Joe and Christine start the latest branch of the family.
Esther is 3 years and 0 month old.
Katherine is 6 months old.
I’ve been wanting a copy of RipIt ($18.99). Christine has been wanting a copy of Paperless ($44.95). That made buying the MacUpdate Spring Promo bundle ($49.99) a no brainer.
Also included in the bundle that I expect to get use out of:
There’s even a few apps I’m looking forward to trying out:
Check it out. You just might find something you like.
There’s a fine line between lawn mower maintenance and lawn mower destruction. I know. That’s why I was so reluctant to try my hand at lawn mower maintenance.
It turns out that replacing a spark plug is pretty easy. So is draining the oil and siphoning off the old gas. Adding new oil and gas is child’s play. (Or would be if I let Esther do it.) Once I found the air filter I needed, replacing the air filter was similarly easy.
I had a bit more trouble with the lawn mower blade. The bolt was pretty tight and very stiff. But, after a lot of elbow grease and muscle power, I was able to break it loose. I put the new blade on and tightened everything down.
The mower still sounded rough though. Something more needed to be done. I consulted my online brain trust. Joe DiFernando came through with a diagnosis: a dirty carburetor. That worried me. Cleaning a carburetor involves taking the carburetor off of the mower. That involves more than one screw and more than one part. I’m not very mechanically minded. Anything that involves more than one screw or more than one part makes me nervous.
Well, it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and I felt like doing something outside. So I hauled my toolbox outside and decided to give it a try.
First I took the air filter off of the mower (it sits directly on top of the carburetor). So far, so good. Next, I unscrewed the screws that connected the carburetor to the top of the gasoline tank. Again, so far so good.
Now I had to get the carburetor off of the gas tank. I pulled and pried. It was pretty hard to move. I used more muscle. (Hey, it worked for the lawn mower blade.) I used more muscle. Finally, it popped loose. So did several other pieces. As well as parts of the pipe that lead from the carburetor into the engine. Oops.
I checked the carburetor. It looked pretty clean already. I cleaned it anyway. That’s what I was here for. I also removed a lot of grass and grease and gunk that had accumulated over the past couple of summers. Then I reassembled everything.
I was able to find a place for almost all of the parts that were lying around. But the mower no longer starts. I’m not quite sure what the problem is but it seems to involve the path from the gas tank into the carburetor. I think the carburetor itself needs to be replaced to. Some of the springs that control the valve that controls the gas / oxygen mix seem to be busted. That seems important too.
In hindsight, I should have removed the entire gas tank from the engine. I finally figured out how to do that. It seems like that would have allowed the carburetor to slide off of the pipe. Then I could have just unscrewed it and lifted it off the gas tank. Lesson learned.
At this point, I think it’s best that I take it to someone who actually knows what he’s doing. Fortunately, we have a certified Briggs & Stratton repair shop less than 10 miles away. I bet they know how to fix broken engines.
There’s a fine line between lawn mower maintenance and lawn mower destruction. I know.
May 4-May 8. I was officially certified on Monday morning. I found out that I’d scored 98% on my second project and 93% on my third exam. The scores are weighted, so I’d scored I scored 70.75 out of 75 on my tests and 24.5 out of 25 on my exams. My overall score was 95.25. That’s a nice ending to all of my efforts!
The rest of the week I focused on getting caught up on all of my customer emails and projects. I started making a dent in the pile, but there’s still a long way to go.
On Thursday morning, the family and I started driving to Cleveland, Ohio. We were on our way to Pittsburgh, PA for my college roommate’s wedding. We left Oregon right at 8am.
We would have made better time had I not been doing 45 in a 25 zone, driving through Stoughton. At least that’s what the officer said I was doing. I’m not totally convinced myself. Also, that portion of the road is much more like an open inter-city road than it is a narrow, slow village road. It should definitely be set more at 35 or 40 mph than at 25 mph.
But, we made good time once we got back on the road. We stopped once mid-morning to stretch Esther’s legs, and once for lunch. Katia slept most of the day away. Esther was awake more, but she was pretty good. She played with Blueby, looked at the passing trucks and trees, and read some of her books. She even used a spare wet wipe to “change” Blueby’s non-existent diaper.
We discovered that while Illinois and Indiana have electronic tolls — we could use our iPass — Ohio still requires you to stop, get a ticket, and then pay with cash. That caused us to make an unplanned stop at a rest center ATM to get some cash. But the unplanned stop did give Esther and I a chance to eat some ice-cream so it wasn’t all bad.
We arrived at my grandmother’s house around 7pm. She had a nice hot dinner waiting for us. Afterwards, we stayed up talking until almost midnight. She had a good time meeting Kati and seeing Esther again. Esther was the same as she always is: high energy and very chatty. But she mostly ignores people that she doesn’t already know well. So my grandmother (“Gi-gi”) got to see Esther but didn’t really get to hold her, hug her, or kiss her.
We left Cleveland around 3pm and drove 2 hours to Pittsburgh. It was good time. Neither Esther nor Katia took naps Saturday morning so they were both getting cranky by early afternoon. When we started packing the car back up, Esther climbed into her seat and proclaimed herself “tired”. Sure enough, 5 minutes after we left the driveway, she was sound asleep. She and Katia both slept the entire way to Pittsburgh. Neither woke up until we stopped at the hotel.
We checked in and unpacked the car. This trip, we reserved a 2-room suite at the Holiday Inn Express. It’s perfect. We have a decent sized living area with a sink, mini-fridge, microwave, and pull-out sleeper couch. The bedroom is good sized too, with 2 queen beds. We were able to dump all our stuff in the rooms without the suite feeling crowded or cramped.
After checking in, we gave the girls some yogurt. This put them in a good mood, so we could go out to dinner with Meredith — one of my college friends. That was a ton of fun.
Afterwards, back at the hotel, we were able to get the girls to bed fairly quickly. Katia slept in the hotel crib. We requested a crib for Esther, but discovered that it was too small for her to really fit in. Surprisingly, she fell right asleep on the hotel bed. She’s never before shown any interest — or willingness! — to sleep in an adult bed. I didn’t think she’d do it at all. For her to do it without any complaining or crying was both surprising and gratifying.
Now it’s 8am on Saturday morning. I was hoping to sleep until now, but Katia had other plans. She woke up around 7am and refused to go back to sleep. I ended up watching her crawl around the hotel floor while Christine and Esther slept in. Now Esther’s awake — getting Christine out of bed in the process — so we’re all getting ready to eat breakfast.
Christine’s parents will be driving down from Buffalo to see us and to watch the girls while we attend the wedding. We’ll drive back to Cleveland on Sunday (probably after attending morning services at ACAC) and spend the night there. Finally, we’ll drive back to Madison on Monday.
After that, I think we actually get to stay put for a while. Christine and I will be doing a night away (by ourselves, leaving the girls with a babysitter) in June and we’ve been talking about a trip to Virginia in July or August. But, for now, our schedules are clear. Time to enjoy some warm Wisconsin weather!
April 20-26. On April 21, I hit the road again. This time it was a recruiting trip in Berkeley. Once again, I flew 4 hours west and then 4 hours east. This time, in the space of 2 days. But, before leaving, I took my first certification exam. It felt easy. I certainly hoped it was.
I landed in San Francisco on Tuesday night and took a 30 minute cab ride across the Bay, to Berkeley. I stayed in the Bancroft Hotel. The drive actually took 10 minutes longer than it should have. When I tried to pay the cabby, I discovered that he didn’t take credit cards. Since I don’t carry cash that presented a bit of a problem. We circled the block a few times until we found an ATM and I could withdraw some cash to pay him off.
Wednesday, from 10am to 4pm, we hung out at the Cal Berkeley student union and talked up Epic to job hungry students. Afterwards, after crashing at the hotel for an extended nap, I started exploring the campus. I’m glad I did. I found the world’s most awesome hot dog shop: top dog hot dogs. Have you ever seen a hot dog shop plastered with libertarian propaganda? I sure hadn’t. But I found one — in Berkeley of all places. I actually found it in the hotel, searching Google for restaurants near the hotel. I was convinced when I clicked on the “Propergander” link and discovered that it contained updates from the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
I walked over to it and it was awesome. I was reading pro-gun statements, old Thomas Sowell columns, and anti-government screeds while I waited for my food. Over it all was a giant version of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz. Truthfully, I haven’t enjoyed myself that much in a restaurant in a really long time.
Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy the rest of my night nearly as much. Our hotel was right in the middle of the Berkeley campus. Wednesday night, the students put on a drumming contest across the street. It lasted until sometime after midnight. Given that I’d never adjusted to Pacific time, it felt like 2am. Then, when I’d finally gotten to sleep, I was woken up by the sound of someone singing and playing guitar — piped through a really loud sound system. Two hours after that, it was time to get out of bed for my flight home.
I flew back to Madison bright and early (6am) on Thursday morning. I was quite exhausted and actually managed to get a good bit of sleep on the return flights. I landed in time to go back to the office for a few hours before going home.
When I did, I saw the results for both my first project and my first exam. I passed both: 98% on the project, 96% on the exam.
Friday afternoon, I took my second certification exam. It felt harder, but I still thought I passed.
Friday night I had the privilege of seeing our friend Teresa, from our church Life Group, get baptized.
All told, I logged 13.25 hours to my certification work, 7.25 to recruiting, 19 to travel, and 53.25 hours total this week.
April 27-May 3. Tuesday morning, I got the results from my second certification exam: 95%. I decided that I wanted to get things finished as quickly as possible, so I started ignoring all other work and just focused on my second project. Besides getting it done, focusing on it would also be good study for my third exam. I managed to finish the project late on Wednesday night and submitted it for grading. I took my third (and final) test on Friday. I felt like I knew the material well, so I walked out of the exam room already feeling certified.
This week was definitely devoted to the EMR. Out of 51 total hours logged, 24.25 hours went directly to my certification work.
April 13-19. Life returned to normal. Nobody was out of town and Christine and I both returned to work. Of course, the week did have its complications. For the past several months, I’ve been planning to move from one application team, at work, to another. I will move from supporting our clinic billing application to supporting our clinic electronic medical records application. But, before I can switch, I have to be certified in the new application. Well, at Monday’s workplan meeting, my team lead told me that it was time to actually buckle down and get certified. He wanted me to finish the certification by May 1 — just 3 weeks away.
That may sound easy. It’s not. Certification on the EMR involves 3 classes, 3 tests, and 2 hands-on projects. I took the classes a year and a half ago. But I hadn’t studied since and I hadn’t started any of the tests or projects. Essentially, I would need to relearn everything, take the tests, and do the projects. All in 3 weeks, all while doing my normal customer support work. Yikes!
This started a series of 50+ hour work weeks. I pretty much put the rest of my life on hold and got down to business. During this first week, I put in 14 hours on my certification and 57 hours overall. It was hectic, but I was able to submit my first project and start preparing for my first exam.
Needless to say, I didn’t see Christine and the girls all that much.
The past month has been busy. And things look to stay busy for a while longer.
I’ve been traveling quite a lot the past month or so. When I haven’t been traveling, I’ve been working. Let’s take things week by week.
March 23-29. I was in Fountain Valley, Orange County, California from March 23-26, to help a customer with reporting needs. It was a fun and extremely useful trip. Unfortunately, it did put me behind on other customer issues and left me with a huge load of email to plow through on Friday.
March 30-April 5. I did the best I could to continue catching up on work email on Monday and Tuesday. Unfortunately, I started getting behind again on Wednesday. We left April 1 to go to my brother-in-law’s wedding. (Congratulations again, David.) His wedding was on Saturday and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. For once, I didn’t mind wearing a suit and didn’t feel like I had to find the nearest air-conditioned alcove just to stay comfortable. After the wedding, we had Sunday brunch with the bride and groom and extended family. Overall, the trip was great and the girls had a lot of fun seeing their extended family.
April 6-12. The trip to Tallahassee may have been fun, but we won’t be flying Delta Northwest again anytime soon. We had do deal with multiple delays and cancellations getting both in and out of Tallahassee. We tried to leave Tallahassee at 6am on April 6, but didn’t actually leave until 4pm. We didn’t get home until close to midnight.
We also celebrated Easter this week. Mars Hill Church streamed their Good Friday service live online. We watched that Friday night. We had an Easter brunch with the Slagers on Sunday and attended Blackhawk’s Easter service on Sunday afternoon.
Christine and I have different priorities while on vacation. I like to sleep in, eat a slow breakfast, and then retire to a couch or comfy chair to read. After an hour or two of that, I’ll retire for a nap. Then it’s time for lunch, followed by more reading. Or maybe watching a saved TV show.
Christine likes to sleep in, eat a quicker breakfast, and then go out and find something to do. She likes to either visit local attractions or just explore the local area. In short, she’s far more active than I while on vacation. I find her pace vigorous and tiring while she finds my pace languid and boring.
That’s why I was so amused by the events of this morning. But, first, a little background.
Yesterday, we visited Bethlehem Baptist Church, then spent 2 hours walking around downtown Minneapolis. After we got back to the room, we stored the double stroller in the closet of the hotel room. Esther was quite involved in this process. She helped us store the stroller and enjoyed opening and closing the closet door, pointing out the stroller each time. We finally got her calmed down and got the girls to sleep around 10:30pm. As soon as they were asleep, we went right to sleep ourselves.
Finally, I should also mention that I’m far more of a morning person than Christine. I wake up earlier, with more initial energy. Of course, I fizzle out much quicker than she does. (I typically wake up around 6am but am ready for a morning nap by 10am. Once she’s awake, she’s awake for good.)
Well, we were hoping that the girls would sleep in. Our hope was futile. Both girls woke up slightly before 7am. At the time, both Christine and I were exhausted and we both wanted more sleep. But, being more of a morning person, I snapped awake pretty quickly, while Christine was not nearly ready to wake up yet.
Esther bounced right out of bed, walked over to my side of the bed and said “Papa! Stroller! Closet!”. She then proceeded to grab my hand and drag me over to the closet. She pointed and said “Closet! Open!”. When I opened it, she triumphantly dragged me inside and said “See! Stroller! Walk!”. There she was, still in her pajamas, not yet 10 minutes out of bed, ready to go back outside for more walking!
It made me laugh. For once, the roles were reversed. For once, Christine was in the position of wanting to rest and sleep while someone else was prodding her to leave and party. For once, I wasn’t the one dragging my feet trying to get more sleep. I laughed because I figured turn-about really was fair play.
Of course, I’d still like to go back to sleep myself. I feel about ready for my morning nap.
Those of us who have kids realize how much they change our lives. Those of you who don’t have kids don’t really appreciate the full impact of the change.
Let me give you an example.
This weekend we visited Minneapolis. We didn’t really have a particular reason for going. We just wanted to get out of town now that the weather was nicer. We could have gone anywhere. Chicago and Milwaukee would have also been good destinations.
We picked Minneapolis because John Piper pastors there, at Bethlehem Baptist Church. I’ve benefitted quite a bit from his books and sermons and I wanted to see what his church was like.
Bethlehem’s main campus is the downtown campus. We decided to attend the Saturday night service. We also decided to stay at a downtown hotel. Since the weather was nice, we thought it would be fun to walk to and from the service.
The evening service ended around 7:30p. We hadn’t eaten dinner before the service, so we needed to eat. It was a 30 minute walk from the church back to our hotel. We figured that we could grab something to eat on the way back. After all, we were downtown. There are stores and restaurants galore in any downtown area.
Well, we were right. There were lots of restaurants downtown. We passed at least one on every block. But, well, they were all bad. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure the food and service were excellent. But they were no longer appropriate. All of the restaurants were very relaxed, cultured places. The kind of place where you can sit outside, order some drinks, order some food, and enjoy the evening. The kind of place where the staff will leave you in peace to enjoy your evening.
In other words, the worst possible place to take an active 2 year old. 2 year old kids have no interest in sitting quietly and reflecting on the world. They have about a 10-20 minute interest in food. They’ll wait for food — for a short time. They’ll eat quietly — for a short time. They’ll sit quietly at the table after dinner — very rarely.
When you have a 2 year old, leaving you alone is the last thing you want your wait staff to do. You want them to take your order quickly. You want them to bring your food quickly. You want them to bring the check and take your payment quickly. You want to have the option of getting in, eating, and getting out very quickly. For a toddler, fast food is the best kind of food. It moves at their speed and suits their attention span.
So, as a parent of a toddler, downtown Minneapolis was not teeming with choices and options. It was a barren wasteland. We thought it completely devoid of life until we finally spotted the perfect place: a Pizza Hut Express inside of a Target.
Jackpot! We had our food 5 minutes after entering the door. We ate and left within another 15 minutes. When toddlers are involved, suburbia — with its miles of fast food and chain restaurants — is the perfect place to be. Downtown — with its gourmet restaurants and lazy bistros — is the worst possible place to be.
Four years ago, I wouldn’t have agreed with that statement. Four years ago, I didn’t have a toddler. My life has changed dramatically and I didn’t fully realize it until I spent an hour wandering around downtown Minneapolis, looking for food.