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Journal Entry: July 4, 2009

Thursday T– had plans to meet her dad at the halfway point between OKC and Wichita and hand over AB. Her parents had agreed to watch AB Thursday night and Friday so T– could have a little bit of a break.

The broken car put a little bit of a kink in that plan, but T– wasn’t willing to let that stop her. So we all woke up early early on Thursday, piled into the Saturn, and T– drove thirty minutes south to my work, processed through our Pass and ID office to get a temporary Pick Up/Drop Off badge, and then dropped me off at my office door. Then she turned around and drove all the way back across town and another hour and a half north on I-35 to meet her dad at the Dairy Queen for the baby transfer.

Then she turned around and came home, which put her back in town right around time for my lunch, and since she already had the badge she just came to the office, picked me up, and had me drop her off at home after lunch, so that she wouldn’t have to do any more driving for the rest of the day. It was a pretty busy morning for her.

After work I continued my experiment with Madden-based elliptical exercise, and it proved a continuing success. Then I got cleaned up and took T– out for a date night. We had Mexican at the new place right around the corner (Victor’s Mexican Cafe where the old Boomerang Grill was), and it was not great. The prices were medium-high, service was slow and clumsy, and the salsa tasted like Chef Boyardee for some reason. The entree was delicious (we shared Tacos al Carbon), but not enough to make up for bad salsa. That’s my primary criterion for any Mexican place.

Anyway, it wasn’t terrible. Just disappointing. Then we went up to Barnes and Noble for a little shopping, stopped at Wal-Mart for some ice cream, and then went back home and watched InkHeart and The Pink Panther 2. The unapologetically stupid one was the better of the two.

Friday I had off for the holiday, so I got up late, worked out (and won my third preseason game in Madden), then we went over to K– and N–‘s for a delicious lunch. We brought croissants and they had chicken salad ready for sandwiches, and there was an American Flag themed brownie birthday cake for N–, and a fruit basket showed up for N–‘s mom with perfect timing for all of us to enjoy. We were there for a couple hours, and then headed home to finish packing.

Then a little after three we headed to Wichita. We grabbed snowcones on the way out of town, and T– was driving so I was able to read Click for an hour or so (I’ll give more details at a later date, but no, it’s not the novelisation of the Adam Sandler movie). Then, a little shy of halfway there, T– started experiencing some Braxton-Hicks, which she hadn’t had at all with AB. It was uncomfortable, but I think mostly it scared her. Either way, it was enough reason for her to pull over and I took over driving for the second half of the trip. She called N– and got a prognosis over the phone, and called her mom to talk about it, and after that she felt a lot better.

When we got in the party was already going. The Charboneaus did their Fourth party on the third, because her brother Matt has to work tonight. John grilled out, and did chicken breasts, chicken wings, hot dogs, hamburgers, and a whole mess of stuffed jalapenos that were hugely popular. There was also potato salad and lots of chips and dip and a counterful of desserts. It was pretty awesome.

I got a little overwhelmed by the crowd, so I slipped away before the fireworks started. Went downstairs to check my email, and next thing I knew it was eleven o’clock and everybody was leaving.

This morning T– and her parents took AB to a parade, and she loved it. Then we had chicken fajitas for lunch, and ribs are on the menu for tonight. I’m certainly going to be well-fed! In spite of the holiday we’re looking forward to a pretty quiet Saturday, but tomorrow’s going to be busy with birthday parties, so that’s probably a good thing.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff

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Journal Entry: July 2, 2009

I have spent much of the last week reading Courtney’s blog from the archives. I hope she’ll forgive the intrusion, but I’ve found it equal parts charming and inspiring. I liked reading her comments as a fellow writer enough that I went back to the beginning, and I’ve enjoyed reading her experiences as a missionary even more.

Yesterday I heard more bad news from Honda after I’d spewed a bit of my ire here (and some of it even made its way to Facebook). The upshot is that I won’t have my car back until Monday, and it’s probably going to cost me a thousand dollars. Yay.

I drove T–‘s car home from work and had dinner with her and my sister’s family at Swadley’s, which remains just enough below Steve’s Rib in quality, price, and service to justify the extra five mile drive. Alas.

Then T– and AB went to VBS and I went to Wal-Mart to get some oil for the Saturn in the hopes it would survive its suddenly-pending trip to Wichita. I picked the girls up after church, put AB to bed (more than once), and then hooked up the XBox in my office so I could play some Madden while I worked out. It was probably the most swiftly-passing exercise session I can remember, although I missed out on the upper-body motion because I was holding the controller instead of the machine’s flailing arms. Worth it, though.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: July 1, 2009

Monday morning I stayed home from work because I had no car. My plan was to take the day off, go pick up the car once my mechanic was done with it, and then proceed through the rest of my week as normal.

When I didn’t hear back from the mechanic by ten, I decided to call in and get an update. Turned out he’d already given up on it, but hadn’t gotten around to calling me. He said the problem wasn’t mechanical, but was something electrical in the car’s computer. For that, I’d have to take it to the dealer.

So I called the dealer and learned they couldn’t do anything on it that day, but I made an appointment to drop it off Tuesday morning. Then I made sure T– didn’t need her car for the rest of the day, and I went in to work to try to salvage a few hours.

Monday evening I worked late, and then worked out when I got home. (I’m still doing that, two or three times a week, even though it doesn’t always get recorded in my weeklong summaries.) After that it was time for supper, and after that T– took AB to church for VBS. I stayed home and spent my writing time scanning in old material for future use.

Tuesday morning I woke up early and we all three loaded into the Saturn for a trip to the mechanic’s, and then from there to the Honda dealership. T– and AB waited in the car while I went inside to speak with the repairman. He told me that they would put the car through a mechanical diagnostics test — check out the Freon level and pressure, check that the compressor was in good shape, check all the electrical fuses and relays, and then call me and tell me what needed to be done. The diagnostics would cost $90.

I told him I’d already paid another mechanic to diagnose the problem, and he’d done all of that and found nothing, and the problem was in the computer. I asked if they could just skip their diagnostics, since he’d described in detail exactly what had already been done, and just check out the computer. He told me no. I wasn’t allowed to tell them how to do their job. They’d go through their normal process — and I would pay for it — or I could just take the car home with no air conditioner and multiple warning lights on my dash.

I left the car with them, but I wasn’t happy about it. It was about 9:30 by then, but I couldn’t go in to work because T– needed the car to call on some clients, so we dropped AB off at my sister’s place, T– dropped me off at home to get a little work done (by which I mean a lot more scanning), and then T– made her business calls, which took a little longer than expected. Around 11:30 she picked me up and we went together to pick up AB. I’d already agreed to have lunch with them, so we went to Schlotzky’s and didn’t get out of there until nearly 1:00. Then AB and T– loaded into my sister’s car so I could go straight to work from lunch, but five minutes after I got on the highway T– called to tell me I’d taken her keys, and they had no way to get into the house.

So at that point I was looking at more than an hour of drive-time to get in less than three hours of work, so I just called the boss on my way home and told him I wasn’t going to make it in. I stayed home with AB during her nap and T– went out shopping with my sister.

Five o’clock came and went without a word from the mechanics, which meant another day without my car. A little after six K– and N– came over, along with N–‘s mom who brought us a new bed for AB! T– has already commented on it on Facebook, and I’m sure she’ll have some cute pictures up on her blog before long. Anyway, the bed is a perfect princess bed, and after a week of trying to prep AB for the change (and her screaming, “No, no, no, I love my bed!”) she immediately fell in love with it. K– and I had barely finished putting it together when she came in the room, saw it, and her eyes just lit up. She divided most of the rest of the evening between screaming and laughing, and she fell asleep in it no problem.

So that was pretty fun.

After that T– and I curled up on the couch in the living room and watched Better Off Ted and Jimmy Fallon, and had a pretty quiet night. Went to bed early, got up, and left T– carless so I could get in a full day of work.

Oh! I did finally hear back from the Honda service guy around 1:00 today. I’d been without my car for a full day and now owed them nearly a hundred bucks for their time, but their crack technicians had come up with an answer. He said the problem wasn’t mechanical, but was something electrical in the car’s computer. They would get back to me when they knew exactly what.

Now, if you’re following along, that’s all stuff I knew fifty-three hours and ninety dollars ago, but at least Honda is caught up to speed now. I still haven’t heard anything new, which means they haven’t even started doing the actual repair work, so I’m running out of hope that I’ll have the car back today.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: June 29, 2009

Maybe I’ll get back to daily eventually. For now, here’s a big update!

Wednesday
Last Wednesday night we went to Poblano’s for dinner, with D– and my little sister, and K– and N–. The tamale dinner was good as always, and too much food as always. T– and my sister had to rush out early to get to church for their class, but they weren’t too rushed.

D– and I went back to the house and started up a game of Civ that took up most of the rest of the evening.

Thursday
Thursday I used T–‘s car to drive to work, and my sister graciously provided her with transportation for the day. When evening rolled around, I drove up to Edmond to pick her and AB up, and we had dinner there at my sister’s place. D– came along, too, and we spent a little time socializing. AB was tired, though, so we headed home to put her in bed. Then T– turned on New in Town while D– and I played Civ in the living room. The movie was horrible, and the game was worse.

Friday
Friday I took off work to get my car fixed. We dropped it off at K&C first thing in the morning, then I watched AB while T– went to a ladies’ lunch and ran some errands. The original plan had been to leave AB with a babysitter, and when I found out I was taking the day off I talked D– into taking a vacation day, too, so we could play Civ all day. Babysitter canceled on us, though, so I got to do that.

D– came over anyway, though, and we played a little disjointed Civ until AB went down for a nap. Then we got a good hour or two in before she woke up.

Friday night T– and I ran out to grab some Taco Bueno for dinner, and then spent the evening watching Jimmy Fallon and Conan O’Brien. Pretty fun evening.

Saturday
Saturday I slept in, then went up to the mall with T– and AB for lunch in the food court. Afterward we went over to the kids’ play area there and let AB romp for half an hour or so. She had a great time, and she played well with the other kids. Then I dropped the girls off at the house and took my new chainsaw over to B–‘s for a little topiary work. The project took all of eight seconds, but I hung around for forty minutes or so chatting.

Then I got home while AB was still napping, and T– said a quick goodbye and headed up to church to prep for her crop. I worked on a programming project for an hour or so, then AB woke up and we played in her room for a while. We watched some Dora, I tried and failed to make a grilled cheese sandwich, and then we did puzzles for almost an hour before bedtime. She loves puzzles these days, and she’s remarkably good at them.

After she went to bed I got back to work on my programming project, and I was still doing that when T– got home around midnight. I finished it up around then, packed it up, and shipped it off to Toby to fix all the problems I’d created. That’s what a mentor is for, right?

Sunday
Sunday morning T– and AB took our only car to go to Bible class while I was still in bed, so K– and N– came by on their way to services and picked me up. We had a quick breakfast, and then a church service in which I only got two pages written because I spent most of it helping AB color her pages.

We went to Braum’s for lunch with them and D–, and afterward D– came over for the afternoon so we could try to break our losing streak. After three pretty bad wins in Civ, we started a game with a terrible map but we caught some lucky breaks and managed to put together a pretty encouraging game. I had to break it off around five, though, because T– had dinner plans.

We went to Hafer Park up in Edmond for a picnic, joined by three or four couples from our Small Group at church, as well as K– and N–. We ate in the gazebo on the pond, and then AB and I walked around it to feed the ducks, and then T– took AB to play on the play equipment while K– and I ran to a nearby snowcone stand for some snowcones. After that I played with AB on the playground for half an hour or so, and then we headed home.

It was 8:30 by the time we got in, so we put AB down to bed, and then I contact D– on GMail and we finished our game. It was looking really, really promising right up until the point where we lost. Gandhi beat us with a Culture Win, and there was nothing we could do to stop him. Alas.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: June 24, 2009

Years and years and years ago, back when we were in college, T– and I went to the British Isles on a mission trip. We spent six weeks working with kids in VBSs and summer camps.

One of the young women at the last camp was named Siobhan, which is pronounced “shuh von” or something along those lines. She went by “Chevy.” As interested as I am in words, I found her name remarkable.

When I go to check Facebook these days, about a third of the time under “People You May Know” it’ll put forth a Siobhan Townsend. The first few times I saw that I clicked it, fascinated, but it’s just some lady who works at the FAA with me.

It’s Celtic, in case you’re wondering, so it worked better for the girl in Scotland than I imagine it does for the grown woman in OKC….

I’m avoiding my daily activity report because yesterday was bad news, and it lingers. I got in the car to drive to work yesterday morning, and the air conditioner still didn’t work. I was running a little late, and yesterday was ridiculously hot, so that was an unpleasant experience. There was also a Brake warning light on the dash, which made me nervous at highway speeds, and it has persisted. I also discovered that the automatic window control for the passenger rear window no longer works, and that the automatic locks no longer worked either. The switch on the driver door wouldn’t lock or unlock that door, and when I pulled the tab manually, it only unlocked the one door (where it usually automatically does all the others, too).

Those last two are just convenience things (and I would throw the A/C in with that, too, except for the ridiculous heat), but that’s a ton of seemingly unrelated stuff that all cropped up within a twenty-four hour window. That makes me nervous that something else, bigger, has gone wrong somewhere deep in the heart of the beast. I’ve got an appointment with the car doctor on Friday, to try to sort it out.

After work I watched some Dora with AB, and T– made some awesome peppered chicken, and then D– and I figured out how to play Civ over the internet, so we were able to finish off our compelling victory and start on a game that might offer middling success. We’ll see how it plays out.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: June 23, 2009

It’s no surprise that I went a week without posting after accepting a teaching job for the fall, right? Because I had to start getting class materials together and all….

Heh. Right.

Tuesday
Last Tuesday we had McDonalds for dinner. That’s all I recall. I probably played a bunch of Civ, but who can say for sure?

Wednesday
Wednesday night I picked up a pizza from Little Caesar’s and D– came over to join us for supper. T– took AB to church, and D– spent the evening working on his computer while I sorted files on the fileserver and browsed Netflix.

Thursday
Thursday I had lunch with Toby, and as ever we decided to work on a new programming project. This time it was going to be a memory game for AB, because she loves her Disney Princesses memory game and I get sick of the setup and cleaning up afterward. So I floated the idea by Toby and he said it would be pretty easy technically and a new project was born.

After work Thursday night the cable guy came over to fix a problem we’d been having with our digital cable. He ended up just telling me to unplug the cable from our UPS, with assurances it wasn’t necessary anyway. While he was there I had him open up the cable box out back and we got that mess cleaned up. I’m glad of that.

But after he left we noticed that the TV had glowing purple bands scrolling ever upward whenever we watched the TiVo. Everyone’s pretty sure that’s a ground loop problem, but I don’t remember it happening before the cable guy came, and yet he didn’t do anything that might cause a ground loop. And, after all, everything is plugged into a UPS which should take care of that anyway. Bah.

D– brought over Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. That was a bright spot in an otherwise frustrating evening.

Friday
Friday was my RDO. I had a dentist appointment at 8:45, and then lunch with T– at IHOP, and then took AB home to put her down for a nap while T– went shopping.

Once she was in bed I checked my email and found a message from Toby with a really basic prototype of the Memory game GUI. It had a 3×4 grid with blank gray cards and you could click on them to flip them over and show photos of his adorable family. Some of them were paired, but it wasn’t perfect.

I got to work on that, and really spent most of the rest of my day on it. I grabbed a bunch of Creative Commons-licensed animal photos and wrote some code to enforce pairing (so every card has a match), and even programmed it to handle non-identical matches (what I’m calling Flash Card Mode). I found some free sound effects, too, to spruce it up a bit. By the end of the day, it already looked and felt like an actual game. AB played it with me for half an hour, and ever since she’s occasionally come to me asking to play her “puzzle game,” which I consider a real victory.

T– made us dinner Friday night, these weird awesome sandwich pocket things with a honey mustard dipping sauce, and then later we ran up to Freddy’s for some frozen custard. After AB went to bed D– and I finished a multiplayer game of Civ that resolved in our absolute destruction. It was the most thorough, humiliating loss I’ve ever suffered in that game. We just spent half an hour marveling at the wretchedness of our situation, while city after city fell to enemy invaders. It was spectacular.

Saturday
Saturday morning T– took AB to a ladies’ brunch at church, so I slept in. I got up around ten, spent an hour putting some extra tweaks on my Memory game, and then ran to the bagle place for lunch with D–.

In the afternoon I watched AB while T– went over to my sister’s place to scrapbook. AB spent much of that time taking a nap, so I put some finishing touches on the game, and when she woke up we spent half an hour playing. We also read a couple of her books, watched a little TV, and before I knew it, it was time to meet T– and my sister and brother-in-law, and K– and N– for dinner at Cafe 7. K– and N– were the only ones who’d been before, but we all enjoyed it. Very cool place.

Then K– and N– came over for a short visit, and I got to show off my game to K–. They left around eight, and T– gave AB a bath which stretched past her bedtime so she was still busy with that when I left.

T–‘s friend Rebecca’s husband Dave’s band, the Recliners, was playing at the Dugout, a bar that’s about a ten minute walk from my house. Back when I was taking Rock Band a little too seriously, there’d been some talk of me taking drumming lessons from Dave, and at the time he’d invited me to come see them play a couple times, but it was never convenient to do so. When I saw that he’d be playing at the Dugout on Saturday, though, I didn’t have any good excuses so I decided to go.

By Saturday night it seemed kind of weird, though, because D– was busy with friends in town, K– was sick with a sinus infection or something, and B– was recovering from an extended visit from the in-laws. So I went by myself, and sat at an empty table right in front of the stage to watch the band play.

They were phenomenally good. They didn’t play any original songs, but they rocked the ones they did play, and the assortment was impressive. It was mostly rock, with a sprinkling of classic country and eighties stuff. They also did “Party Like a Rock Star,” which is fun if it’s loud enough. And it was.

I took my scribblebook with me, and while I was there I not only overcame the crippling start on chapter one that had blocked me for two weeks, I got all of chapter two done. I consider 1,000 words a successful day’s work, and Saturday night I did 6,500. I also shut down a bar for the first time in forever.

Afterward I walked home, jumped in the shower to rinse of the smoke smell, and fell asleep around three in the morning.

Sunday
I didn’t really have any intention of waking up for church Sunday morning, but AB and T– came lumbering into the room burdened with gift-wrapped presents and cards at about 9:30, and AB was crowing, “happyfathersdayiloveyou” over and over again entirely unlike a toddler who had been carefully coached. Ahem.

Anyway, it was adorable, and the first package I unwrapped was a pound of Twizzlers, which did indeed make mouths happy. I also got some cool stuff for the car, and after distributing thanks in proportion to my receipts, I finally climbed out of bed and got ready.

I got a good start on chapter three during the guest speaker’s sermon, then afterward we went to Texas Roadhouse by way of Father’s Choice. I had the Dallas filet. It was fantastic. Afterward, when I was groaning about how full I was, T– said, “Are you totally happy now?”

And I said, “Well, not totally.”

And she said, “Do you think the stand is open?”

The first one wasn’t, but I have backups. I got a large snow cone, and that was enough to push me over the delicious, delirious edge.

I did a little more work on my game while AB was taking a nap, and then we met D– and his mom (who was on her way through town for a convention in Dallas) for dinner at Irma’s. It was as awesome as always.

Afterward D– came over and we started a new Civ game, which went considerably better than the previous one. I stayed up way too late playing it, though.

Monday
Yesterday I got home from work and did half an hour on the treadmill. T– called in an order to Papa John’s, so when I was done I ran up to the store half a mile down to pick it up. On the way, I noticed (very quickly) that the air conditioner in the car wasn’t working. It had been a little sluggish on my way home from work, but it had eventually kicked in. This time, it was blowing only hot air. So much so that the relatively short trip became surprisingly uncomfortable.

D– came over for dinner, and stuck around for Civ. We played into another late night, but it was pretty gratifying. We’d ended Sunday night planning to start a war on the Vikings, and Ragnar ended up attacking me on the same turn I’d planned to attack him (which is helpful, for reasons of international opinion). We made quick work of the Vikings, and when they became vassals of the Maya with just one city left, we went ahead and made quick work of the Maya, too. That secured our eastern border (with only the friendly Greeks left on that end of the continent), so we moved our troops back to the other side and launched a war on the Malinese and the Koreans. Before that one was even finished I went ahead and attacked Greece just because I could.

We’re tearing up. I can’t wait to finish this one.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: June 16, 2009

The big news for yesterday is that I officially accepted the offer to teach Tech Writing at Oklahoma Christian this fall. My reasoning was as follows: if I couldn’t survive a semester on improvisation and caffeine, I never would have graduated in the first place.

I got home from work on jumped on the elliptical machine for forty minutes before T– brought home some Taco Bueno for dinner. Then I spent half an hour installing my new hard drive (replacement for one I’d bought a couple weeks ago that showed up dead), and this one actually worked. Joyful, joyful. Now my fileserver actually has some free space on it for a couple weeks.

After AB went to bed, I drove up to Books-a-Million to meet my little sister to discuss the possibility of her contributing illustrative photos to my website project. She’s keen, and I’m really excited about the direction that project is heading. We also talked books and writing, of course, and they had to kick us out at ten.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: June 15, 2009

This is the story of my first chainsaw….

Friday
T–‘s family came down for a visit this weekend. They got in around mid-day on Friday, so when I got home I found Karla and John as well as T–‘s cousin Owen to greet me. They all went out back to play with AB and I went into the office to take care of some business before turning the room over to them for the weekend.

T– cooked up hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner, then we watched Hudson Hawk. After that T– went to bed while the rest of us watched Kicking and Screaming. That one was better than I expected it to be. Then Karla went to bed and John and Owen and I watched Never Back Down, which was a decent modernization of Karate Kid, in my opinion.

Saturday
Saturday morning John and Owen went to the science museum while T– and her mom got to work organizing the kids’ clothes. They’d brought a chest of drawers for AB with them, so the women spent the morning moving AB’s clothes into the new drawers, and getting the old chest ready for Alex’s stuff.

While they were doing that, I took AB up to Sears to pick up a new chainsaw. I’d been in a week before and picked out the one I wanted, so I walked in the door, grabbed a cart, and loaded it up in about a minute. Then I got to stand in line for a quarter hour and the lady rang up all my stuff before telling me I could use T–‘s credit card. Apparently it didn’t matter that I’m authorized on it, or that the purchase had already been applied. As a matter of policy, she had to void it out. I didn’t have another method of payment on me, so the whole trip was just a waste of time.

We went back to the house, and T– and her mom made up some fantastic fajitas for lunch. Instead of working in the yard as I’d intended, I spent the afternoon sorting through old notebooks and folders full of papers to figure out what to keep and what to throw away. I got rid of four or five times as much stuff as I saved, so I think it was a pretty productive afternoon.

Then everybody piled into the car to go swimming. I skipped that, spending the time mowing the lawn and taking care of some stuff in the house. When they got back we had pizza, and then watched some Conan before everybody decided to go to bed early.

Sunday
AB kept waking up during the night, crying, so even with the early bedtime we were all pretty slow getting up the Sunday morning. Still, we made it to church for services, and my little sister and her family were there, too. Afterward, we all went to P F Chang’s for lunch, which is one of my favorites.

After lunch, T–‘s parents took AB back to the house while T– and I ran up to Sears. With her handy ID available, we were able to complete the purchase I’d attempted the day before, so a little after one I showed up at the house with a shiny new chainsaw. I gassed it up, oiled it up, and then spent about fifteen minutes and four or five reads through the manual figuring out the throttle was too low. Once I had it running, though, it made quick work of a tree stump that’s been plaguing us for months.

That was really just a test use, though. My real concern was for a couple huge, dead limbs hanging over our backyard. I had to borrow a ladder from B– just to get up high enough to work on the lower of the two branches, but I figured that would be enough. The higher one is broken in half and hanging down, resting on the lower one. I figured as soon as I removed the lower limb, the dangling one would come crashing down of its own accord.

Unfortunately there was nowhere to put the ladder that would be clear of the falling tree. I eventually managed to find a place on one of the tree’s healthy limbs where I could climb up and sit on the limb and reach across and down to cut the dead one. So I got up in the tree, and John started the chainsaw for me and handed it up to me, and then he and T– stood off to one side to watch.

A brand new chainsaw with a fresh chain is an amazing thing. I leaned across, said a quick prayer that nobody would get hurt, and then squeezed the trigger and started cutting through the limb. In a matter of seconds it sliced clean through, and the limb fell straight down. A perfect cut.

With the saw still roaring in my hands, I started looking around to see what other dead limbs I could reach from my perch. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted T– and John behaving erratically, and when I looked down at them I finally realized John was screaming frantically for me to “Turn it off!” I wouldn’t be able to start it up again from up in the tree, but he seemed pretty determined do I hit the kill switch.

I immediately heard the hissing roar, but I didn’t realize what it was until John darted over underneath me, kicked the fallen limb away, and then pulled back the ivy around our gas meter to reveal that the big round dial had been broken clean off. A moment later I could smell the gas that was jetting out of the broken pipe. T– ran into the house to call the gas company and John ran in at a dead sprint, passed her, found the pipe wrench in my tool chest, and darted back out to the meter to close off the emergency valve in a matter of probably less than a minute.

I was stuck up in the tree the whole time, though, and to me it seemed like a lot longer. When he finally got it shut off he was able to step up on the ladder and take the chainsaw so I could climb back down. For a while I just stared, wondering what we were going to do, until T– came out to say that someone from the gas company was on his way. Then we checked one more time to make sure the meter was well and truly off, and got right back to work.

I carved the fallen limb into three pieces small enough to drag out front, and then we cut those down into fireplace-sized logs for John to take back to T–‘s brother. We cleaned up the rest of the branches, and then stood for some time looking at the dangling limb.

It was still there, even without the limb supporting it. Worse, we couldn’t find any way to get at it. That ladder of Bruce’s is ridiculously tall, but it couldn’t reach the broken limb. The best plan we could come up with would be to climb up onto the limb below the break, then shimmy out along it as it climbed higher and higher to get into position to cut it. Oh, and to do all that while carrying a running chainsaw.

John tried jumping and grabbing the dangling branches to pull it loose (in spite of my warnings that he was going to kill himself) and at one point it was actually hanging from the stricken limb, and it didn’t budge.

Just as we were giving up on that the gas man showed up, and he came back, looked over the broken meter, pulled out a pipe wrench, and methodically disassembled the whole thing. He had a very quiet manner about him. He said, “I’ll be right back,” and went around to his truck where he spent some time finding the right piece. Then he came back, reassembled the whole thing, lit the pilot light on our water heater, and got back in his truck and drove away.

I’m sure there’ll be a charge on our next gas bill. I shudder to think what it might be.

After that I decided I was done for the day. I cleaned up all my tools, then went inside and watched Get Carter and Cool Runnings and Mars Attacks with Owen while I played Civ on the laptop. We had leftovers for dinner, and then T– and her mom sewed up some new curtains for our bedroom and with John’s help they upholstered a headboard for our bed to match. It was a pretty impressive improvement to the room. Then it was time to go to bed, and this morning I woke up to say goodbye to her family before I headed to work.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: June 12, 2009

Ten minutes ago I was reading an article about stupid mistakes to avoid on Facebook. Unfortunately, it didn’t include anything about spoiling the twist ending of your whodunnit novel with a stupid teaser for book three.

Bah.

Tuesday
Tuesday night one of T–‘s favorite scrapbooking stores held a we-don’t-want-to-go-out-of-business sale, so I agreed to watch AB while she went shopping. We watched some Dora in French, played on the computer some, and then T– brought home McDonalds for dinner. After AB went to bed, I played Civ while we watched TV.

Wednesday
We had our traditional Wednesday night dinner at our house so that I could get K– to bring over a special wrench to work on my internet connection problem. Unfortunately he doesn’t have the wrench, so my problem persisted. We enjoyed having everybody over, though.

Thursday
Thursday T– had to work in Tulsa, so AB spent the day with one of her babysitters. T– got home about the same time I did, and we had a little time to play with AB (who, sadly, is severely sick with allergies), before heading up to Abuelo’s for dinner with K– and N–. We had a good time, and spent a while getting caught up even after we were done eating. Then we headed home and T– gave AB a bath while I climbed up in the attic to try a different method of fixing my internet connection. This one seems to have worked, but I’ll really put it through the paces over the weekend and then I’ll have a better idea.

I’ve also spent my of my free time this week working on my webpage. I’ve decided to make it a promotional/display site for my creative projects and some of my friends’, too, so I’m trying to build it to be attractive, extensible, and easy to maintain. That’s no small feat, especially for someone with essentially no experience in web design. I think it’s coming along nicely, though. Most of you have already seen it, but I’ll post a link here once I’ve got better than half of the links actually pointing to something.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: June 9, 2009

Yesterday T– got home in time to meet me for lunch at Schlotzky’s, then I had to go back to work and she had to go face the grim reality of unpacking the car and washing all the laundry. Poor thing.

After work I ran up to Home Depot to exchange a faceplate and pick up the last handful of pieces I needed to finish my networking project (sort of), then came home and took care of that. It took a little more than half an hour, but I got everything squared away and cleaned up most of my mess.

My internet still wasn’t working cleanly, so I took the cable modem and router out of their niche in the closet (that I’d spent the whole weekend setting up) and plugged them into the wall socket next to my desk, with a couple clever bridges to keep everything online that needed to be online. It’s a temporary fix, to keep things working until I can get a higher-quality cable connected to the main line.

I finished up just in time for dinner. T– made us steaks, and they were delicious. After dinner my sister Heather stopped by with her little ones, and we spent a couple hours talking about her trip and writing and life in general. It was fun.

When she left we put AB down to bed, and then I went into the office and foolishly started a game of Civ. I got a pretty good start, but I missed my bedtime by a couple hours. Alas.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.