Spring break

We had some medium-sized plans for spring break.  First a few days in the Shawnee National Forest with my parents.  Then a trip up to Chicago on our way to Jackson, MI to visit the cousins.  The virus scrapped the latter plan first and eventually the former plan.  So, we stayed in Urbana, literally.

It's amazing how little one can do when one sets one's mind to it.  I spent many moments on my couch watching the rain fall.  Today was totally different; I sat on my couch watching the snow fall.

Janny and I found our previously stashed bag of bird seed.  We've been putting some in a cup hanging from a small tree.  Initially, only the cardinals were aware of it.  Now the squirrels have figured us out.  Janny chased them away periodically, but they always came back.  So we wise humans planned a trick for them.  I put a 'Hot Flavored' chip in the cup, ready to laugh uproariously as the squirrel ate it coughed up the burn [they are rather hot].  The first squirrel to the cup dropped in on the ground.  Hmmm...  Then, another squirrel picked it up.  I was already laughing so hard.  He patiently ate it up.  He walked away.  

I'm practicing bonzai with the shrubs around the house.  My goal is to have elegant cloud patterns instead of the current blocky shapes.  For now, yes, practicing.  I hope the plants will approve of the plan.

I cleaned out my cubby and parts of the garage.  My never ending minor bathroom project looks slightly better.

I managed to get some decent bike riding this week.  One of the days was actually pleasant.  2 were quite wet and miserable, and the rest were cloudy and cold.  

I watched a few recent Tour of Flanders races.  I watched the 1984 game 7 finals between Larry and Magic.  They were great, but didn't have their best games here [Dennis Johnson really carried the Celtics.  Kareem was still quite athletic!].  Perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on current stars when the games start again.  And maybe not hard on myself either.

I'll be working from home and the kids will be off school for at least the next 2 weeks.  So far we are getting along just fine.  Jill has upped the kids chores level.  I cooked dinner tonight (chili!). 

Modern bike

Some posts ago I mentioned that I bought a new bike last year and that I was going to write about it.  Here is that post.

I bought a NEW bike.  It was so new that it was from the future:  a 2020 model that was already available in 2019.

I had fun buying the bike.  I went to my favorite local bike shop, Champaign Cycle, one day last fall to check out the selection of new Trek bikes.  I took 3 test rides:  2 on a slightly too small Domane and one on a slightly too small Emonda.  The Domane felt interesting, but odd.  Neutral handling with big tires but sort of fast feeling.  The Emonda felt like any/all of my previous road race bikes (e.g. my departed Look KG 381).  I ordered a red Domane in my size, and picked it up a week later (after a business trip to Denver).

Here is how you know that you're buying a fancy bike:  it doesn't come with pedals.  I had the shop install my trusty, 15 year old Ultegra road pedals.  At home, I replace the saddle with the racier saddle that was on my old Trek previously.  Tires were changed from the stock 32 mm to my super duper fancy Compass (now Rene Herse) 35 mm tires.  A few weeks later, I replaced the -6 degree 11 cm stem with a -17 degree 13 cm stem (I still need to cut the steerer tube).  The rest was left alone.

This is my first bike with:

• disk brakes (hydraulic!)
• through axles
•  integrated bb spindle cranks
• 11 speed cassette ( I did have 10 speed at one point before dropping back to 8)
• tubeless compatible rims (I'm using tubes)
• aero shaped frame (frame tubes are HUGE compared to 531 steel tubes)

My Wild Card friends didn't recognize me on the first group ride with this (granted, I don't ride enough with them in recent years).  Instead of being on my 1982 skinny tubed steel classic, I was on a super modern looking brand new bike.  People congratulated me.  I was special, the guy with the new bike.

Mercifully, we have had a few nice weekend days this winter.  Off in the horizon you can see the forbidding Mt Block, possibly the biggest climb within 50 miles of my house.  Also observe that I moved my fat thumb away from the lens!

 This is what I see when I look down.  Clean!

Very modern, no?  The frame has some micro-suspension elements at the seat tube and headset area.  I'm not sure that I can tell how much difference they make.  I like that carbon fiber enables engineers to design features like this.  The frame is lively in a sort of stiff feeling way.  Why?  How?  I don't know, but it rides so, so well.  5 stars!  Both thumbs up.

I picked up the bike a few days before the IL Kanza gravel race last fall.  It had rained a few days before, and I wasn't ready to sully the brand new bike.  So I rode the old Trek.  Guess what?  That bike is still really great.

I placed okay in the race.  Perhaps I could have done better if I had taken off my windbreaker before the race (pretty chilly morning that warmed up quickly).  Below you can see that I got it half-way off.  I roasted very quickly and dropped off the lead group (below photo taken by Der Kaiser).

Should you buy a bike like this? 

• Yes, if you ride lots and have a good job.
• No, if you don't ride much or would rather spend your money on vacations or medical bills.

Downstream from the decision

Good and wise friend Jarrod asked me how much I have processed our decision to leave our church of 14 years.  Well, a lot, in my head.  It's still rolling around my mind now and again though.  So I haven't finished.  Writing thoughts out sometimes helps, so here goes with that.  And maybe this will help when friends ask us what happened.

At the time of our decision, the biggest driving force was our weariness of the feeling of frustration.  We saw obvious problems. We saw nothing being done.  Why?  Why? Why? Frustration developed.  And stayed.  And stayed.

2 months after our decision, the feelings have diminished.  The befuddlement remains.

Several good friends from the old church have asked me why I left.  I don't think my story for them was clarifying.  This is partly because I want to avoid speaking badly of friends and partly because I haven't/ hadn't assembled the pieces into a story.  Here is another try:  a story I wanted to experience but didn't.  I wanted a redemption story.  It could have gone like this:

After messing up relationships with staff and some congregation members, our pastor would lead us through his process of confession, forgiveness, and restoration of what could be restored.  [Instead he left.]

My friend who was under church discipline due to conflict with leaders would get together with them and fix the relationship.  [Instead leaders banned him from the church.]

Church members would talk about tough issues, why they matter, and what the church should do to ensure unity in spite of them.  [Instead discussion was actively discouraged.]

Perhaps like the pastor I left too soon?  I hope that is true.

The second reason for continuing to process is that the decision cracked a story about myself:  that I'm a stayer.  I finish things for better (marriage, raising kids, projects for customers, bike races) or worse (grad school, bike races).   But I left this, happily.

- - - - - - - - -
I've taken some pictures with my phone lately.  Someday I might learn to move my fat fingers or gloves out of the way.

a lot can happen in a decade

Today is super bowl Sunday.  Many years ago when the 49ers were regularly great, the 2 weeks between conf champs and the final passed slowly.  Whereas today, I say already?!  I also used to care a good deal if they won.

Yesterday, Wild Card Cycling teammate Ryan emailed that I was the last person to pick up this year's jersey.  So I met him and the rest of the crew at Quality.  The bigger event (which I had forgotten because I'm so detached and clueless) was a celebration of captain Karl's retirement.  Which brought out a good chunk of the crew that I rode with before Clara was born.  Dave, Luke, Greg, Martin, Karl, Art, John, and more!  

Greg recalled Jill being pregnant when we first met.  Now Clara is 10 years old and would read all day every day if we let her [today's book is Peter and the Starcatchers book 2.  Janny still lives at home also.  Yesterday we bought her birthday pinata; she needs to get to know and love it for a month before bashing it to pieces].  Dave said he hasn't ridden in the last 3 months!?!  In the old days, you were at least mediocre if you could stay on his wheel during his surges.  I'm positive that's still true today.  Larry is now 69, and he's still faster than me.  John S didn't recognize me at first due to my bald head and scraggly beard.  Luke reminisced about how we would have ridden 60+ miles in current weather (35 and cloudy), whereas it seemed like no one road yesterday.

John B's younger sister passed away from a brain tumor this week. 

So did friend Tom from [old] church.  So 2020 is off to a bittersweet start.  I'm so grateful that I had one last chance to see Tom in the fall.  A few years ago, Tom and his son joined me on a day like today to ride in the arboretum.  I took them through the woods near Windsor road, which was a really terrible idea.  Mud, mud, and overgrown trails.  They didn't ride again with me there.  Probably a wise choice by them.  Tom wanted to pass along their smallest bike that younger son had recently outgrown before he passed.  It's now cleaned and tuned up in our garage waiting for Janny to grow a few inches.

- - - - - - - - - - -
The recent event that did make time pass slowly was our church's 21 day fast.  Our choice for what that meant. Jill practiced an eating plan close to Daniel's (of lion's den fame) consisting of fruits and veggies.  I went with more of a vegetarian diet plus no desserts [and I took some breaks while I was in St Louis; didn't want to be a pain to coworker]. 

I continue to realize how much of my life and mindset is driven by my body.  I hate feeling hungry.  I quickly grow tired of eating sweet potatoes.  On the bright side, my soul is slowly emerging from some intertwined layers of apathy and frustration.  May this decade be more fulfilling than the last.

stacking the community building blocks

I received a paycheck for my new job, so it's official now.  I've been working at co-working offices for 3 weeks now (5 days in St Louis and 10 days in Champaign), so I'm an expert.  Some factoids for those not in the know:

* In Champaign, the ratio of women to men feels like 3 : 1.  In St Louis it feels closer to 1:1.  Median age in both places is probably 30.
* If you don't have a Mac laptop, why are you even there?
* The St Louis office space has touch screen driven hot drinks and loose tea freely available, including the best tea in the known world:  green dragon well.  In Champaign, I have to boil water in the provided kettle and bring my own tea from home [update:  Maghan emailed me to say that the cafe now has loose tea.  So things are looking up!].
* Meeting people in shared work spaces still feels awkward.  With so many different employers and customers, I have no sense of who is stressed and who has some time to chat.  In Champaign, I've been trying to meet one person per day.  So progress is slow, but there is progress.
* In St Louis, I took a mug from the shelf and drank cold water from the cold water dispenser.  I didn't immediately see where dirty mugs are placed, so I put it on a wire rack next to a lot of upside down mugs.  That was wrong.  I'm sorry.


- - - -

During our weekly dinners with the neighbors, a tradition is to go around the table asking each person 'what was the best part of your day?'.  We have had to ammend that question for Clara to include 'besides reading, ...'.

Janny has aced multiplication tables.  Every day at school the students take a 60 second, 25 question quiz on the times table.  Starting with 1*1 and moving towards 12s.  She and I worked hard on this, practicing written quizzes a few times per day.  Good work, Janny!

We dusted off our PS1 video game console this winter [have I mentioned the rough weather this season?  Ugh.  So many wet days with temps near 30.  Sometimes snow, sometimes rain.  Always wet. ]  We've been playing Need for Speed a driving game.  Clara and I are pretty even, albeit different styles.  I don't like to crash exotic cars so I take some turns slowly.  Clara is full-gas full-time.  I'd like to think that in the real world my strategy is better.

- - - -

I was filling up my rental car's gas tank after business trip to St Louis yesterday.  Young woman at pump next to me is talking on her phone.  Conversation [sorry for eavesdropping; she was talking pretty loudly]

    yw:  Did you hear that I got in an accident yesterday?

    other person:  ______

     yw:  Yeah, I got distracted by a text and I rear-ended this f*****g old lady.

Midwest community is pretty great, as expected.

Illegal arms dealer

[Writer's note [Jill is my official unpaid editor FYI]:  as a typical human being, I am feeling a bit nostalgic during this season of dramatic changes.  So I will write about the distant past.]

As I wrote last week, we started attending a different church last month.  This church has a very charismatic lead pastor.  His style of charisma is so reminiscent of my youth pastor.  This link gives me very mixed feelings.  I might write more about that later.  First, the story of my short-lived illegal arms dealership.

During my teenage years, I was very, very involved in my church's youth group.  We had a charismatic youth pastor that took an interest in me, and I followed many of his ways.  For example, at the time he drove the speed limit in his red 1981 T-top Corvette.  So I drove the speed limit.  You might say to this:  no big deal for you and you probably didn't drive much anyway.  To that I say:  I didn't ride bikes as a misguided teenager [nobody that I knew did except for Mark Keeler who had 2 bikes in his apartment, but I never saw him ride them.  In college, cru leader Loc Ta also had 2 road bikes, which astounded me].  To get to church and soccer and baseball games I had to drive on 880 and 680 which had speed limits of 55 mph at the time.  Only me and youth pastor (and perhaps my sister?) drove 55, which is why the speed limit is now 65 or 70 mph.  Teammates did not like following me or riding with me.  [One time I rode with a teammate in his Rambler through which one could see the road below.  That was really scary]. 

Another example, youth pastor memorized a lot of the Bible and had a system for doing so.  I copied that system and memorized a lot.  [Much of them and the system is now forgotten].

Every summer the youth group took a missions trip to Ensenada Mexico where we stayed at an orphanage and built homes/churches/etc [Gene Red always drove us in a bus that generally broke down en route].  On the way back home we went to Disneyland or Magic Mountain.  And one day we went to town (Tijuana or Ensenada) to shop.  The boys bought chiclet and fireworks (M1000s if you dared) and knives.  Youth pastor confiscated the M1000s if he found them and then used them as time to wake up alarm.  One time he blew a small hole in someone's tent. 

During elementary school, I had a friend named Matt who like me collected baseball cards.  His goal was to get every Rickey Henderson card ever made.  There were a lot!  Unlike me, he collected weapons as well.  He had Chinese stars, Rambo-style knives, butterfly knives, switchblades, and so on.  We watched some ninja movies together.  Points to you if you call tell me which movie this line is from:
    Dad (ninja) to young son: Remember, you no samurai!
IIRC the son had to become a ninja to save the town.
Anyway, Matt was very cool and his knife collection was a source of awe and fear.

I came to own a butterfly knife on a Mexico missions trip.  It's funny how the brain forgets important details such as this:  I literally can't recall how I got it.  As a terribly shy person (and quite law abiding), I'm pretty sure that I didn't buy from a shop.  So I must have bought it from a church friend.   I won't even speculate so as to not falsely accuse anyone.  In any case, the knife came from Mexico, and I had it in my room in Fremont.

After some short amount of time, I started to feel guilty about owning this 'illegal' item [we didn't have google back then, so I didn't know the law first-hand].  So I wanted to get rid of it.  A friend from youth group, Dan, bought it from me [again the details of the transaction are buried too deep to recall.  His family visited our home from time to time so I think he bought it from my house]. 

A very short while later, Dan brought the knife to school and was caught.  The principal asked how he got it.  He told me that he protected me and that his answer was 'from a kid in Mexico.'  That answer has a lot of truth to it if you think about it.  

'Whoa', I thought to myself.  My conscience (the Holy Spirit?) convinced me to get rid of the knife.  But doing so made me break the law even worse.  What???!!! [I had not yet read Catch-22].  At the time, I thought to myself, 'of course you didn't rat me out, Dan.  I obeyed my conscience.'  I was rarely a good friend in my youth. 

Recently, I've been wishing that I still had that knife.  Maybe I'll buy one some day.  Google says they are legal in IL with some caveats.  Anyone have one they want to sell me?

- - - - - - - - - - - -
I started writing this post with the intention of writing about the 2 Jeremys from youth group.  This is getting too long, so that'll have to wait

2020 is the future

Sometimes lots of time passes and nothing big happens.  2107 and 2018 feel like that in my memory.  If I could remember those years better, maybe I would tell some tall tales from them.  Or not.

2019 was a year of a different sort.  Jill's dad's health had been in a slow decline for several years and then fell off a cliff.  He passed away early in the year.  Our first Christmas without him just passed, and he was greatly missed.  No one took more joy in giving random items (sticky notes, toothpaste, lube, peg board hooks, windshield washer fluid, ...) as stocking gifts than Rick.

We made a couple of big decisions at the end of the year.  Maybe we are simply getting older and tired of dealing with nonsense?  Or maybe we were just tired and sad due to Rick's end of life struggles?  The upshot is that I have a new job that begins on Jan 6, and we attend a new church.

We're still serving in the youth group at our long-time church for now, but have started attending Stone Creek Church.

My job has been pretty good for several years.  I really enjoyed working for my customers, but getting new customers was a struggle.  During the summer a friend called me up to ask if I would be interested in joining his company.  I started to think about the things I didn't love about my job.  Voila, a new job for me.

Once those very big changes happened, a series of small changes have cascaded down on us.  We have a new car (thanks Mom and Dad!  We sold our trusty 2000 Mazda Protege for a stack of $20s).  I bought a new bike (more on that in a later post; this is still a bike blog, right?  I still have my 1982 Trek 610, but might pass it along to the right person.  Interested?).  I own a smart phone (I love texting.  Look up my # in the phone book and send me a text).  I bought a new laptop (our Toshiba died years ago.  Jill bought a chromebook to sort of replace it.  I missed having folders and files).  I grew a beard (I have a small amount of hair on the rest of my head).

My head continues to spin as a look at all these changes.  Am I no longer a luddite?  Am I in a mid-life crisis?  How much nonsense should I try to pare from my life?  So, I'm going to give blogging another shot (I hope).  Maybe I can sort thru these ideas and find some foundation in my life again.

I'm still a rebel!  Shortly after taking the above photo, I saw a sign that forbade photos.  Too late, 'the man'!  Also, Dad, note the magnolia trees growing right next to the wall, using tree supports to pin the branches.
Another tender Tennessee Christmas.  Here's to 2020, where we're now for real living in the future.

a vacation in CA

Summer vacation started with a small pop this year.  The night before our flight out to California I sprained my ankle playing softball.  I didn't think it was too bad, so I kept playing-- except that I moved from my standard outfield position to first base.  As an aside, first base is really great.  I hardly had to move the rest of the game!  And we won.

Later that night my ankle hurt bad.  I wondered if I needed an airport wheelchair.  While at the airport I eyeballed that old people greedily.  But I hobbled along.  And my ankle still bothers me 2 weeks later.

I didn't take as many pictures as I should have.  Missing from this post are images from our visit to Andy and Melanie in Napa (we had Oprah-recommended english muffins that did not disappoint.  Thanks, Oprah!), our beach trip, and several days hanging out at my sister's house.  

The biggest adventure of the vacation was visiting Big Trees state park near Bear Valley.  The trees did not disappoint.  As per usual, humanity did.  The largest tree was cut down shortly after the first Euro-Americans found the grove.  The stump remains in the ground, and some very big pieces lay beside it. 

 Before we all go 'what were you thinking???!!!???' towards those guys, I'll note that several trees in the area have fallen due to natural causes.  In fact, the signs say that much of the Sierras were covered with Giant Sequias several thousand years ago.  Those trees are long since gone.  Still, did they have to cut down the absolute biggest one???

Still, they might say to us in the after-life, 'did you have to climate change the whole planet????!!!???'  So maybe we're even.

On a perhaps related note:  we drove by the now-closed Sunol Golf course.  I was jolted by the sight of dead weeds standing in place of lush grass.  I guess googlers and facebookers don't play golf?

We camped (glamped?) overnight in Grandpa's RV.  The next day, Jill and I hiked down to the Stanislaus River to see how fast the water was flowing (very fast, and very cold!) and to see if we could find a gold nugget and retire (I'll be at work tomorrow.).

 That was an 8 mile walk with ~1000` of vert.  Ankle was pretty solid.

While at Grandpa and Grandma's house, we all played a golf-based game on their practice green,rough, sand-pit.  It was on the hottest side of the house, so evening games were common.  Some days reached 105.  But we also nearly froze to death at Half Moon Bay.  Janny and I played at the edge of the waves for about 30 minutes, and then she shivered for about 2 hours.

 Grandpa has a very cool koi pond (shown below).  Bernie has an unbelievable koi pond (not shown).  We will not be getting a koi pond (there are koi in the U of I's arboretum).

Grandpa and Grandma recently bought e-bikes that Jill and I tested out.  Very fun.  I was pleasantly surprised that they rode pretty much like normal bikes with the motor off.  Picking them up to carry them over a drainage ditch made it very clear to me that they had a motor.  Very heavy!  Note Grandma's sling in the photo below:  she was injured after crashing during a ride.  Heal soon, mom!  Also, Clara won Ticket To Ride.  Janny 'helped' her, so she was happy too.

We spent several days in Fremont, and this is one of the few pictures we took.  That's big cousin Anna, who is working this summer as a life guard!  Fremont is fancy now.  I saw a Whole Foods and a See's Candies store.  Some less fancy places remain, like Big 5 Sporting Goods.

I also partook in some silicon valley technologies for the first time:
1.  I texted [on my mom's phone]
2.  I talked to Alexa (Amazon Echo).  She played a Brett Dennen song for me.

The texting was to get details for what turned out to be a pretty sizable CBNC youth group gathering (plus their kids).  Jenn and Brian, Brian and Tracy, Eve (Anthony was ill, so couldn't come.  We did get to briefly chat later in the week), Phil, Tina, and I were all in the same place at the same time.  I don't know how this happened, and it is unlikely to happen again any time soon, but it was great.  Also at the party I met a fellow MSJ alum, who is a good friend of my best friend's brother.  Brentwood:  what a place!

Thanks to Mom, Dad, Bernie and Lisa for hosting us.  We look forward to our next visit.

post-spring break

I'm so grateful for the start of spring.  Flowers are growing in our yard and some of the smaller trees and bushes are sprouting some leaves.  I moved the figs trees from our garage to the driveway.  Evenings aren't dark until after 7p.

Winter doesn't necessarily make me sad ( I really enjoy playing in the snow and battling the elements on my bike rides to and from work).  This year the experience was more discombobulation.  I couldn't assemble a coherent story for the various pieces of this life.  Each piece was acceptable or good enough on its own, but I didn't see any bigness to it.  As a grown up with barely sufficient maturity, I continue about life despite the dizziness.  Someday, it will likely make sense again.

Parenting anecdote: this morning (Saturday), Janny came into our room at 7:15 to play and request pancakes.  Both Jill and I wanted to continue sleeping.  Every single day this past school week, I had to talk to, shake her (in the legal sense), and carry her out of bed at 7:30 to get ready for school.  She turned 6 a couple of weeks ago!

 We almost had a new adventure for spring break, but fate intervened to give us a different adventure.  We made plans to stay at a bed and breakfast along the Katy Trail in MIssouri.  We would do some short out and back rides with the kids on our tandems.  I did some measurements and some preliminary packings, determining that our trusty Protege could in fact transport 2 tandems.  I removed the forks, racks, and wheels so that only the frames would be on the car's trunk rack.

As I wrote, fate intervened so we didn't get to that adventure.  But we did visit a lake in Kentucky and took a nice hike.  On Thursday night we want to eat pizza in Cadiz.  We found pizza at 8pm in the Casey's general store (the 7/11 or Circle K of the rural midwest) and drank slushies (cherry/coke mix for Jill and Chad, cherry for Clara, and blue raspberry for Janny).  Delicious if not highbrow.  And we got to spend some good time with family.  The girls love playing with their cousins.

Clara has 2 nearly fully sprouted front teeth.  She is growing out her bangs.  She is getting so much better at reading lately -- we are so excited to see this happening.  She is slowly getting through one of the Key Finders books and reading other smaller books with ease.

I have a business trip in May to Warren, MI.  My last trip for work was probably 6 years ago ( DOE conference in a Pittsburgh exurb.  The highlight of that trip was meeting a brahman that worked in coal gas extraction (i.e., removing methane from coal deposits, initially to reduce chance of mine explosion, then (and possibly now?) a profitable business.).

I started a new group on facebook called Urbana underground.  So far, claiming the cool name is all I have done for the group.  We have 4 members.  Maybe if we had a purpose or goal, it would be attractive?

Finally, I bought another cheap, 15ish year old mountain bike.  My intention was to swap wheels with my other psuedo-mtb and sell this one.  But it's fun, so I might keep it.  Now that 26" wheeled bikes are obsolete, I'm in!  When the trend reverses (and mark my words, it will), I'll be swimming in cash.

Christmas in the new south

Happy new year everybody!

We're back in IL after spending a pleasant Christmas break with Jill's family in Nashville.  Uncle Matt's family has yet to find a new house after selling theirs just a few weeks ago, so we all stayed together at Grandpa and Grandma's house. 

(Before we left, our good friend Fereshteh stopped by for a visit.)

We all took a house hunting trip together, but didn't find 'the one'.   Interestingly to me, this adventure demonstrated a strong use case for cell phones.  The realtor gave us the address of the next house only after visiting the previous house.  Without a very detailed map (the search area was HUGE), finding the next house would have been very difficult.  However, it didn't matter because:
1.  I didn't drive (we rode with Jill's parents and the kids were with Uncle Matt)
2.  Since we were on mostly rural roads, following the realtor posed no difficulties.
But, hey, that was a real-life use case for a cell phone (besides compulsively checking social media)!  And yet, I'm still not planning to get one soon.

 Once in a great while, I feel the itch to visit an actual city.  So we braved the traffic and terrors of downtown Nashville for a day.  I did a quick search for interesting things to see and had the Belmont mansion (on the campus of Belmont U) and the Downtown Presbyterian church.  Clara didn't want to see anything, and Janny wanted to walk along the river and throw rocks into it.  So we started with the river and skipped Belmont (too far to walk from downtown).

We parked near the football stadium and walked over the  pedestrian bridge to town.  Clara was still cool on the idea of the trip until we stopped at a cafe for muffins (chocolate for Janny and blueberry for Clara).  Then Clara was happy.  Phew!  Maybe cities aren't so bad after all.

The church had an 'out to lunch' sign, so we walked around a bit more, eventually coming upon the really nice (and free!) Tennessee museum.  Clara and I played checkers (I crushed her) in the play area.  There are some really excellent paintings along with artifacts from the frontier settlers.

The Presbyterian church office worker was back at his desk and led us to the sanctuary.  The current building is the 3rd version (the first two had burned down) and was constructed around 1850 or so.  After the Union soldiers conquered Nashville, they used it as a hospital during the Civil War.  A few older photos from outside show an isolated building, whereas now it is dwarfed by the neighboring skyscrapers.

I think Enoch and Ricky won Christmas present opening because they got pocket knives.  So far only one of them has needed a band-aid.

I recently implemented 'no dessert Tuesday', which really means no dessert for anyone in the family after dinner on Tuesdays.  I am very frustrated by the kids' eating habits.  They are irritatingly picky and generally eat as little at lunch and dinner as possible so as to eat much dessert.  I'm happy to report that the kids enjoy the idea, sort of.  My theory is that living under constraints (even an arbitrary one like this) resonates with our spirits.  It feels right and is right.

a Christmas newsletter of sorts

I took too long of a break from this blog.  So I won't cover all (any?) of the important stuff since summer came and went.  

Church-league softball (and summer itself) ended months ago.  I recall writing about the team's struggles early in the season.  I'm glad to report that we rallied back, winning the semi-final game against Vineyard Blue so that we could face Vineyard Red in the final.  The final was close and hard-fought, for 2 innings.  Then their #10 batter hit a rocket that was beyond me by the time I took two steps back.  I got to it quickly and relayed a throw toward 2nd, hoping to hold him to a double.  He was already on 3rd.  Then, the rest of their team decided they would hit (and run) like that too, and we quickly lost by 10.

My softball fire was not quite quenched after summer, so I joined a friend's team for the fall season.  We had some really excellent athletes, so I could take it easy in right center field.  Fall ball is an interesting mix.  Some teams hit home run after home run (I think one guy hit 4 home runs in the double header against us, including a walk off shot in the 2nd game), others were terrible.  We won about 1/2 our games, one of which on a walk off homer by me, my first over the fence shot in some time.  Our church-league shortstop, Joe, was playing for the other team, so this story can be verified.

 Clara and Janny are in school all day now.  With 2 kids in school, it's much harder to keep tabs on all of the characters there.  Janny helps me remember [redacted's] name, because s/he was the kid that threw up in the classroom just before the end of the day.

Clara and Janny would have perfect behavior scores if not for the miscreants in their classes.  The scores are posted online, so we check on them once in a while.  At most, Clara has two red scores, and they're always because 'the whole class' (Clara excepted) was doing something wrong.  This frustrates her.  She was disappointed in the fall when we took a day off from school to visit our relatives in MI because her chance for perfect attendance for the quarter was gone.  So I bought Clara and Janny prizes for skipping school.  We'll see if that's still needed in about 10 years.

Jill continues to be so happy about having her energy back after surgery earlier this year.  She has retaken up piano learning, so my background music for writing Christmas carols.  Despite her increased energy levels, she would like a housekeeper for Christmas.  I'm trying to do a few more chores, as I'm much cheaper.

 I'm starting to lose... (insert your joke in the comments) ... my fire for minimizing our energy usage.  Our thermostat is now set to a whopping 66 degrees during the day and 60 at night.  Jill is talking me into getting a gas burner insert for our neglected fire place.  Our house has always been very humid in winters (every cold morning I took a squeegee to the windows to remove condensation), so I bought a dehumidifier this year.  It has been pulling about 3/4 of a gallon of water per day from our house, which has me a bit befuddled.  I suspect that the moisture is coming up from our crawl space.  The plastic on the ground has some holes that could be repaired, but I'm thinking that rainfall runoff is the main problem.  I don't have a good plan to solve this yet.

Work continues to be good and challenging.  Recently, I joined the ranks of Wolfram certified trainers (http://www.wolfram.com/training/instructors/), so feel free to book me for your next training session.  My photo and bio should be on that page soon.

Our church is having a rash of trouble marriages, and some of these are good friends of ours.  This is such a downer.  It's not clear to me if this is a new trend, or just something that I'm able to notice more.  We continue to pray and work on our own marriage.

A number of work colleagues are from cultures where arranged (or 'suggested') marriages are common.  Interestingly, every person that I have asked says that troubled marriages are extremely uncommon in their culture.  One lady said that around year 3 is when the husband and wife typically begin to fall in love.  More investigation required....

Still hot at night

A strong memory of my first days after moving to IL for grad school was how hot it was at night.  I'd be walking around campus town with some new friends (primarily Europeans) wondering how it could still be 80 degrees F at 10 pm.  Well, I don't have to dig deep into my memory vault to recall what that feels like.  I can just step outside.  It's 10 pm and the heat index is 100 degrees F (but a whole lot cooler than that in my modern home).

 Did you know that Janny will start kindergarten in about a month?  She graduated from preschool, and we'll miss her super teachers.  As part of the prep for school, Jill took the girls to the doctor today.  Along with the usual lecture about feeding the kids more, we learned that Janny's hearing is slightly below average (I don't think that fully explains why she says 'WHAT?  WHAT DID YOU SAY?  I DIDN"T HEAR WHAT YOU SAID!' very loudly a thousand times a day, but it might) and that Clara has a slight heart murmur that might mean nothing.  I guess that it's good to know these things???  Or maybe that's why I avoid the doctor like the plague.

Speaking of Europeans in IL, my company hosted a whole bunch of interns of such background this summer.  As part of a farewell celebration of their time in America, I led a bike ride from our house to the Sydney dairy barn.  Spain, Italy, and Ireland all represented, along with India, China, and some US citizens.  The most pleasant sounding of all the homelands was Turin, Italy (the chance to be on a snowy peak while looking over the Mediterranean sounds excellent).  But don't count out India.  I've been told of a happening tech city populated with mostly young cosmopolitans (and not too crowded either).

 This week we're hosting a couple of middle schoolers from China.  Our neighbor (below) is sort of a co-host, providing either transportation or watching the young girls while Jill drives the English learners to class.  5 people don't fit too well in the old Mazda.  But don't worry, we'll probably get a new car some time in the next 10 years (134000 miles on it now).

Finally, TCBC softball is BACK!  We've played 3 games since my last report, and we've won 3 times.

  

How can this be explained after our rough start?  As you might have guessed, the answer is Jill.  Yes, my wife Jill!  3 games ago, we were in a bind.  We had 8 players (which is technically enough to play, but having only 2 outfielders is tough).  So we looked around.  And we saw Jim's expecting wife, Matt's wife, and then, flowing down the sidewalk, 2 daughters in tow, the most lovely lady you've ever seen: Jill.  After a short negotiation with Matt's wife, Jill agreed to play.  She played catcher.  She batted 4 times, and 4 times hit the ball in fair territory on her first swing.  And, as you know, we won the game.  She didn't play in the next 2, but her indomitable spirit filled each player, including those new guys that I had never seen before but have joined our squad because at least 1/3 of the regular guys are gone every week.  

May that spirit continue on.

Oh, and we visited the local Vineyard church last Sunday.  My last visit to a Vineyard church was to the church in Anaheim (CA) as a middle schooler in the late 1980s.  At that time, there was a good bit of, um, spirit.  Apparently, that degree of spirit is much reduced, but I still really enjoyed the experience.  The aesthetics of the stage were really lovely -- a deep blue/purple in contrast with my own church's stark white.  The clergy and leaders are extremely open about spiritual struggles and encourage attenders to receive prayer both after the service and at a special healing prayer time.  With quite a few of us struggling through grief, anger, etc. this summer, this is an excellent emphasis.  

Vacation in Alabama

After missing softball playoff games the past 2 years due to family vacations, we pushed for an earlier trip this year.  Initially, we planned to head north to hopefully have slightly cooler temps, but schedules didn't quite work out.  So the plan became Alabama in June, and we were ready to face the heat and humidity.  Except that the heat and humidity mostly didn't show.

Our schedule went something like this:  eat breakfast, read a while, visit the pool, eat lunch, read, visit the pool, eat dinner, fish, read, bed.  Quite relaxing.

On the fishing front, I caught a few sun fish using a cane pole.  I'm still squeamish when it comes to hooking the worm and unhooking the fish.  Maybe when I'm older it won't be so scary.

The champion fisherperson in our family was Clara.  She caught a pretty decent sized catfish.  Thankfully, Grandpa was there to pull the hook out it's mouth.

 The pool was a bit chilly.  On most days, we had to swim around to stay warm enough.  Or jump in and out.

 Clara and especially Janny are interested in bugs now.  At home, they catch fireflies.  On vacation, the best bugs to catch were willow flies.  They come in swarms in shady areas (especially the trees near the pool), fly very slowly, and don't bite...

 And often drown in the pool.

 Clara and Janny really enjoy being in pools, but they can't swim like cousins Ricky and Enoch.  Hopefully by the end of summer, they'll make some good progress.

 This is as close to an infinity pool as I've been in.  Note the Tennessee River in the background.  I had planned to swim in the lake, just so that I wouldn't feel like such an urbanite.  But I never actually got in.

Finally, TCBC softball continues to struggle this year.  Our record is now a grim 0-5.  A possible explanation is that we've lost too many quality players in the last few years.

That may be true.  But I dare you to doubt us.  Even if nobody believes in us, we'll still believe in ourselves.  We have the heart of a champion because we are the defending champions (I have the wind breaker that says so in my closet).  We know how to win when it's all on the line.  We are TCBC!!!!!

And now I must go kill some Japanese beetles.

at home, springtime

Spring is the best.   We survived another cold, dark winter, and so did our garden.

The first project of the spring was Clara's idea:  build a mini-swing inside our tree fort.  We used some rope that had been in the garage for some time, and a short piece of wood.  Nothing fancy, but it brought many smiles.

 Jill is a gardening fiend.  We've been eating lettuce from the garden just about daily. 

 ... while I and the kids eagerly await the arrival of raspberries and blackberries.  The giant cherry tree is even holding some cherries, despite the bounty of last years crop.  Perhaps the awful smelling fish emulsion that I poured around the base helped?

Latest project around the house:  2 rain barrels.  During intense rain storms, water overtops the front gutter.  So I added this new downspout near the front door for one of the new barrels.  We'll have to wait a few more days before we see the barrels in action.  [I had a photo of the setup, but it's gone missing.  Google warned me not to use Microsoft Edge, but I did anyway.  That's because Chrome completely stopped working on this computer.  I tied re-installing twice without success.  I'll also note here that my software also doesn't always work.]

In sports news, church league softball is underway.  The senior members of the TCBC men's team, Matt A. and I, have returned for our 8th year.  Back in year 1, we had zero kids between us (though Clara was on the way).  Now we have 5.  But we're still out manning the left side of the outfield together. 

The squad has started the season off with 2 losses.  Can we pull ourselves together and make a run?  Are we getting too old?  Too complacent?  Did we lose too many players to graduation and free agency?  Or, perhaps we're saving ourselves for the post-season?  Stay tuned...

For the 3rd (4th?) year in a row, I raced the local Joker's Jaunt gravel race.  Neil crushed us all.  I was riding with Larry until I ran out of energy with about 4 miles to go.  I was riding my Boulder Bicycle, which continues to be a fantastic bicycle (and, no, Mike Kone does not sponsor me).  This year, I used Vittoria Hyper-something tires in size 700C by 35mm at about 40 psi.  They're okay.