The Time Sink

There are a lot of little 'coming of age' things happening this year around Casa TimeSink; another happened earlier this weekend with Brad...

I came back from blading Friday evening and decided to change out my bearings and wheels. ...well, just the wheels needed changing, but the replacement set I'd bought on sale had both, so I packaged up the old bearings and tucked them away. I tend to keep decent bearings 'just in case', and occasionally I'll even have a set of wheels I've found that didn't quite work out...

Brad was helping me break out the older bearings and asked if I had anything he could use for his 'new' blades. He'd recently inherited Daniel's old set when we moved Daniel up to the set for him to exercise with (that's worked out fine, by the way; he either heads out with me or with one of his friends several times each week) and wanted to know if any of my castoffs would work for him. I showed him why my old wheels wouldn't work all that well because of how badly they were worn, but I took a look at his wheels anyway...

Well, his wheels weren't too far gone, but his bearings certainly weren't doing him any good. I asked him to hang on while I made a quick run to test out my new setup (sometimes things just don't work out with the way some brands of wheels run up against the frame and I like to find that out before I make a long run in them). When I got back, I took a look and found a bearing/wheel set from last Spring that hadn't worked out for me; as best I recall, my weight bowed the wheels enough to make them drag on the frame.

So we changed out Brad's wheels and bearings, having only the usual problem with the different spacers for the different frames. ...and he gave things a test. It's a darned good thing that kid has a good sense of balance! He really didn't believe me when I told him they'd more than double his speed. Oh, yeah...

Saturday morning came and I invited Brad along with me for my morning blade run. He's been along with me before, but only on his bike. I figured we might as well establish the practicality of him going along early in the game. Well... He did okay; he has a lot of stamina and drive. What he doesn't have is any length to his legs yet; he was working two to three strokes to my one. I kept us to a very slow pace to allow him to keep up, and his natural tendency to want to excel kept him going; but toward the end he was more or less glad we were winding down...

He did ask me to go ahead and not hold back as we headed into the back part of our neighborhood, but I told him it wouldn't be a pretty thing <g>. He decided to try to out sprint me and was a little shocked that I could keep up as he went all out. ...and then I cut loose for about a block.

We took yesterday off from the routine... Well, I did more so than the rest of the family, but Shelley had the kids do some cleaning in the morning and then we headed out to a movie after I finally woke up....

...and when we got back, more cleaning and more napping. ...and leftovers <g>.

Just between you and me, this 101--104 stuff can end just about anytime it's convenient for the raisin farmers. ...or at least let's blast some wind through the valley and clear some of the dust from the air!

Yeah, it makes for nice pictures, but it's pretty rough on the kids doing after school sports.

I've been told my sense of humor is 'skewed' somewhat... Yeah, surprising, -neh? So last night we're sitting around the campfire doing homework, and I was playing with the new 'temporal' therometer we're evaluating here at home (good for clinical or home, not useful for field units) while giving Daniel feedback on his answers for his literature assignment. ...and I'm deliberately using the unit incorrectly, moving it over various 'wrong' parts of my face and driving Daniel to distraction since he wants me to use it correctly.

...and now that he's setup for the punchline, I start running it through my hair like a comb! ...and then I bring it down and look at the sensor and tell him, "Hey, my hair is cooool!!!" ...and the overload of "Dad's insanity", the pun, and the "Happy Days" reference leads to him totally losing it.

Yeah, that one was bad... But hey, here's a random pair of thoughts from the Costco run yesterday:

It's okay that Oster makes toasters; the alliteration of having an Oster toaster in the kitchen is cool. ...but if they manufacture a toaster over, could that be an Oster toaster roaster?

...and it is not okay for Cuisinart to make toasters. No way. I'm simply not going to be able to put a piece of bread in a Cuisinart. ...unless maybe I put the toast in and I'm making breadcrumbs? Or maybe I'm just showing my age...

The black camel has been kneeling in the neighborhood a bit too much lately. Wednesday a coworker's mother was found dead (natural causes) and yeah... well ... yeah. ...and the next day a photoblogging friend lost the second of twins in utero (yes, she'll be okay and knows she can try again).

...and then a blogging friend lost a member of her close knit community. <sigh>

Still, life goes on and the march continues.

Last night I received a call from the office: one of my coworkers had passed away. He and Shelley had come on about the same time. ...and I'd had him in my recert classes when I was teaching. "Unscheduled" is the word we use in EMS...

So this morning hasn't been one of my perkier days. Usually I take these kind of posts to another place or two, but today seems like the day to leave it right here. ...as a friend once said, "Do you want reality or the smoke I blow on my blog?"

...and yes, I'm doing what I need to do. Blading went well this morning. ...and I came back and spent some time splitting firewood with Brad (I split; he stacks). ...and watching the local team take apart the #13 team. And taking a picture or two...

Yes, selected posts from these pages are now incorporated in the RSS feed... I had a very nice request to add these pages to the xml page: it seems LiveJournal users can utilize feeds from non-users! Okay by me. ...but I think I'll leave out the posts with minimal content. ...and this one: I'd hate to generate a 'circular references' error somewhere <g>!

...and connectivity to and from Casa TimeSink is a little sporadic this weekend: I'm swinging things to DSL here and discovering exactly how much of the SBC/Yahoo CD I need to deal with. ...and that appears to be not much, thank goodness. The 2Wire modem and Broadband Support forums pretty much cover what is needed.

Currently I have a wired segment up to this workstation group, but I need to get the wireless segment going so I can get the Cat5 off the kitchen floor. ...and there are some email issues to resolve before I kill the current wireless link to the dial up.

In other news, Brad and I spent some time out in the neighborhood and points north with our cameras this morning. That shoot may turn out to have a treasure or two tucked away inside...

Click image for larger version

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

    Thanks for visiting!  
All content Copyright 1999->2004 Daniel C. Bowman. Most rights reserved.