s new eBook reader, the Kindle. I’m interested in the idea of an eBook reader (it beats the huge hardcover books I’m normally carrying around) and I like the new e-ink displays that are almost like reading off of a printed page. On the other hand, the Kindle costs $400. Odds are, Christine and I would both want to read it at the same time. That’s either one expensive gadget to fight over or one super-expensive buy for each of us. Still, I read a hands on review tonight that makes it sound worthwhile. And Neil Gaiman likes it.

A quick check of Amazon’s Kindle book store reveals that I couldn’t get any of the books that I’m currently reading — The Downing Street Years, Dutch: A Memoir, or Overcoming Sin and Temptation — in Kindle format. On the other hand, I could read G. K. Chesterton’s classic Orthodoxy for only $0.99. I could also get the text on the internet for free and load it onto the Kindle manually. While a Kindle might not, yet, be great for reading older, copyrighted books, it would be fantastic for reading classic public-domain books.

I’ll keep it in mind for Christmas money.

I spent the evening reading The Downing Street Years. I was too tired from waking up early to do much else. Christine came home around 10:15p and we went to bed shortly afterwards.

Surprisingly, Esther let us sleep in until 7am this morning. I read through some news feeds, filed a few receipts, ate breakfast, and didn’t manage to get into work until around 10am.

While eating breakfast, I finished the final pages of Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. It’s an interesting book. As the Amazon review says:

Why did Pulitzer-winning Theodore Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris controversially choose to write his authorized biography of Ronald Reagan in the form of a historical novel? There’s a clue in a quote the book attributes to Jane Wyman, Reagan’s first wife. As Ronnie speechified about the Red Menace at a 1940s Hollywood party, Wyman allegedly whispered to a friend, “I’m so bored with him, I’ll either kill him or kill myself.” This anecdote, if true, is more revealing than Nancy Reagan’s charge in the book that Jane had attempted suicide to get Ronnie to marry her in the first place. Jane was no intellectual—Morris cracks that “If Jane had ever heard of Finland, she probably thought it was an aquarium”—but he found to his horror, after years of research, that he felt much the same as Wyman. Reagan was as boring as a box of rocks, as elusive as a ghost.

Decades before Alzheimer’s clouded Reagan’s mind, he showed a terrifying lack of human presence. “I was real proud when Dad came to my high school commencement,” reports his son, Michael Reagan. After posing for photos with Michael and his classmates, the future president came up to him, looked right in his eyes, and said, “Hi, my name’s Ronald Reagan. What’s yours?” Poor Michael replied, “Dad, it’s me. Your son. Mike.”

Despite deep research and unprecedented access—no previous biography has ever been authorized by a sitting president—Morris could get no closer to Reagan’s elusive soul than Reagan’s own kids could. So Morris decided to dramatize Reagan’s life with several invented characters—including a fictionalized version of himself and an imaginary gossip columnist who makes wicked comments on Reagan’s career. This is one weird tactic, forcing the reader constantly to consult the footnotes at the back of the book to sort things out, and Morris makes it tougher by presenting his invented characters as real, even in the footnotes.

Ultimately, the hubbub over Morris’s odd method is beside the point. His speculative entry into Reagan’s life and mind is plausible, dramatic, literary, and lit by dazzling flashes of insight. The narrator watches the young Reagan as a lifeguard (years before the real Morris was born):

One tunnels along in a shroud of silvery bubbles, insulated from any sight or sound…. Others may swim alongside for a while, but their individuality tends to refract away, through the bubbles and the blur. Often I have marveled at Reagan’s cool, unhurried progress through crises of politics and personnel, and thought to myself, He sees the world as a swimmer sees it.

We cannot verify Morris’s notion that Reagan probably approved the illegal Iran-Contra funding without having a clue it was illegal, or that the “Star Wars” program sprang from his love of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s first novel, A Princess of Mars, which featured glass-domed cities. But however bizarre and ignorant his thoughts were, however cold his heart, Morris believes, the guy did crush the Evil Empire and achieve greatness. Morris achieves a kind of greatness, too, but one wishes he had written a more straightforward dramatization of history. —Tim Appelo

I have a far more complete view of Ronald Reagan now than I ever did before.

I spent the afternoon in EpicCare training and learned just how complex our Medications master file can be. The more I learn about healthcare complexity, the more surprised I am that the healthcare system works at all.

I came home around 6pm and had fun playing with Esther before dinner. She sat in her booster seat and ate roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn with us. After dinner I finished catching up on my feed reading. I chatted briefly with Nate and a little more extensively with Hallie. I also decided to put my Wall Street Journal subscription to good use. I subscribed to a bunch of their news feeds. I’ll spend the next several weeks deciding which subscriptions are worthwhile and which subscriptions I don’t really need to keep.

I made plans to watch Thursday night’s Packers’ game with Mike and Alicia. The 10-1 Packers will be having a showdown with the 10-1 Cowboys, in Dallas. Unfortunately, the game will only be televised on the NFL Network. (Thank-you very much, NFL.) We’ll be meeting at Babe’s around 6:30pm, to eat dinner and watch the game.

Esther went to bed around 8pm. We celebrated by watching Stargate SG-1, episode 10x16 - Bad Guys. It was definitely funny, quite possibly one of our new favorite episodes.

We finished out the night by reading in bed. I continued Reading the Classics by reading through chapter 2 of Overcoming Sin and Temptation. First I did a re-read of chapter 1, highlighting as I went through. Then I read through and highlighted chapter 1.

This is the first time I’ve ever highlighted one of my books — textbooks included. I was driven to it by John Owen’s complex writing style. Highlighting allows me to actually focus in on the key ideas and mark them for later review.

Asleep by 11pm.

Three weeks ago, we spent a weekend at Chula Vista. Esther got her first water experience at the Lost Rios indoor water park. And we got video.

I think she was a bit overwhelmed by the whole experience. The waterpark was very loud (the sound was echoing off of the walls) and she’s still getting used to water. But we had fun taking her there.

(And don’t be fooled by the waterpark’s website. The “Flyan Myan Zip Coaster” may be the “world’s fastest and longest indoor water coaster”, but that really, really, really isn’t saying much.)

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Esther really likes bananas, though she usually creates a mess when she eats them. Thanks to this short clip, you can watch her eating them.

And, yes, we do use plastic bags as bibs. Saves on the washing, gets some re-use out of our bags, and they’re easily disposasble once they get slimy and messy.

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A short clip of Esther in her swing. She really enjoyed it, too bad she got too big.

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I just wanted to publicly announce that Christine wears the pants in this family.

I wear the shorts.

I just heard geese honking their way south for the winter. The temperature outside is a chilly 38 (F) with an expected high of only 68 today. I think summer is definitely on its way out. Positive: I won’t need to cut grass as much. Negative: I much prefer cutting grass to shoveling snow. For one thing, it doesn’t have to be done before I can leave for work.

We’ve lived in our house for over a year now. Next August will mark the first time, since I started college, that I’ve lived in one place for more than 18 months. So far, we’ve put in a new furnace, new air conditioning, and new curtains in the living room. We’re planning to paint sometime in the next nine months. We’d like to put in new window as well, but we’ll probably save that until after we’ve paid off our home equity line of credit. We’re going to try to get that done in five years or less.

The Tuesday after Labor Day is always fun. Well, not really. It’s the work of a Monday with the the feeling that you’re already a day behind on your todo list. Fortunately, there were no major emergencies at the office.

Drove out to Milwaukee, with Alicia and Mike, to watch the Brewers win over the Astros, 5-3. Esther had an absolute blast at the game. She spent the entire nine innings looking around at the other fans, watching the action on the field, or smiling at all of us.

We arrived home after midnight and were in bed by 12:30am.

We got a cat! Christine visited an estate sale yesterday. A young cat was part of the estate. He was unloved and unwanted — until Christine showed up. The estate was so desparate to move the cat that they paid Christine $5 to take him. (Included: cat carrier, litter box, litter, and cat food.)

So, we wondered. Kittens are playful. 6 month old daughters are playful. How much different is a cat and a baby? Watch and see!

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Filmed only yesterday! We’re setting a new record for video timeliness. Watch Esther as she starts figuring out how to crawl.

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Watch Esther eating some peas, then enjoy getting cleaned up.

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Esther enjoys playing with some new blocks — mostly as chew toys.

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• Esther practices rolling over
• Gets a pre-bed diaper change
• Plays with the Baby in the Mirror

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