Bragging on my kid a while...

Forgive me, I'm going to play the proud papa for a while.

My oldest daughter was named the Burroughs High School Female Student Athlete of the Year today.

I'm smiling as loud as I can right now.

New Shooter Report

I took my son and oldest daughter to the range this afternoon. The main reason for this trip was to try out my Christmas Present - a RIA 1911-A1 45 auto. I had a chance to try one of these several weeks ago at the range thanks to a generous stranger who let me shoot off a mag of his ammo. So I was anxious to see if I liked my own as much as I liked his. I did. It needs a little work though. The hammer bite on the web between my thumb and forefinger will need to be addressed. But overall I liked it. It shot quite well right out of the box.

Today was also my oldest daughters first chance to go shooting. It was a day of firsts for her. She is walking without her case/boot thing that she was worn for the last four weeks recovering from a bad ankle sprain. She passed her written test this afternoon and got her drivers permit. She got to go shooting for the first time.

OK, its not completely her first time. She has shot her brother's BB gun and his soft pellet pistol. But this was her first time with something that was gun powder propelled.

We started her out with the Browning Buckmark. She handled it OK. After a few mags of 22LR we moved her up to the 9 mm. She had a little difficulty maintaining a solid enough platform for the weapon and it kept jamming on her. When she was able to maintain a good solid base she did OK. She was able to bang the metal targets out around 60 feet about half the time with both weapons. She wasn't too amuzed when the 9mm ejected one piece of brass and it popped her in the nose. She did fire one mag through my new 45. But didn't really enjoy that. Then I created a monster.

Next I hauled out my old Winchester 250 22LR lever action rifle. She took to that like a duck to water. Her only problem was the first time I let her load it. She didn't lock down the inner tube when she was finished. So the first time she shot it, the tube shot out the front of the weapon and lay there on the ground.

After learning how to lock down the magazine tube, she did great. She started sitting down shortly after we got there because her ankle was hurting her. But once she discovered how much more stable she was that way, she turned into a plinking monster. After beating up all the knock down targets on the pistol range she moved over to the rifle range to shoot at the 100 yard target there. When I checked up on her after a while she was shooting at some metal silhouette targets at 200 yds and hitting them about a third of the time.



I see now that I should have never waited this long to take her shooting. She had a blast. Next time she wants me to take the 30-30 and the .45-70 so she can give those a try. And of course the 250 again. I can see it coming already. I think I may have lost my 250 today. But I suppose that is OK. It was the first gun my parents bought for me when I turned twelve. I suppose it would be fitting to pass it down to my first born. Besides that would give me a good excuse to go get myself a new 22. Hey! I'm liking this idea more and more. I especially like that my daughter decided that her favorite weapon to shoot is the most affordable to shoot gun we own.

Oh, my son loved my new 45. The first time he shot it it really startled him. He was getting pretty comfortable with the 9mm so he wasn't ready for the recoil from the 45. But he adjusted quickly. I think I have created a recoil monster. He just doesn't get a thrill from plinking any more. He needs the big bang and the thump to get himself charged up. But unfortunately for him he is going to have to do a lot of plinking. I love shooting the larger calibers also, but the 22s are a lot cheaper to shoot.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

First 45-70

When I was 10 or 11 years old my father let me shoot his Springfield Model 73 trapdoor 45-70. He sat me down, showed my how to load the weapon then stood back with my Uncle and laughed his ass off when the recoil rolled me over onto my back.

My son has heard that story for years. Yet that has not deterred him from wanting to shoot that 45-70 also. Yesterday I gave him his shot, so to speak. We had worked him up from the 22LR to my Winchester Model 94 30-30. He wasn't too impressed with the 30-30. It kicked a lot more than he was comfortable with. But even when I told him that the 45-70 was going to kick a lot harder he was undeterred.

Here is his first two shots with the 45-70.



Don't be ragging on his shooting style. Those were the first two shots he ever tried sitting down. He still needs a lot of work on his leg positions. But me just showing him how to do it doesn't seem to work with him. He will have to try it some more and wear himself out before he will believe me that there is a better way.

In my son's defense, he did shoot the 45-70 five more times that day. He did them all standing up.

Today, his shoulder is sore and you can see the shape of the butt on is shoulder in a very faint bruise.

Also I have to be proud of him. There was a father, grandfather and three boys shooting next to us. The youngest boy (probably about 14 or 15) was fascinated by the 45-70. I offered to let him shoot it. Even with his grandfather and father urging him to try it he kept chickening out. My kid finally quit when the box of cartridges was empty.

Thanksgiving Turkey

Here is the before and after pictures of my contribution to this afternoon's Thanksgiving feast.



If you have never had fried turkey, shame on you. My dear wife told me about her Cajun relatives frying turkeys when she was a kid. We tried it about 10 years ago and have never gone back.

The time frame between the two sides of this picture is about 45 minutes.

Famous Family

Hey my family has finally made the big time. We're famous now. We have finally been recognized on a National level.

My family has always been unknowns. We're not famous, we're not big shots. We spend our lives laboring in obscurity. I have been doing family genealogy research for many years now and as far back as I can track our heritage we have been farmers, shop keepers, laborers, etc. Our family tree is the epitome of lower/middle class America.

But that is not true anymore. Thanks to my first cousin, once removed, Milton Kirk Cordes, our family has finally achieved national recognition.

Yesterday, President Bush issued 14 pardons and commuted two prison sentences. One of those pardons was to Milton (Everyone in the family always called him just - Kirk).

On the latest pardon list were:
...
_Milton Kirk Cordes of Rapid City, S.D. Cordes was convicted of conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act, which prohibits importation into the country of wildlife taken in violation of conservation laws.

Kirk is the son of my Grandfather's older brother John and his wife Hallie. Everyone called John - Slim. When younger I spent a lot of time at Slim and Hallie's place. That is where we did most of our antelope hunting. I don't remember much of Kirk. He was 18 years older than I was so he was seldom around. He was 6 years younger than my Dad (his first cousin) so to me he was just another grown-up.

Apparently a few years ago Kirk and some buddies were running a private hunting club in SD capitalizing on the out of state hunters who had too much money to spend, but not a place to hunt when they got to South Dakota. I don't know all the details, but apparently they weren't exactly running a completely honest operation. They got caught.

Now Kirk has finally brought out family into the national spotlight - he got a Presidential Pardon. Way to go Kirk!

Actually I'm glad for the guy. While I can't say I knew him personally, I really liked his Mom and Dad. How could I not like a lady who always made homemade creamcicles for me every time we came to visit?

All Tournament

I made a quick run out of town today to watch my oldest daughter and her varsity volleyball team compete in the 25th annual Scorpion Volleyball Tournament at Hesperia High School in Hesperia.

Her team did OK in the tournament. There were 10 teams divided into two pools of 5. In pool A the Burroughs team beat Victor Valley Christian 25-22, they beat San Gabriel 25-16, they lost to the host team Hesperia 23-25 and beat Lucerne Valley 25-14 for a second place finish in their pool.

Since the top two teams in each pool played this afternoon in the Championship Bracket. In the first semifinal Burroughs had to face the number one team from pool B - Quartz Hill. This was not a pleasant match for the Burroughs as they lost in straight games 14-25 and 12-25. Quartz Hill had three really good hitters to did a masterful job of hitting around the Burroughs blockers while completely overwhelming the back row defenders.

In the 3rd place match Burroughs faced Victor Valley. After leading most of the game the Burros got themselves to a 22-19 lead and then several of the senior members of the team decided the game was won and dialed in the rest of the game. They lost 23-25. The frustration over this loss carried over into the next game where it pretty much just took over the entire team. They lost the second game 13-25.

The team went home with a fourth place finish out of 10 teams and they got a pretty good look as several teams that they will have to play against when conference play starts in a couple weeks.

For our family the highlight of the day was my daughter being awarded an All Tournament award. This award means that in the opinion of the tournament organizers she was the best volleyball player from Burroughs High School on the court today.

I agree with them completely. Although I think their sophomore outside hitter probably gave my daughter a good run for the money in the voting. But that is just my opinion.

Hawks and Doves

My dear wife and children always put out birdseed in the winter for their feathered friends that hang around here when the weather gets a little chilly. Mostly we have doves that congregate in the backyard and several little finches that like the thistle seed they leave in the front yard.

The downside of their kindhearted act is that our neighbor's cat which thinks of our backyard as his own personal litterbox and dove buffet occasionally goes after the doves there. The other preditor that seems to like the doves in our backyard is a hawk. Well the entire family pretty much agrees on one thing, we don't mind feeding the hawk, but we want the fleabag cat to stay the heck out of our yard.

This evening just before dinner was ready my oldest daughter was sitting at the computer when something thumped pretty hard into the glass patio window. I looked up to see what my daughter had thrown against the window when a second larger object also hit the window.

The first thump was a dove in full flight. The second thump was the hawk who seemed to have a lot more control than the dove. The dove stunned itself when it hit the glass, the hawk didn't. The result of this daredevil game these birds were playing is right here.



The hawk sat there for a few moments kneeding his dinner with his talons. The dove was still twitching so we think the hawk was finishing off the dove as well as securing his grip.

We were going to watch the feast, but the neighbor's cat decided to get involved. It hopped over the fence and the hawk too off with his dinner. Which was too bad. I can't get close to the stupid cat, so I keep hoping that the hawk will take care of it for me one day. I would love to see this hawk winging his way across the backyard with the cat riding where the dove is in the second picture.

Halloween

My family loves Halloween. We decorate our house inside and out. We turn our front yard into a spooky graveyard. Then when the kids are done trick or treating we hang out in the front yard and try to scare trick or treaters who come to the house.

This was a different year for us. We are without our oldest for the first time in 14 years. She had a road game scheduled for tonight so she is playing volleyball at Serrano High School this evening. Besides that, it was a slow night. A beautiful night, but a slow one.

The temperature was fantastic. It was one of those evenings where I would have been willing to walk with the kids while they trick or treated for miles. But being midweek and a school night. There weren't many kids out trick or treating this evening so people were passing out hands full of candy instead of single pieces.

We have always made the kids quit when their little plastic buckets are full, and they filled up quickly this evening. So we went back to the house and staked out the front yard. My youngest daughter in her mummy costume, my son in his dracula costume and me in my gray coveralls, hockey mask and axe.

We lurked around for a while and frightened a couple kids but we spent most of our time just standing around bored.

The evening ended on a high note though when six of my volleyball players showed up. They walked right up the driveway with my 8th grade Captain in the lead. But when they turned onto the sidewalk my Captain balked and decided she didn't want to be in the lead anymore. My starting setter moved to the front then quickly scampered down the sidewalk to the front door. The rest followed her watching me as I just sat in my chair and stared at them. Five of them gathered at the front door while my seventh grade setter hung back at the end of the sidewalk, just a little leery of walking down the sidewalk. So she watched as my dear wife passed out candy and I got out of my chair and snuck up behind the girls standing at the door. Then as soon as one of them started to turn around I let out a yell and leapt around the bushes onto the sidewalk with my realistic looking plastic axe held high in the air.

This action resulted in a very satisfying chorus of screams and five girls all jumping and turning in circles as they realized that they were trapped in the doorway. As they settled down the last member of their group finally joined them, got her candy, and we stood around and visited for a while.

I'm glad the girls came by. Spending a few minutes with them was the perfect end of the evening. After they left we waited about 30 minutes more and when no more trick or treaters came by we blew out all the candles. Turned off the lights and shut down the front yard for the night.

Now I just have to wait for my oldest to get home and this will be one more Halloween to remember. Except for the putting all the decorations away. That will take another few days.

The End of an Era

About 11 years ago when my youngest daughter was turning four years old my dear wife and I decided that she would need a jungle gym and a swing set in the back yard. Now any normal parents would shop around for a while and pick out a set that they liked, buy it, set it up and watch their kid fall off it and hurt themselves.

Well that method wasn't good enough for us. After all if my kid is going to fall off a jungle gym and hurt herself I wanted her to do it right. Since most home jungle gyms are only about 6 to 8 feet high that didn't seem good enough to me.

Another factor that entered into some of the decisions I made were my childhood. When I was a kid I was always building forts. One day my father backed his truck into the log pile out back of the house one day and the entire pile collapsed into the fort the neighbor boy and I had built in the middle of the log pile. Dad was very relieved that neither of us were actually in the fort at the time it collapsed. But he told me that he would build us a fort in the backyard if I would stop building my own in odd places.

So Dad sunk four poles into the back yard then he built on top of them a 4 by 8 foot by 6 foot high fort that sat about 8 feet off the ground. It had a trap door and rope ladder, and real windows that would open and close. My sisters and I practically lived in that fort. So I wanted something at least as fun for my kids.

So I started acting like an engineer and let my imagination run a little wild. Then I ran down south to Home Depot and came home with a truck load of lumber, cement and other stuff. Then I started building. I didn't really have any plans, just a plot diagram so I knew that my insane idea would fit in the side yard where it was intended to fit.

If you give an engineer who likes woodworking and wants to out Dad his Dad two months, three truck loads of supplies from Home Depot, and four paint colors picked out by an almost four year old and this is what grows in your back yard.



Shortly after this picture was taken I added a sun shade to the top of the large tower and a climbing rope to the swing set. The front tower is 8 ft x 8 ft and 15 ft high at the top of the railing. You enter it from the ladder on the underside. It is connected by an aerial 'tunnel' to the smaller tower. This one is only 5 ft x 5 ft. It has a sunshade top, and a curvey slide. The center of the main tower has some intermediate levels and dividers so, to get to the top of the main tower requires climbing up 3 ladder segments, navigating 6 turns, and opening the trap door at the top.

When the twins were about 2 I added a 50 ft. zip line from the main tower to an anchor on the other side of the yard. That zip line was the biggest attraction at my kid's birthday parties.

When I first finished building this monstrosity our next door neighbor was horrified. She thought it was the ugliest thing she had ever seen. Her husband loved it. But he was relieved that it was my daughter and not me who picked out the colors.

Well this evening my son and I started taking down the jungle gym. We had hemmed and hawed about this for quite a while. The kids were all emotionally attached to the jungle gym even though they rarely ever play on it any more.

In the jungle gym's place is going a new above ground swimming pool. My wife grew up in a house with a pool. I didn't. I always wanted one as a kid. As an adult I never really cared. I just didn't want to bother with the maintenance. But the kids don't use the jungle gym much anymore, and it was getting so it needed a lot of maintenance as well as a new coat of paint. We just couldn't see putting in the time, energy and money to fix up something that the kids were all outgrowing.

When we get the jungle gym removed and the pool installed I'll post a picture so you can see the new side yard.

So an era for our family ended this evening. Our little kids have out grown their jungle gym and swing set. They are excited about the new pool. Their parents are kind of depressed that our babies are growing up.

Prairie Village Memories

My home town of Madison SD has a frontier village right outside of town. Prairie Village is designed to simulate a pioneer village of the late 1800s. Every August they hold a Steam Threshing Jamboree at the village. This year is the 45th edition of the threshing Jamboree. It is also the 35th anniversary of the first Jamboree that I ever worked at. A couple weeks ago a second cousin of mine called me to point out that they local newspaper, The Madison Daily Leader, was running a request online for people to write their fondest memories of their times at Prairie Village. These memories will be collected in a booklet to share with visitors to the Jamboree this year.

Here is my submission:

I was a Prairie Village Printers Devil.

I was born in Madison, SD but moved west river to Rapid City when I was two. I got to spend part of almost every summer in Madison with my Grandmother, Myrt Huettl.

A large portion of my summer of 1972 was spent helping my Grandmother fill the new summer kitchen at Prairie Village with stuff we had dug out of my Great Grandfather’s garage. By the time the Steam Threshing Jamboree was ready to start we had spent so much time out at Prairie Village that I was starting to think that my Grandmother planned on moving into the new summer kitchen and living there. After all, much of the kitchen furnishings of her childhood were already out there.

Spending this much time at Prairie Village gave me a chance to wander into and through all the buildings in the park. So every time Grandma would turn her back on me for a moment or two I went exploring.

One of my favorite buildings in the park was the Print Shop. My grandfather, Chet Huettl, worked in the print room of the Madison Daily Leader for most of his adult life. I used to love visiting him there. But the machines at the Print Shop did not look at all like the machines down at the Leader Shop. Since Grandpa had passed away a few years earlier I started asking my Grandmother about the machinery in the Print Shop. My sudden curiosity in the Print Shop led Grandma to decide that the Print Shop is where I should spend my days during the Steam Threshing Jamboree.

The day before the Jamboree opened Grandma took me to meet Bob Nellis. Bob was a printer from my Grandfather’s days and he was going to be manning the Print Shop at Prairie Village that year. Bob absolutely terrified me. He was a large man with a bad leg that required him to walk with a cane.

My Grandmother introduced me to Bob as his new printer’s assistant. Bob immediately informed both of us that I was too green and inexperienced to be a printer’s assistant. Instead I would have to be the printer’s devil, which was one step below a printer's assistant.

Bob then explained what the printer’s devil’s job entailed. My job would be to clean and sort the type. Clean the presses, clean the benches, sweep the floors and empty the trash. It sounded a lot like a janitor’s job to me.

Since Bob and I didn’t have any period clothes to wear my grandmother promised to round up some printers aprons for us to wear. Then we left Bob with a promise to see him out at Prairie Village bright and early the next morning. Grandma stopped down at the Daily Leader to see if they would loan us a couple aprons. They were happy to oblige and she got an apron for Bob to wear. Then she spent the rest of the afternoon digging through boxes of stuff at home looking for some of my grandfather’s old aprons so I could wear one of them. I spent the afternoon trying to think a good reason, or illness, to get me out of this nightmare she had concocted for me. I did not relish the idea of spending my weekend cleaning the Print Shop.

The next morning I met Bob at the Print Shop about an hour before the park opened. The excitement level as everyone tried to get ready for the jamboree was killing me. I could not believe that I was going to have to spend my entire weekend stuck inside the Print Shop cleaning up after Bob Nellis.

For the next hour Bob crammed as much knowledge about hand setting type into my teen-aged brain as he could manage. Bob taught me how the proof press worked. He taught me about ink and rollers, sticks and galleys, quoins and forms, the California Job case, moveable type and type lice. Bob showed me the racks of movable type in the back of the shop and threatened to toss me into a threshing machine if I dropped any of the cases.

Then Bob showed me what we would be printing. It was a wanted poster that we could customize with individual names. He talked me through the whole process of setting the type with the person’s name – backwards, then, locking the quoins, inking the galley, placing the paper, and running it through the proof press.

By the time the Jamboree started Bob announced that I was ready to solo for a while. So with a final admonition to keep my fingers clear of the roller on the proof press, he moved around to the front of the counter where he could prop himself on a stool and talk to any visitors who wandered in, leaving me alone running the back of the shop.

It was a busy day. I spent the entire morning setting type, printing wanted posters, cleaning the galleys, putting type away and then starting all over again on the next poster. At lunchtime my grandmother brought us some sandwiches from the Prairie Village Kitchen. We sat together on the front porch of the Print Shop and watched the visitors walk past while Bob shared a bit more about printing with me. It was sometime during lunch that I stopped being afraid of Bob Nellis.

That afternoon and all the next day I had a blast working as Bob’s Printer’s Devil. I worked the back of the shop and Bob worked the customers. Occasionally Bob would allow a customer behind the counter so I could help them set their own name in type, and then supervise them through the process of printing their own wanted poster.

It was the middle of the second day when a family from Missouri stopped in to check out the shop. He was a printer and wanted to take a close look at our old printing presses. While Bob and our visitor talked shop it fell to me to entertain his teenage daughter who was standing around looking bored. After an hour in the print shop Bob’s guest was being dragged away by his wife. Meanwhile his daughter had been running the proof press for me for a while and she was also getting pretty good at setting type. Before she left, we exchanged addresses and the two of us stayed in touch as pen pals for the next 7 years.

I worked the Print Shop with Bob for three consecutive Steam Threshing Jamborees. The fourth year I was a junior in High School and had other plans for the summer that kept me away from Madison. I didn't manage to get back to Madison for the Jamboree for several years. When I did, my Grandmother told me that Bob had passed away. She asked if I wanted her to get permission for me to work the Print Shop again that year. I turned down her offer. Without Bob Nellis perched on the stool out front it just would not have been the same.

I don’t work in the printing industry. But for three summers I got a small taste of what my Grandfather did for a living for many years. I met a lot of really interesting people, and one great old printer who took a young kid under his wing and turned him into a printer’s devil.

Once I finished this submission for the memory book I got a little pretentious and decided to speak out for my Grandmother. Grandma never would have tolerated me trying to put words in her mouth. But she has been gone for a while now, and I figured what the heck. So I submitted this memory for her.

Creating a Summer Kitchen

My Grandmother, Myrt Huettl, passed away in March of 2001. She worked at and supported Prairie Village for many years. Taking her grandchildren out to Prairie Village and telling tales of her childhood using the displays as examples was one of her favorite past times. I do not presume to know what my Grandmother’s favorite memories of Prairie Village were. But I do know that she treasured the time she spent working there. For many summers the Steam Threshing Jamboree marked our last weekend at Grandma’s house in Madison before my sisters and I had to return home to Rapid City to start the next school year.

Sometime prior to the summer of 1972 Prairie Village acquired a small building that they wanted to set up as a summer kitchen. I don’t know if she volunteered, was drafted, or just decided to take on the task on her own. But when I arrived in Madison for the summer my Grandmother was already making plans to decorate the new summer kitchen with belongings out of her basement, her garage and her father’s garage.

My grandmother directed several weeks of digging, restoring, repairing and cleaning kitchen items for inclusion in the summer kitchen. Often her directions were as imprecise as “there was a large black thing-a-ma-jig for the oven in one of those boxes in that corner of the garage, about 30 years ago, dig it out, clean it off and put it on the porch.”

I spent a lot of time looking for thing-a-ma-jigs, whatchamacallits and various other similarly named items.

It took a couple weeks but slowly the summer kitchen started looking like a kitchen. Eventually the night before the Steam Threshing Jamboree was to start Grandma finally declared the summer kitchen ready to go.

The next day my grandmother practically floated into Prairie Village. She proudly checked us all in as exhibitors. My Grandmother, Mother and both sisters were wearing period looking dresses that Mom had sewn for them all the previous week. Grandma and my sisters even had bonnets to cover their heads.

As Grandma dropped me off at the Print Shop she shooed her brood of pioneer daughter and granddaughters across the road to the summer kitchen. Grandma’s plan was to sit in the summer kitchen all day and tell people all about the things in that kitchen. Mom and my sisters were scheduled to be working in the Auxiliary Kitchen all day. Unfortunately for Grandma, her granddaughters had other plans. They worked the kitchen for a while and then they sat in the summer kitchen with Grandma for a while. Eventually some of their friends from town showed up and that was the last grandma saw of them until they all got hungry. Grandma spent the rest of the day splitting her time between the food kitchen and the summer kitchen.

Grandma loved that summer kitchen. She also loved to work the Auxiliary Kitchen serving food to visitors at the park. But most of all she loved taking her family to Prairie Village. Her proudest year was 1988 when she was named the Auxiliary Kitchen Queen.

Vacation 2007

As I mentioned earlier I was on vacation last week. Friday morning my son went to his last day of the UK Soccer Camp. When they finished up around 11 AM we hustled him home, into the shower, then cleaned and dressed we loaded the entire family into the van and headed for the airport in Las Vegas.

Normally the drive to Las Vegas takes around 4 hours if you drive the speed limit, and your vehicle doesn’t overheat on the Baker grade. I usually allow 5 hours for unforeseen circumstances. However, things didn’t work out that well on Saturday and we used up our unforeseen circumstances time before we left home.

After a lunch at the In-n-Out in Barstow we were cruising right along on Interstate 15 north. The van was running well. But I still had to click the air conditioner off about half way up the Baker grade when the engine started heating up a bit. Since it was about 114 degrees outside the 10 minute drive up the top half of the hill got a little warm inside the car.

Then as we were climbing the last hill before the long downhill run to Primm at the Nevada state line when suddenly all the traffic in both lanes slowed down to 10 miles per hour. We crept along at 10 mph for almost 40 minutes. This slow speed coupled with the hot weather required us to click off the air conditioner – again. As we are creeping along the interstate highway after several minutes I noticed that there was no traffic at all on the other side of the highway.

Eventually we came around a corner and over a hill and we could see flashing lights at the top of the hill on the other side of the highway. As we neared the spot we discovered that a large vehicle, my dear wife thinks it was a truck, had flipped and burned blocking the other side of the highway. Almost immediately after passing this tragedy the traffic on our side of the highway sped back up to around 70 mph. That’s right folks, 4 miles at 10 mph just so every single idiot on the road in front of us could rubber neck the accident. God I hate it when they let Los Angeles drivers leave the city and get out on the road with the rest of us.

So we arrived at the Airport about 40 minutes late. So we only had 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to our plane instead of 2 hours. Fortunately for us, our plane was delayed 30 minutes. So we took our safari trek through the Las Vegas airport. If you have never been in the Las Vegas airport you should try it some day. The check in counters are not in any way located anywhere near the parking or passenger drop off area. It almost seems that they deliberately want you to have to carry your suitcases past a large number of shops and gambling areas to be able to check in. Eventually we got to the counter and after checking our bags, counting our kids, we headed for security.

Working our way through the airport security system was a novel experience. After getting in line we were eventually split off from the rest of the travelers and after weaving our way around several turns of velvet ropes we found ourselves in what could best be described as a sci-fi experience. The wide open area with the velvet ropes winding through them suddenly turned into a glass walled tunnel that continued to wind around until we approached an inspection station. There we had to put our shoes and metal possessions in a box that disappeared around a blind corner on a conveyor belt. Then we had to step into a phone booth sized box that had several nozzles sticking out in it. I had a really hard time not blurting out things like:

Is this teleporter? I would like to go to Denver now please.
Wow, a sonic shower. Do I have to disrobe first?
Is this where you tell me that Soylent Green is people?
Wait! I wasn’t scheduled for disintegration today!

Instead I kept my big mouth shut and just stood there while the little puffs of air shot out of the nozzles. As I stepped out of the booth I picked up my stuff and was putting my shoes back on when my son stepped into the booth. Suddenly I was really glad we made him shower before we left home. I would hate to see what his odor after 3 hours of soccer in 110 degrees then the four hour car ride would do to their sniffer machine.

Fortunately we all made it through security without needing a cavity search. And thanks to the 30 minute flight delay we only had to wait at the gate for about half an hour for our plane to leave.

The flight was uneventful. My dear wife who is a nervous flyer managed to get through it without a breakdown. My father met us at the airport and drove us to Cheyenne. This part of the trip was kind of long. The drive from Denver International to Cheyenne takes between 90 minutes and 2 hours on the interstate. However Dad doesn’t like driving the interstate. He prefers driving the state highway through all the little towns. This route takes between two and a half and three hours. Sometimes up to three and a half hours if he stops at the A&W restaurant to eat.

We all slept in on Saturday. That afternoon we mostly just hung out with Dad and visited most of the day. My dear wife and I did slip out with the oldest daughter to do a little shopping for a while. Chaos was looking for school clothes and wanted to check out the mall. She didn’t find much. While we were gone my Dad took the twins to the lake swimming. So the twins started their vacation with a sunburn. Opps.

On Sunday, my Dad, dear wife and the twins loaded into Dad’s Buick and headed up to our cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Chaos and I borrowed Dad’s van and headed over the hill to Laramie for her volleyball camp which started on Monday. On the way to Laramie we stopped at a camp ground along the way to meet with some friends from the area. After finding them, we spent a while hiking in the area to give Chaos a chance to acclimate to the significantly higher altitude in Laramie.

Most of the rest of our week was spent with Chaos attending the volleyball camp while I hung around watching and learning from the coaches at the camp. My dear wife and twins spent the week at our cabin in Silver City SD. According to my dear wife the twins pretty much lived in the creek (which is pronounced “crik”) most the week. They did get out and toured the hills for a while. They saw the Crazy Horse Monument, Mount Rushmore, and several other sights in the Black Hills.

Both halves of our family vacation had some transportation difficulties. Since we had flown in we were counting on using Dad’s two cars for transportation. My third day in Laramie I strolled out to the van, got in, put the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing! I mean absolutely nothing. No clicking, no churning starter, zip, zero, nothing. I sat there for a moment trying not to curse in front of my daughter. Then I checked the lights, radio, etc. Nope, none of it was turned on. So I did the logical thing. I turned the key back and forth about a dozen times. When the logical thing to do didn’t work I tried the illogical. I turned the key back and forth a couple more times.

Finally I got out of the van, opened the hood and checked the battery. Yep, the cables were tight, there was fluid in the battery. I crawled underneath and made sure the starter was still there. I had a starter stolen out of a vehicle while in college I figured that it couldn’t hurt to check. When all this didn’t change the non-starting status of the van I called the friends we were staying with and asked them to run over and give Chaos a lift to her camp so she wouldn’t be late.

My friends bailed us out. They ran home and lent us their van for the day. After I dropped Chaos off at the camp I went back to the house and rummaged around the garage until I found my friend’s battery charger. I hooked the charger up to Dad’s van then went back to the volleyball camp.

Later that day I got my first phone call from my dear wife since we had parted company four days earlier. I hadn’t worried too much about not hearing from her. I knew that there was no cell service and no land line phone at the cabin. My dear wife told me that they had been having their own car trouble that week. The car they were driving had stopped running 6 miles outside of Custer SD. Dad was sure it was the fuel pump, since it had been giving him problems lately. I ignored my immediate reaction to be angry at my Dad for taking my wife and twins off into the hills with a car that he knew was breaking down.

My dear wife related how my Dad hadn’t wanted to let her use her AAA card and insisted on using his Amoco Motor Club card. So instead of a AAA tow truck coming from Custer to tow them into town they had to wait until a truck drove over from Newcastle WY to tow them the last 6 miles into Custer. (Newcastle is 38 miles from Custer)

Ultimately the other half of my family had to rent a car for the week while Dad’s was sitting in Custer being ignored by the mechanic. When it came time to go back to Cheyenne they finally got a little testy with the mechanic and he gave them a loaner from his used car lot to take back to Cheyenne for a week or so until he got Dad’s car fixed. Then Dad will have to drive back up to Custer to pick up his car.

The whole thing sounded pretty fishy to me. But Dad is convinced that the mechanic, who is the son of a guy Dad used to work with, is reliable and will not screw him over. So I just butted out and let Dad deal with this in his own way.

So while I had my dear wife on the phone I talked to Dad and told him about the battery in the van. He insisted that the battery was less than a year old and should charge back up just fine. He was also very insistent that I should not try and replace the battery until I got the van back to Cheyenne. So after I had tried charging the battery for several hours and it wouldn’t take a charge I left the charger on for 24 hours. It still wouldn’t take a charge. So the day before we were supposed to leave for Cheyenne my Dad finally fessed up to me that the receipt for the battery was in the van. So I took the receipt and battery down to the local NAPA dealer and got a brand new battery – free. After all the battery had a 6 year warranty and was only 10 months old.

The whole battery situation was rather irritating. If Dad had told me right away that they receipt was in the van I could have saved my friends several days of having to get by without one of their vehicles.

Eventually we all met back together in Cheyenne. My oldest daughter and I were both tired and looking for a day to just relax. My dear wife was ready to go home. She had spent the week at our cabin trying to insulate our youngest children from the influence of my sister’s children. Three of my nieces and nephews along with their boyfriends and just friends were at the cabin also. Apparently my nieces and nephews have all decided to become underage alcoholics. According to my dear wife they would start drinking beer around 11 AM and move onto the harder stuff as it got dark. Their evenings were spent playing drinking games and reading Playboy magazines to each other. (note: these kids range from 19 to 21 years old) My wife tried several times to point out that they were setting a horrible example for their 10 year old cousins. They were unfazed by her objections and just continued on as though my family wasnt there. Unfortunately my one sister who was there at the cabin also didn’t care and in several instances aided them with their drinking by passed the beer to them while they were up on the roof.

So we learned a lot of lessons from this trip. My oldest daughter learned that she needs to be careful how she tries to pancake dig a volleyball so that she doesn’t re-injure her left shoulder. I learned where my Dad hides the receipts in his van. My twins learned that their older cousins are not to be trusted or looked up to or admired in any way. My dear wife and I learned that in the future we will not be taking any vacations where my sisters or their children will be involved in any way shape or form. Also in the future we will be planning our vacations so that we do not have to depend on Dad’s cars for transportation.

All in all it was an ok vacation, except for the part of having to deal with my drunken relatives. I am pretty much in shock at this behavior. I thought most of my generation had learned that we are related on both sides of the family to several generations of alcoholics. Unfortunately my sisters seemed to have forgotten to teach that to their children and they seem bent or resurrecting the family curse.

Finally our trip home was uneventful. Dad dropped us off at the Denver Airport. We got into the enormously long security line which spilled out of the normal security area and wrapped about half way around the baggage claim area. But the line moved right along and we were in it only about 25 minutes. We had one minor event when a large, really large, enormous lady with a cart full of suitcase cut the line in front of us. I would have complained, but watching her trying to steer her cart full suitcases through the winding velvet ropes was very entertaining. Especially the part where she got all the way up to the front of the line and was pulled out of line by security because her bags were to numerous and way to large to be carry-ons.

We landed in Vegas about on time, recovered out bags without incident, got our car out of hock in the parking lot and headed for home at about 11:45 PM. I stopped in Jean NV to top off the gas tank and get something caffeinated to drink. This is when we noticed that the Nevada Landing Casino appeared to be closed. When I asked the clerk at the gas station why the lights were on next door but the parking lots empty she told me that MGM who owns the property is going to tear down the casino and build houses there. I guess selling houses is more profitable than having people walk into your place of business and just handing you money.

We arrived home at 3:30 AM to find the house still standing. Thank you to my in-laws who had stopped by during the day and turned the cooler on high, put some cereal in the cupboard and some milk in the frig. We also found the new Harry Potter book waiting for us. We hadn’t decided who was going to get to read it first up until this point. But since everyone else was tired and going to bed and I needed a couple hours to decaffeinate before I could go to sleep I got to read it first. So I did.

Home from Vacation

We have arrived safely home from our vacation. It is about 3:30 in the morning and I am heavily caffeinated from the drive home. So it will be a couple hours before I will be able to go to sleep. Fortunately the new Harry Potter book is waiting for us here. Since my dear wife and oldest daughter and I all want to read it first I guess I get first dibs since the rest of them are all going to bed.

I'll write a bit about our vacation that did not go without incident when I get this book done. I'm afraid that if my dear wife and daughter catch me doing anything but finishing this book so they can have their turn they will string me up. At least that is my story and I'm sticking to it.

Vacation

There will not be any blogging going on here for about 12 days.

I am driving five high school girls down to a volleyball camp in Lancaster. This is the fourth day of this camp. Other parents drove the first three days.

I don't expect to get home until around 9 PM this evening.

Tomorrow morning the family is heading for Wyoming. My dear wife and the twins will be going with my Dad to our cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota. My oldest daughter and I will be headed for Laramie where she will be working in a volleyball camp for 6 days.

I'm not taking my laptop with me this year. I decided to have a computer free vacation.

I'll get back to you when we get home again.

Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July

The flags are up outside, the pork roast is in the smoker and I got smoked sausages, hotdogs and hamburgers ready to grill. The potato salad and fruit salad are in the frig.

We usually spend our 4th of July hanging out with family and friends. We visit, watch movies, eat and generally enjoy ourselves. Once it gets dark we slice up the watermelon and move out to the driveway to set off all our wimpy California legal fireworks in the cul-de-sac.

This year the attendance was down a bit. We just had a few friends over. In past years we have had as many as 25 folks over. This year we had to settle for only 7.

My oldest daughter had a friend over. It was kind of nice. I remember hanging out with my friends during all the holidays when I was her age. We always had fun together, so I like seeing her get the chance to share her holiday traditions with her friends.

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Update we just finished our fireworks and had a pretty good turnout. The first few years we would have 5 to 7 families out sitting in their driveways shooting off fireworks in the cul-de-sac. But that only lasted a couple years. Slowly the other families all moved, stopped doing fireworks or just didn't bother. For the last five years it has been just us out there. This year we had three families out there. Hopefully we can get this neighborhood tradition started back up again.

Out of Gas

I have been driving since I was a junior in high school. Until I graduated from college I never owned a new car. Most of my vehicles were old and tended to break down a lot. In addition of less than reliable vehicles I never had a lot of disposable income so I seldom filled up my gas tank. This combination meant that several times I was left with a car that wasn't doing a very good job of getting me where I wanted to go.

To the best of my memory I have run out of gas while driving four times in my life. None of them in the last 25 years. The furthest from home that I ever ran out of gas was about 2 miles. Three of those times I ran out of gas on my way to the gas station.

The last few days I have needed to put gas in my truck. But I just hadn't gotten around to stopping by the gas station. Unknown to me, my dear wife was driving around with her van in the same condition.

Last night my wife topped all my experiences with running out of gas. She ran out of gas in our garage.

She came home last night and just knew she was low on gas. But she got home and parked in the garage without incident. This morning she and my son were leaving to take Destruction to Cub Scout camp. The van would not start. After a couple tries my dear wife gave up and took my truck. That is when she discovered that my truck was running on fumes. Fortunately it had enough gas in it to get her to the fairgrounds and then the gas station.

Later in the morning when I finally dragged my lazy butt out of bed she told me that the van was not working. It was morning and I was tired but I none the less resisted the urge to shoot the van to take it out of its misery. So after sitting around for a little while hoping the problem would go away on its own I finally went out and took a look at the van.

I assumed that the problem was probably a bad battery. Here in the desert, if your car won't start, a heat damaged battery is the most common culprit. But the van turned over easily and quickly. My second fear was that the timing belt was broken. So I did what any guy would do. I opened the hood and stood there looking at the engine waiting for it to tell me what was wrong. After several minutes of poking around and pretending that I knew what I was doing no neon signs appeared to tell me what was wrong I gave up and shut the hood.

At this point my dear wife mentioned that she had been low on gas for a couple days. I figured that it probably wasn't a lack of gas since the van had worked just fine getting into the garage. But since I was out of ideas I decided it wouldn't hurt to try adding gasoline. Since I needed a new gas can and gas for the lawn mower I took my newly fueled truck to the store and picked up a new gas can and a funnel. Then I put three gallons of gas in my new can and headed home.

My dear wife operated the brakes in the car so I could push it farther into the garage so I could get to the gas cap. Then I poured about two thirds of my gas into the car.

Then I had my dear wife give it a try. After two pumps on the accelerator to prime the fuel pump and a couple tries the old van started up.

Amazing. I have never known anyone before who ran out of gas with the car sitting in the garage.

My dear wife is a little embarrassed, mostly because I keep teasing her about it. But I pointed out that this was a cheap problem to fix. Any of my other fears would have been much more expensive.

So until my children start driving I have to award my dear wife the championship running out of gas situation in our family.

Easter Sunday

Our Easter Sunday started around 5 AM this morning. Sunrise services, which is our family custom, starts early, so we have to start early. We arrived at Church to find most of the chairs for the service taken. So we were trapped in every good Lutheran’s worst nightmare. We had to sit in the front row.

About half way through the service the sun came up. Pastor was really involved in his sermon and almost missed the sunrise. So he paused his sermon and we all moved over the parking lot where we could watch the sun rise over Home Depot. OK, we were actually there to watch the sun rise. Home Depot just happens to be in our line of sight for the sunrise.

After services we attended the Easter Morning breakfast which is put on by the high school youth group. As we entered the fellowship hall I stopped to pay for our breakfast. The youth group was selling tickets for the breakfast for $5 each. A young man who is a classmate of my oldest daughter was manning the cash box. I don’t know who in the organization decided to let this kid handle the money. But the next 30 seconds were one of the most eye opening experiences of my life. I told the kid there were five of us for breakfast. He paused with a confused look on his face for a moment, then he briefly looked at his hands. Finally he grabbed his cell phone, called up the calculator and quickly multiplied five times five. Then he looked up with a triumphant look on his face and told me “25 dollars please.”

While trying to wrap my brain around the fact that this high school freshman whose mother is a public school teacher was incapable of multiplying five times five without a calculator I opened my wallet and discovered that I only had two 20s. This caused a moment of dread, because I assumed that if the kid couldn’t multiply five times five he certainly would not be able to accurately subtract 25 from 40. But in the interest of science a bravely handed him the two twenty dollar bills.

This time the look of confusion on his face disappeared quicker than it did with the multiplication problem. I assume because he remember that he had his trusty calculator ready. So he punched in a few numbers, dropped my cash into the box, briefly thumbed through the small pile of currency in the box then with a triumphant grin on his face proudly handed me my $5 change.

I was going to correct him, but I it suddenly occurred to me that in the past when they just asked for a donation without specifying a value I usually dropped $40 in the basket. So this way I was at least $5 ahead.

After I got to our table and told my family what had happened, my 10 year old twins were able to immediately figure out, in their heads, that he owed me $15 in change not $5. Finally my oldest daughter figured out why he probably only gave me $5. She figured that since he probably added the two twenties together in his head and then did the subtraction on the calculator he probably added twenty and twenty and got thirty.

I know this kid isn’t indicative of all public school kids, but watching him struggle with the simplest of math problems gave me just one more reason to be glad we are sending our kids to private school for grades K-8.

After breakfast we returned home and found Easter eggs scattered all over our back yard. We were very relieved to discover that unlike last year, this year we didn’t have a couple ravens gorging themselves on our Easter eggs.

After our kids searched high and low for Easter eggs we relaxed for a while. Most of the family napped while I watched Masters Golf coverage and mixed up a couple dozen deviled eggs to take to dinner.

About 1:30 PM we went out to my Dear Wife’s parent’s house for dinner. We visited for a while and then had ham, potato salad, cranberry waldorf salad and veggies for dinner.

We cut out visit short because the family wanted to get home before 5 PM to watch the Discovery Channel special Planet Earth in HD.

All in all it was a good day. But then I don’t recollect every having a bad Easter Day.

Bomb Threat

There was a bomb threat at Burroughs High School yesterday afternoon. My daughter was sent home with around 1700 of her classmates around 11 AM yesterday.

Boy things sure have changed since I was in high school. We only had one bomb threat during the three years I went to high school. They evacuated the school to a practice football field across the street where we all hung out while the building was searched. They did not release us until the school day ended three hours later. BHS was at least smart enough to send these kids home.

Which brings us to a communication problem that we discovered in our home. My daughter has a cell phone. Stuff like this was exactly why we let her have one. However she is apparently not willing to talk on it. She will make calls, but won't talk. She apparently learned this from her mother. But she is not the only one with a problem, She won't talk on the phone and I won't answer one.

I was home for lunch yesterday. I have a habit of not answering the phone while I am home for lunch. I don't have a lot of time and I usually use it to just de-stress for a few minutes. In the past when I answered the phone I would spend my entire lunch hour telling telemarketers that I'm not interested in buying thier crap. So I let the machine pick up the phone while I'm home during lunch.

Yesterday while trying to enjoy a quiet few minutes the phone just rang off the wall. I had 5 calls in about 20 minutes. All five of them hung up as soon as the machine picked up. So I assumed that they were not important calls. As it turns out, two of them were my daughter and three were my wife who was in a panic because she had learned from someone at work that the school was being shut down and she wasn't able to get a hold of our daughter and didn't know where she was.

My daughter in the mean time had called the house, my office, my dear wife's office, our house again and finally gave up and called her grandmother to come pick her up.

I have since explained that if she had simply started talking when the machine picked up her first call I would have picked up the phone, we could have talked and I would have come picked her up.

In the end, everything turned out well thanks to Grandma. My dear wife spent the afternoon in a panic and having a meltdown worrying about her baby. I got a pretty good laugh out of the whole thing. Not that I think that bomb threats are funny. I just found our families inability to communicate in spite of two cell phones, and three POTS lines between our home and work locations rather amusing.

I am worried about my dear wife though. Since she missed one important call yesterday while she was in the bathroom I'm afraid she might not go to the bathroom at all today. Either that, or she will end up injuring someone when they trip over the wire in the hallway when she drags her phone in there with her.

Mardi Gras

Since my dear wife's family are Cajuns, unlike most of our friends we try to celebrate Mardi Gras in our house. Our Mardi Gras celebrations are pretty simple, and family oriented. If we can get it in time we order King Cake for breakfast and we eat some sort of Cajun food for dinner followed by left over King Cake for dessert. My dear wife and children will round up some colorful Mardi Gras beads to wear to work and school.

Our King Cake didn't arrive until this afternoon, so we had it for dessert and will have some for breakfast tomorrow. My dear wife used to make her own King Cake, but then a few years ago we discovered Haydel's Bakery in New Orleans. Since then we have ordered our annual king cake from them. It is simplier for us, and the cake is delicious.

In the past our king cake arrived containing a samplier of some Cajun coffee (with chickory) which my dear wife just loves and the center of each cake has a small porcelain doll or figurine in it. This year our porcelain figurine was a FEMA trailer.

The little card that came with our very own FEMA trailer had this to say:

On Aug. 29, 2005, Louisiana faced the deadliest and costliest disaster in U.S. History. Despite life-changing challenges and hardships of Hurricane Katrina our people did not surrender. We dared to celebrate Mardi Gras 2006. For a moment, we escaped rebuilding reality. Mardi Gras is satire, so this edition commemorates the resilency of our human spirit to make merry, always.

In the past I have been critical of many residents and all the politicians in New Orleans and thier handling of Katrina. But it is nice to see a company who can memorialize their hardships in such a humorous manner. We will continue to order our King Cakes from Haydel's and I'm thinking we ought to find a couple more reasons to have King Cake throught the year instead of just during Mardi Gras.

Noise and Destruction Turn Ten

Our groundhogs turned 10 today. Contrary to Phil from Pennsylvania, our ground hogs saw their shadow this morning. While Pennsylvania may be in for an early spring we're counting on 6 more weeks of winter. But we're not counting too high. This is the desert. I'm already figuring I'll have to put up my winter hat in a couple weeks.

The twins rolled out of bed this morning around 6 AM. My dear wife claimed she was being kind because on their actual birth day they woke her up around 4 AM. She wanted to do the same to them, but didn't want to have to deal cranky kids so she let them sleep. I actually got to see them a couple times at school today. I went over to the school around 9:30 this morning to take a whole school picture. They both ran over and gave me hugs while all the kids were assembling for the picture. I went back to the school at 1 PM. They were having a staff against the middle school volleyball game. I went over early to set up the nets for them. Several of the teachers were begging me to play on the staff team but I kept begging off. I made jokes about how I had trained those girls so I didn't want to be on the other side of the net against them, I didn't want to get hurt. Everyone laughed and just let me spend the time taking pictures and video. A couple times a couple of the boys tried to talk me into playing on their team if they challenged to girls to a game. Again I made excuses not to play. It's not like I didn't want to play, I love spending time on the court with my girls. But I refuse to spend time on the court playing against them in anything other than a practice match or scrimmage. Any match where winning or bragging rights are at stake I'm not going to compete against my players. I work very hard to make sure they know that they can depend on me to always be on their side. I'm not going to risk that for the sake of a couple volleyball games. I did finally give in to a request late in the hour but was saved by the clock. Just before the hour ended the sixth grade girls were going to play the winner of a game between the 7th and 8th grade. Two of my 6th grade players were pleading with me to come coach them in their match. I was going to refuse again until they both grabbed my hands and started pulling on my arms and telling me "Coach, we need you." I would have had to be a totally cold hearted bastard to say no to them then. So I agreed to coach them in one game. Unfortunately time ran out and the school day ended before their match started.

The volleyball games were a blast. I never get to hear the kids from this school really let go and get rowdy. The entire middle school was cheering on the middle school players. The entire gradeschool was cheering for the teachers. It was very loud. Now if we could only get that kind of support for our regular sporting events.

When I got home from work the twins were visiting with my dear wife's sister and her husband who had driven down from San Francisco for their birthday. We all packed up and headed over to Sizzler for dinner. My dear wife and I don't care much for Sizzler but the twins love it. Since it was their birthday we went out to eat where they wanted to.

After dinner it was back home where we watched the kids open their birthday presents and then we all watched the movie Ice Age the Meltdown while waiting for our dinner to settle enough that we could eat cake and ice cream.

We are going to let them have a birthday party with some friend and classmates their own age next weekend. This weekend, with a school fundraiser tomorrow and superbowl on Sunday was just going to be too busy. Besides my Dad will still be here next weekend so he can help us ride heard on all the extra kids.