Gone Cookin'

I haven't blogged here in ages. You can find me over at my Wordpress blog cooking all of the recipes in Damn Good Food - Mitch Omer's cookbook.

The Mike/Mitch Project.

...and Straight on 'till Morning

I'm reading Peter and the Starcatchers which is the origin story of Peter Pan. It's very readable. Melanie had a sleepover with two friends last night and stayed up until 5am. That is the last time I answer yes when a kids asks me, "Can I have soda?" at midnight.

Now More New than Ever

If I can remember that these entries don't have to be heart wrenching stories that chronicle my angst-ridden existence I'm more likely to keep it up.  Today was a Monday. Got to work late. Said more than I should in meetings. Snapped at coworkers who had too much on their plate just like me. Got home tired and managed to be pleasant, but not fun with Max and Sarah. Sarah got back from Girl Scout Camp today and she had a blast. You never know what that girl will like. Melanie had her B-day party a week late over the weekend. She took her 9 best friends to the Park at MOA and they rode roller coasters for the day. She had fun and that is what matters. I told Kira that next year I think we'll just take her out to dinner. The real reason I decided to write tonight is that I picked up my iPod for the first time in ages and it just seemed like the thing to do after I finished the dishes. On a whim today I applied for a job at Traveler's. It seemed like a good fit. I thought it would be liberating, but I only felt guilt. I can't hope to make the same salary anywhere else, but I figured it would be good for the psyche just to know I was qualified for another job.

E= mc^2 * 100

100 years ago Einstein came up with an equation that millions of people have memorized, but only a few truly understand. For a brief period of time I wanted to be one of those people. Until my junior year in college I was planning on being a Physics major. It took me about that long to realize that I wasn't creative enough to be a physicist. Instead I am a dormant mathematician. I could follow a lot of the concepts I learned in my physics classes, but I often found I couldn't make the leap to real world scenarios. Or even the frictionless, massless scenarios that physicists like to pretend is the real world. I can remember wanting to study things like quarks and photons. In highschool I found out that the Air Force was working on anti-gravity. I remember thinking that this was something I wanted to be a part of. Skip forward to junior year and I spent a month using classical mechanics to explain the descent and shape of a rain drop. It was very shortly afterwards that I changed my major to pure math. I use logic almost every day in my job, but alas I have forgotten most of my mathematics.

It's been 20 years I wonder if they got anywhere with the anti-gravity stuff.

Who's You're Daddy Blog (or It's Not About the Kids)

I never intended for this to be a blog about my family and children. I reread a chunk of the older posts only to discover I have created a Daddy Blog. I don't suppose there is anything wrong with that, but I always pictured my random musings would be more profound and too esoteric to include the mundane happenings of a Midwestern family by using a lot of run on sentences. I read about 6 or 7 blogs regularly and I must admit that I enjoy The Mommy Blog. She is irreverent, but you can tell she loves her kids. In case you have stumbled upon this her is a run down of the family. I have three children - Susan(10), Becky(6), and John(4). They amaze me each day by teaching me something I didn't know the day before. I like to think I am a good father, but I have the patience equivalent of a Peruvian gnat. Patience is probably the number one skill to be a parent and I was absent the day it was taught in kindergarten. My wife, Dawn, must have infinite patience because she puts up with all three of the kids and me. I tend to enjoy time with my kids one-on-one. John and I went camping this summer and we had a ball. He is probably the most laid back of the three. How many four year olds do you know that are willing to just sit and watch a campfire. He made up for it by getting up to go swimming at 6am, but even then he got dressed by himself. Susan and I have recently started playing tennis together. She is just good enough that we can hit the ball back and forth. I told her she should take lessons, but she just wants to play with me. I hope I don't instill too many bad habits. Becky just wants to be loved. She is the middle child and has embraced all the stereotypes associated with being such.

From the Ashes

I have once again been inspired to continue my musings. Let me explain what has been going on this summer...no time for that let me sum up. Susan broke her arm on the playground some time in June. She was quite the trooper. She had a sleepover scheduled that night with two of her friends. We all figured for morale that we should continue with the sleepover. So her friends went with her to the hospital and when they all got home they acted pretty much like normal tweenage girls. Of course one of them had a new bright orange cast and the other two kept talking about how broken her arm looked in the x-ray. Of course the broken arm put an end to Susan's running for the summer. She was told to rest for a few weeks so she could heal quickly, which she did. When the cast came off 6 weeks later we just never go back into the running. I lost the itch myself and haven't been in ages. I went a couple times over the summer, but I am definitely no longer marathon material. There were three camping trips. One with just John, once with the two girls and once with the whole family. There must have been more, but the rest all blurs together. This past weekend we took the training wheels off of Becky's bike. We took bike's on our last camping trip and she was the only one with training wheels so I think that was her impetus to finally ask. We went up and down the street several times with me holding on to the seat. Let me tell you she still needs work on the balance, but her speed is not a problem. She continually asked me if I was going to keep holding on and I told her yes each time. Then I let go. She went a glorious five yards before veering off into the neighbor's lawn, crashing to the ground and bursting into tears. Becky was really mad at me all the way back to our yard. I might have exaggerated a little when I told her how long she had been riding by herself, but when she looked at the sidewalk where she had ridden she stopped crying and got a smug look on her face. She was still done for the day, but it bodes well for next time.

On the work front we are going to relocating to a new office soon. I will finally get my own office again and we will have a real IT Server Room with temperature control and everything.

Put Your Whole Self In

I am trying to figure out what sort of serendipity caused me to do the Hokey-Pokey two nights in a row last week. On Thursday I went swimming with John and the teacher had us all splash around to this classic. Then on Saturday I was at the Frog and Princess Dance with my daughters where we "shook it all about." We also limboed, bunny-hopped and did the Macarena. This is the third year I have attended this Dance with Susan and this year Becky came too. This is her first year in the Girl Scout system, but I think she may have been a little young to appreciate things. She does like to dance though. I'll just say she has a style all her own and leave it at that. I did the whole dancing on the feet thing with Susan and I even tried to remember how to 2-Step. The theme this year was a Hoe Down and there was plenty of country music for us to enjoy. The radio is usually set to country in the van so the girls know quite a bit of country music. I think the three of us managed to have fun if each in our own way.

I got another run in on Sunday. It was a short one mile this time because Susan went with me. She and I are talking about running a 5K run together in the fall. Part of me wonders if it is just my idea and she is a willing participant, but I'll take it. It gives me one more good reason to go running.