The Time Sink

Monday, Monday... Let's see... It's another week; school is coming along quite nicely for both the boys; Daniel is a year older today; this was supposed to be the last week of the heat in the valley (but they lied!) and I'm already looking ahead to the weekend.

Nope!

"Nope" doesn't mean nothing happened to post about, but it does mean that there are evenings when sitting in the big chair (sans kittens but with a big cat who misses his old buddy) just resting my eyes seems like just a good thing to do. Not that posting pics and blogging about the day or the family or general thoughts isn't a key part of my detox program from the stressors in my life, but that 'just sitting' with the window open and watching the trees waving in the late night breeze can sometimes be a decent substitute when I'm not quite so driven.

Couple that with the re-establishment of the school routine (with a couple of new twists) and this week is looking like a bit of a reset week in general for both Shelley and me. She's managed to set up a schedule at a local gym that she can maintain and we're both letting the reins out a bit (well, trying) on the high schooler and his homework routine (he earned it last year; let's see how it goes this year). ...and instead of driving myself as hard as I have in years past as we transition into the Fall schedule, I'm trying to not push quite so much and hoping to keep the Winter blahs from blanketing my attitude as I often allow them to do.

Nope, no food post, but I'm getting closer to having the time to post a bit more; this week homework and sports kicked into full swing at the boys' schools and we're just rolling with the waves as we adjust to things. ...and that's all of us; we've each had to make some changes to how the afternoons and evenings are going to go to make things work. ...and I think we're ready for a three day weekend!

...and will I get the stories up about my little gourmand and his adventures with steamed clams? ...or the 'stir high' veggies? ...or last weekend's 'all outdoor' meal? Stay tuned...

Friday almost started off with a bang, but it turned out okay. ...and Samuel Clemens gets props out of it. WT??? Well, the other week I had a tire just flat blow out on me (no pun intended) on the way home. ...but I was close to home so I just took it all the way in. Later that night I went out to put the spare on and Brad came wandering along; I figured it would be a good time to go for some basic skills for the future for him; so I showed him the process and let him help out with spinning the lugs on and lowering the jack and such.

On the way back from dropping Daniel off at school Friday morning, Brad and I stopped to take some pictures of some ducks and geese. When we left I heard that tell-tale sound going 'tick-tick-tick' from the left front and headed home instead of taking Brad in to school early. When we got home I had him 'pace' the car and watch the tire looking for whatever was making the noise. Sure enough he found a bolt as it came toward TDC (and flagged me well enough to get a job taxing airplanes (well, at least as well as in the movie Airplane <g>)).

I gave the wayward bolt just a quarter turn with a wrench, and that was enough to let us hear the air hissing out. Okay, one tire change coming up! ...but by the time I got my 'kneeling pad' down to the car, Brad already had his gloves on and the jack out of the trunk! Okay... Sure, I can see where I can save some sweat here, especially as I'm dressed for work: I showed him the proper way to set up a scissors jack and had him start raising the car while I pulled the spare. Then I removed the trim cover, 'broke' the lug nuts for him and finished raising the car. Hmmm... My next job was to swap the tires out and toss the bolted one in the trunk. ...and in a little while I torqued down the lug nuts and put the trim back on. Other than that he did all the work. I do believe Shelley heard a lug-by-lug description the entire way home from picking him up at school...

Today was an attempt to get some things done, but at a slower pace than usual so as to allow me to maybe save up some energy for the other two days of the three-day weekend. Hmmm... Things got done, but I may have over done it anyway. Darn.

...but at least the family had ribs for dinner (nope, not the best, but getting better; I figure another time or two to get them where they like them), the palm tree got trimmed (and neither Daniel or I got injured in the process, although the extension ladder is out of service for good due to a bent I-beam) and we have a couple of new bushes to plant in the back yard. Oh, and I got out early enough to be able to blade in something under the 90's for the first time in weeks!

Yeah, stiff and sore and more or less glad today was an inside day. I had a customer service request to handle (Woot! It worked! I haven't lost all my L33t H31p D3sk Ski1z!); and other than that, there's some reading and some resting to be handled so I don't lose touch with my eyelids.

...and then there's the quiet child:

Well, not really. If you're a parent of a teen you know what I mean, but you just don't hear as much about Daniel here as he isn't into the more active things like Brad is. Daniel tends to stay in his room and work on homework and more or less avoid the lessor members of the family (that would be all of us <g>). This weekend he decided to knock out a couple of PowerPoint presentations depicting his thoughts on the casualties we've taken in Iraq and on the aftermath of Katrina. If you have broadband and a moment for a 1.7meg show, I think he did okay (that will be the Iraq one). There's background music by Lee Greenward (God Bless the USA), but in the interests of DRM we've left it off; just hum along in your minds. ...and yeah, a blog for him could be in the works.

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->2005 Daniel C. Bowman. Most rights reserved.