I am at a bonfire at smuggs. There is a cheesy song leader leading 200 people in camp songs.
Its a lot of schmaltz.
And I love it.
Its true.
But nobody would come with me. Chloe is of on an overnight. Ben may have sprained his ankle so he gets a pass. Wife didn’t want to come. My parents wanted to watch bill maher. Even the baby, grace didn’t want to come.
Oi.
How sad.
Sphere: Related ContentThe vacation is going well so far. Everyone is getting along well. The kids are really behaving great. Its been a good time. On Sunday we drove up here to Smuggler’s Notch. The trip took all day but the scenery was nice, so I don’t think anyone minded. We dropped the dogs off with a friend to dog-sit them while we’re gone. By the time we returned to the house, the dogs had already pee’ed in the house and escaped the yard.
Oi. I’m concerned about their wellbeing.
We stopped off at The Fort at Number Four, a living history museum in Charlestown, MA. Nothing much happened all day. The kids have each been in their respective day-camps all day on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday grace complained that she was bored stiff by playing with blocks and duck-duck-goose. She felt like she was playing baby games. So I spoke to the counselors the next day and they switched groups for her and she had a great day today. Yesterday after the kids finished camp I took them swimming and everyone had fun. They kept climbing all over me and chasing me down. Mom took some pictures. Grace LOVED the life vest she was required to wear. A few years ago Chloe hated it. For Chloe the lifevest symbolized everything she wasn’t allowed to do – some water-slides and water toys. Grace didn’t mind not being able to do those things because she focused on the freedom the vest granted her. Funny – two different points of view on the same thing.
Today I got to take a 1 hour ride on a Segway! We had a great time and I can’t exaggerate how much fun it was! I was a little wobbly on it at first, but once I got my “Segway-legs”. After about 10 minutes I was zipping around, forward and backwards and moving at a good pace. It was easily the highlight of my trip. I’m going to see if I can get more time on a Segway because it was great.
Tomorrow I have to go to a 90-minute sales pitch at 10am. Smuggler’s Notch has knocked some money off the cost of the trip if I will agree to submit to the ad-pitch. Other years we wouldn’t go near the sales-pitch, but this year they increased the amount they would knock off the bill to a point where I couldn’t say “no”. Afterwards we are pulling the kids out of their camps for the afternoon so we can take them to a mountain reservoir to spend a couple of hours swimming.
Tonight Ben is at a sleep-over with his group of “notch-squad” teammates. Tomorrow night Gabe and Chloe will go with their respective groups to spend the night at the ski lodge up the mountain.
Also my Aunt Nancy, who lives in Vermont also came and spent maybe three hours with us this afternoon. It was good seeing her and we had a decent visit.
On Thursday we’re planning on going to the Lamoille River where we’ll spend a few hours kayaking or canoeing. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for years so I’m looking forward to that too.
On Thursday evening there’s a “country fair” that actually turns out to be a lot of fun in a wholesome and somewhat cheesy way.
So we’re about halfway through our vacation and all is well.
Sphere: Related ContentYes, my car is in the shop, but its for something minor. The first three settings on the AC don’t work. The blower is either off or set to ”Hurricane”, which kind sucks. Nobody likes THAT much wind. Apparently there’s a resistor on the blower motor that has gone. If the AC is set to 1, 2 or 3 then the resistor regulates how much electricity gets through. When the AC is set to 4 the electricity bypasses the resistor altogether.
So I dropped the car off at Pine Banks Automotive. It’s a block from the train station so I got to take the T in this morning. I don’t mind riding the T, but it normally adds a lot of time to my commute so I don’t normally take it.
The car is also getting inspected. The car is about four months behind schedule for that. I’m just happy the local fuzz hasn’t pulled me over for it yet. They’ve given me warnings on this topic several times over the last few years but I think its only a matter of time until they stick me with a ticket.
The boys have a great gig scheduled on Friday night. The local library is having a party to celebrate the release of the latest Harry Potter book. At 8pm we drop off our two oldest, Ben and Gabe at the library. The will be costumed to resemble Harry and Professor Snape respectively. Then they party like its 1999 until midnight when we pick them up and bring them home.
Chloe is SO jealous! She can hardly contain herself.
I need to clean out my car – top to bottom and vacuum everything. It also needs some new windshield wipers and everything needs to washed or cleaned. I want to do that before Saturday. On Saturday morning I want to pull up all manner of weeds and fill some holes the dugs have dug in the backyard.
I need to refill my propane tanks for the grill.
I need to get a haircut.
I worked out on Sunday and Tuesday and I want to do it again tonight. Right now I am only focusing on aerobic things – bicycle, elliptical and rowing machines. I need to get my body ready before I start hitting it with lifting weights. That will come later.
I think that’s the important stuff.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Sun Online - News: Pagans have a cow over Homer
Gotta give credit where credit is due. I ran across mention of this defiling at fark.com.
Check it.
Sphere: Related ContentThe weekend went by WAY too fast. In fact, I don’t even remember what I did on Saturday.
I know that on Sunday I wanted to help Gabriel get through some of his cub scout requirements for his “handyman” activity badge. The first thing he wanted to do was build a stool. So he got to use a saw until he couldn’t use a saw any more. Then he got to hammer nails until he couldn’t hammer any more nails. I think he thought it would be a lot easier than it really was. We’re almost done now.
We also did some bicycle maintenance. The whole time Chloe kept asking if there was stuff she could help with. I think she would make AWESOME cub scout! So does she.
We also took the dogs over to the dog-sitter who will be taking care of them while we’re away next week. That went fine. The dogs were great and I think they’ll like being there much better than being locked up in a cage.
Oh year: on Saturday the whole family went to see Ratatoullie (sp?) - it was a fine Pixar cartoon. The kids seemed to like it. After that we did a little grocery shopping. When we got home I actually went and worked out for the first time in months! I am hoping I can get back in to the habit of regular exercise. Afterwards we went to a friends’ backyard cookout and the whole family had a good time until 9pm or so.
On Friday night Chloe and I went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in IMAX. It was pretty cool, but I didn’t need everything to be as big as all that. The movie was quite good and definitely got me curious about the last book. I really need to see how it ends!
Now the weather looks good for the rest of the week. This evening I plan on finishing Gabe’s stool and maybe getting in an hour of cardio exercise. I won’t be able to make it for 60 minutes. I am too out of shape now to go 60 minutes.
Sphere: Related ContentOn July 4th we had some friends over for late afternoon and dinner. They had been slowly grilling a couple of racks of ribs all afternoon and they brought them over to share. We provided the beverages and most of the food. Together we put on a fine feast. As the evening got closer and it was time to start thinking about fireworks the weather worsened and it started to rain.
I told Chloe we would not be attending the fireworks because I didn’t want to sit in the rain getting cold and wet in the dark waiting for mediocre fireworks. But I reconsidered when we figured out an alternate plan. We found an office park that overlooks the lake where the fireworks are launched and we decided to stay in the car until the show started and then we could use umbrellas. The kids were thrilled.
So me and the other guy gathered all the kids in to the van and spent 30 minutes watching fireworks in the rain. It worked out ok and naturally it wasn’t as good as watching them from up-close or without rain, but it was a pretty acceptable way to deal with the lousy weather while still getting our dose of fireworks.
I took the rest of the week off from work because I thought hardly anyone would be in. I took the kids swimming and bike riding. We built model rockets that we were supposed to launch this coming weekend with the cub scouts. That event has been postponed until the end of august but at least everyone has a rocket they can launch now. I did some yard work and took care of some errands. It was really nice spending time at home without much to do. The weather was mostly good most of the time.
We found out that an eight-year-old girl that was well known in town and attended the kids’ elementary school died on Monday, July 2nd. She had a degenerative muscular disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Everyone knew she wouldn’t live to adulthood but her death was unexpected nonetheless. She was very active and, to the best of her ability, did cheerleading and took dance classes at the same place as my daughters. For as long as I’ve known her, since she was maybe four or five, she’s been confined to an electric wheelchair. There was a very large four-hour viewing (open casket) on Sunday. It probably took us 90 minutes to get through the line. The kids were great. Not just good for kids – they were great people and behaved themselves really well. Gabriel was the same age as the little girl and Ben has been in the same class as her older brother off and on over the years. We saw a lot of people we knew there and it was a really sad event. On Monday there was an equally large funeral service and a very long procession from Melrose to the cemetery in Peabody. I don’t think we made any friends on Rt.1 North that day.
So it was hard in that regard. Fortunately the Roger Waters concert finished off the day. Now its back to work for a couple of weeks until the weekend of July 22nd when we will go to Smuggler’s Notch with my parents for a week. It should be a lot of fun, I think and we’re all looking forward to it.
Sphere: Related ContentRoger Waters - Boston - Rock - Boston Globe
Long time, no post. I will get back to what the family has been up to later today, but for now I just had to mention that I snagged a pair of free tickets to the 7/9 Roger Waters concert at the TD BankNorth Garden, thanks to the generosity of a friend of my wife’s! I brought my buddy from across the street and we had a great time. I saw Pink Floyd almost twenty years ago in Vienna, Austria and it was really great seeing (sort of) them again. Everything worked out great. Good show. It had explosions, lasers, fireworks and floating pigs. What more could you ask for?!
Incidentally, his show isn’t exactly politics-free. The dirigible pig had some slogans painted on it:
“Torture Shames Us All”
“All Religions Divide”
Then as the pig turned around to present the “rear view” it said “What an Asshole” and “Impeach Bush”.
Sphere: Related ContentA-Rod’s Wife Causes Stir With Obscene Shirt - Sports News Story - WCVB Boston
I saw some Red Sox fan on TV last night talking about how inappropriate it was for Alex Rodriguez’s wife to wear foul language on her shirt.
1. I think it was in awful taste to wear it and it shows that she’s white trash through and through. It shows no class. Somehow its fitting that she’s married to A-Rod.
2. That minuscule curse word is nothing compared to the foul language shouted in the bleachers at Fenway park. That guy was really hypocritical - I mean red sox fans have some FOUL language.
case in point.
