July 2008 Archives

Our first tomatoes are coming in. We got a couple of cherry tomatoes (not even an inch in diameter) off the plants yesterday. They tasted good. We can’t wait for more of the cherry tomatoes, plus the bigger ones that are on the vine (but very green).

On another food note, Sean continues to prove that he will eat anything edible. (Sand at the beach notwithstanding.) Kellie and I had brussels sprouts for our veggie for dinner tonight, and we offered both Sean and Daniel a few cut up pieces. (We knew better than to offer it to Will.) Daniel ate a few, but left most of his pieces, focusing on the meatballs. Sean started with the brussels sprouts and ate most of them, eventually getting around to the meatballs.

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Will successfully completed his second overnight visit (on Saturday night), this time without either parent. That meant he got to spend more time with Ryan, and they had a blast together. He had so much fun that he didn’t want him to leave. He even wanted to go back on Sunday night to sleep at Gwama’s. (That wasn’t going to happen.)

Will has also started to ride his three-wheel scooter more now. We walked/rode down to the pool and back yesterday, which is much farther than he’s ever shown interest in riding it before. He’s still not ready for the two-wheel scooter that Aunt Dena and Uncle Dennis got him, but I see that day coming at some point. Now he wants to ride his scooter every day (even before dinner tonight). I think that’s a good thing for him.

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And if you talk to Emily any time soon, ask her about her performance in the NYC Half-Marathon yesterday. She did very well, though I’m not sure you’ll see her in the results. (Again, you’ll just have to ask her.) Congrats on an excellent time — I think it’s a few seconds better than my fastest half-marathon time.

Tim and Ryan took the train down from Cincinnati yesterday (waking up at 3:30am to get to the train) and have been staying at Faye’s house. Will and Kellie went over last night for a sleep over, and I kept the twins overnight into this morning. Will had a blast.

Ryan came back to our house this afternoon, so that he, Will and Kellie could go to our pool. He also got to see and interact with the twins. Tim eventually came back over so he could also see the twins. Everyone had a grand time, though Daniel was acting a little shy around Uncle Tim. Sean didn’t care — he wanted Uncle Tim to carry him around everywhere.

Uncle Tim and Ryan are going back to Cincinnati tomorrow, but Will has decided to go back to have another sleep over with Ryan tonight — without Mommy. Originally, he didn’t like the idea, but I think once he started having fun with Ryan, he wanted more of it. He was definitely ready to go back for the sleep over this afternoon — he kept pestering everyone for when it was time for Uncle Tim to drive him back to the Southside. So maybe Camp Fairfax may still be possible.

And tonight, Will is going to watch the Hannah Montana 3-D concert special with Ryan. They’re both looking forward to this one. Ryan even made sure that he got the 3-D glasses for Will, too. I’m sure they will have a lot of fun.

I’m stealing this title a little from a Washington Post blog from a few months ago, calling attention to the phenomenon that Randy Pausch had become. By now, I’m guessing most of you have probably heard of him, as he’s been in and out of the news. He died today, but outlived his initial prognosis by 4 months.

I wouldn’t normally bring this up, but I found some of what he had to say to hit home. I’ve actually been trying to figure out how to work this one into the blog, but once they announced that he had died today, I figured it was time to pull it together.

There’s an interesting message in all of this. I actually first heard about him in a 10-minute abridged version that he had done on Oprah (which was on YouTube once, but obviously was pulled down because of it coming from the Oprah show). Someone had sent me a link to that 10-minute version, and it really hit home. The 76-minute official, extended version (which you can view here via YouTube) can be a bit tedious at times, but it does tie together. He’s a very good speaker and lecturer, with a good sense of humor. If you have the time, try to sit through all of it. But the last 20 minutes really pulls everything together.

So, I’m just offering this up as something to watch and give some introspection time to, if you want. Carnegie Mellon had set up a special site for things that came from his Last Lecture, and he also had a “blog” of sorts for catching his thoughts and activities.

Don’t forget to tell the ones you love how much they mean to you. And no matter what life throws at you, vow to be a Tigger.

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*7/25 update: *Interestingly enough, I thought the 10-minute Oprah bit was gone. But someone else has wound up posting it, so you can always view this abbreviated version (until it gets pulled). This version gives the best highlights. I shed a few tears toward the end of this one.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do about this one, as I have 2 Hondas that meet the criteria, and I know some family members who also do. It turns out that odometers in 2002 to 2006 Hondas could be off by about 5% in measuring mileage. This is an issue if you have a warranty (regular or extended) or a lease. While it’s hard to know if you are exactly affected, a class action settlement has provided some relief to those who might be effected (or have had a repair just after the expiration of a warranty). Another site has an FAQ that spells things out a little better.

So it’s something I will be watching, although both extended warranties we got should be automatically adjusted for us. Just thought I’d pass it along for those who might be interested.

I found an amusing humor post on one of our presidential candidates recently and thought I’d share it with you: “McCain Makes Historic First Visit to Internet.” And spoofing on the weekly themes promised by both candidates, you get this sub-header: “Will Spend Five Days at Key Sites.”

The Borowitz Report also had a couple of other funny fake articles recently: “Liberal Bloggers Accuse Obama of Trying to Win Election” and “McCain Vows to Campaign in All Thirteen Colonies.” Enjoy the small break before the campaigns get really serious.

We don’t exactly know when Sweetie’s birthday really is. We adopted her 5 years ago this month, and she was about a year old (give or take) at the time. But she had already been a mommy, so we figure she was at least a year old. But being rescued from being abandoned gives us no chance of figuring out how old she is.

As Will was working through the extended family’s list of birthdays a few months ago, he figured out that Sweetie needed a birthday. He declared that July 23rd would be Sweetie’s birthday. And if you have a birthday, you have to have a cake. Daddy had the “bright” idea that Sweetie should have a tuna cake for her birthday. So, this is what you get when you give your cat a tuna cake (can of tuna mixed with a little mayo to bind it together) for her birthday.

More on the the past couple of days of activities when we have the time and ability to get the photos edited. Today, Will and I went up the Currituck Beach Lighthouse. It took some coaxing initially, but Will did go up to the observation deck on the top. We didn’t stay long, but he did look at a few things, including looking over the edge once when someone else pointed out something below (and he forgot he was being “scared”).

There are a few photos of the boys and Chip at the beach last Saturday, when the Fitzgerald’s joined us for a couple of hours at the beach. James put some nice photos of us on his blog, so you can see us in our beach attire. And he agrees with me that we were both “disappointed” with Cristobal having us rework our Sunday plans for nothing.

…Still. We’re here in the Outer Banks for a few days, and we’ve watched as Cristobal turned into a tropical storm, but never really spin up into anything greater. When we watched the weather forecast last night, it indicated we’d start to get some rain last night, then get drenched during the day today before it would blow off the coast Sunday night.

Well, there has been no rain on our part of the world yet. Bone dry. (I will admit other areas have been getting rain — just not the northern part of the Outer Banks, where we are at.) That’s allowed us to do some other stuff today, but we also held off on some things (like my morning run) because we expected some storms at some point. It’s not that we want a storm — we don’t — but they were so far off on this one.

We’ll give more info on our times at the beach later and share some images. But we’ll leave the story at now with us getting soaked at the beach on Saturday, both when we arrived and when we decided to leave. I guess it was just a small cell in each case, where you could see clear skies elsewhere. It just decided to rain on us hard.

JibJab has come out with its first video covering the 2008 national election cycle. Hopefully, you remember them from their first video about the Bush/Kerry race. Funny stuff.

Well, cute thing that it is, you can now insert yourself or others into specific parts of their videos. So, Will gets his first crack at stardom. Check it out.

OK, you had to wait until the end, but it still was fun. You can pretty much put in whatever you want — even the cat. (We may try that one soon.) It may be just a small part, but I’m sure it will lead to bigger things!

Since taking Sweetie to the vet on Friday for some tests, we now know more. Both tests for heartworm came back negative. The bronchiola pattern detected on the x-rays was real, as was the heart murmur. So, she probably has asthma/allergies instead, though there was no audible wheezing in the lungs at the time of the exam.

The heart murmur will not go away, and there is a feline cardiologist in Carytown, if we want to drop a bunch of money on an echocardiogram. I’ve had them done for myself and a couple of the kids - somehow, the cat just doesn’t quite make the cut yet. We’ll watch for lethargy to see if it is effecting her somehow. (I know — lethargy, cat, how can you tell the difference?)

So, that’s good news and bad news. Right now, it looks like we just wait. At least it looks like the weight-loss is real, as just asthma is not going to cause abnormal weight-loss (unlike heartworm). Hopefully, that will take some strain off her cardio system.

Cats can sure be expensive at times. And she hasn’t had a turn in the blog rolls, so it’s only fair that she be brought up. She’s a darling cat and has definitely mellowed with age — she hasn’t messed with the twins yet when they invade her space, unlike some incidents with Will.

Sweetie had been sneezing a lot recently, and her breathing occasionally sounded wheezy. But it would occasionally come and go. But today, while working from home, she got a really bad cough - almost like a hairball attack (which she rarely gets), but much more violent and the breathing was really wheezy and labored.

Considering the accumulation of symptoms to this point (Kellie and I were getting a little worried), I decided it was time for a visit to the vet. Got a last minute appointment, and after a bunch of x-rays and other tests in person (plus blood drawn for further testing), we wound up dropping a few bills on her. Wow. What we can say is that there is no edema or fluid in the lungs, and no true wheezing in the lungs, but she does have a grade 3 (out of 4) heart murmur and some interesting lung patterns on the x-ray. She’s a completely indoor cat (afraid to go outside or even near an open outside door), but it appears that she might have adult heartworm. Yes, even in a cat who never gets outside.

We’ll know more on Monday. For now, she’s on antibiotics and steroids. The one bit of good news that we did get is that she’s lost over 10% of her weight in the last year (from 11.25 pounds to 10 pounds). She’s always been a bit soft and pudgy, and now she’s a little less. But I don’t think we’ll ever get her back to the thinness she had when we first adoped her (the picture to the left) back in 2003.

You’ll get that at the end of the post. But first a couple of other news items that caught my attention recently. First, let’s raise a toast to beer as the savior of civilization. George Will diverts his focus to a brief summary of the necessity of beer to allow early urbanization of humans. It brings up some interesting ideas about genetic advantages that might have resulted from urbanized humans versus those that remained in hunter-gatherer situations.

If you are thinking about traveling to Bermuda during hurricane season, some hotels there have intriguing policies on refunds if Bermuda were to get threatened or actually affected by a hurricane. It’s not for every property, but it looks like someone has thought of an interesting way to try to get people past their fears of a storm causing them to lose money on a trip.

Then there is the scourge of lawyers being necessary for any little concern, it seems. Some kids scraped together a wiffle ball field that mirrors Fenway Park, but not everyone appreciates their effort. I’m not sure this is a clear-cut situation for those who made the ball field, but I definitely don’t have much sympathy for the homeowners, especially the last one who is quoted.

And if you’ve made it this far, here is a redneck seafood dinner. Maybe this is one Will would like.

And no alcohol was involved. Just the family jamming out to Huey Lewis and the News on the 4th of July. You say, what?

Well, after dinner, but before heading outside for our neighborhood fireworks shoot-off (legal stuff only), we had on the Capitol Fourth celebration. Huey Lewis and the News came on for their three-song set, and the twins (Sean first) just started getting into the music. Luckily, cameras were nearby, and you get to see the subsequent display of dancing “talent.”

We’ll start you off with a few pictures from the day, and of the twins marching to music with their flags, but then the real fun starts. And try to hang on for the full 4+ minutes. The finale is a riot.

Or maybe it’s just me that thought this was a classic.

Just a couple of quick notes, as the video of stuff from the 4th of July is going to take longer than I have to post today. But to give you a taste of what you might see, please check out Sean getting down to the Chicken Dance and the Itsy-Bitsy-Spider at a party at his daycare on July 3rd.

As for post-Independence Day events, Kellie and the kids joined me and my parents (who were down for the weekend) at the 30th annual Hanover Tomato Festival. Hanover is well-known for its tomatoes (okay, at least in these parts) and celebrates the season when they are available.

My real reason for posting actually has to do with politics. One thing that you get at the Tomato Festival is various levels of politicking going on, particularly with signs sprouting along the side of the road, as well as patrons who allow campaign volunteers to get them to wear candidate-supporting stickers. Hanover County is strongly Republican-leaning (see the 2006 election results, where the George Allen took 67% of the vote, despite losing the Senate election).

What I found most interesting is that the Republican volunteers were trying to interest attendees in both John McCain and Jim Gilmore (Republican Senate candidate) stickers, but there were very few I saw that had both stickers. I saw quite a few McCain stickers, but not so many Gilmore stickers. On the Democratic side, I saw an okay number of Mark Warner (Democratic Senate candidate) stickers and just a few sporting Barack Obama stickers.

And that’s just one man’s observation in a heavily Republican county at a region-wide event.