White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Nothing. Middle of the week nothing. Worse than nothing was the perfect day that expired the morn past. Kids did what I asked them to do, they did well at piano class, did extraordinarily well at TSD and I managed to survive a sparring session with TWO second degree black-belts. Sure, they were tired and I got a rest, but I still survived with minor bruises and lacerations. Other than that, the Twins got to listen to themselves from the recording they got at the radio station tour. Four of the youngsters were in the same class room so the teacher played it for the whole class. Instant celebrity!

Technorati Tags:Piano | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, Piano

Here I sit at the piano class waiting room. Listening to the melodic plunking of little fingers over the faux ivory ... and the periodic admonishments of the instructor to my little Imp, Ghengis. He is getting into trouble again, so it's probably time for another lecture. While I stew over my parental duties, I tried to hijack a wireless signal, to no avail. Must be the higher humidity in the air. I did get a hint ... just a wiff of a bit of a signal, only to have it melt away like foie gras on a steaming slab of porterhouse steak. Mmmm, steak. But I digress. I could titillate you with mundane tales of my work day. Where I sit with the team as we try to figure out just what in the world we plan on doing in the next sprint. Ah, yes, the scent of failure is in the air. We are probably just going to work on some left-over cruft from the last sprint cycle. The last team just DUMPED it and said they were 'done'. Not so much, really. So be it.

I've been working with the kids on finishing their dinner in a timely manner. It would be much easier if I could sit with them while they eat, but time is short and I have a heap of chore to grind through before we head off each afternoon. This is a beast of my own creation and I'm going to have to be creative (or persistent) to overcome it. Speaking of persistence, this is a TSD week. I'll be in the Child and Adult classes every day except Friday when we have a tour at WRDV with the cubs. We'll do pizza after wards before heading over to the 'Dodge Ball Session', but I'll not stay for the adult class after 1900 hours as I will be doing my bi-monthly work poker cameo ... just to bolster that coworker relationship thing. Anything to make sure I'm held in the highest esteem when the axe falls on the work-force.

Finally, can SOMEONE tell me why oil prices are staying at $40/bbl but gas prices are nearly at $2/gal? Are the refineries cutting back on production? CRAP! I just looked and the price is now at $38/bbl. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Scouts | Piano | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Gas, Karate, Piano, Scouts, Swimming

Out sick yesterday, got very little done except tending the fire in the wood stove and hosting a den meeting for the cub scouts. This cold really got the best of me. My hope is that I can shake this before Saturday, when we have the TSD tests. Oh, that would suck on so many different levels. Fortunately, this is just a Pre-Test for me. I can hopefully perform to a sufficient level of competence without having to jeopardize my health. After this weekend's experiment in self destruction, I have a six month training period before the 'real-deal' blackbelt test where I get to fight the Master and his perfidiously dangerous minions. Yeah, I'm a tad intimidated.

In other, less boisterously disastrous news, the piano practice the other night went well. The Tyrants are doing so much better. It boggles the mind that they can train their little digits to tickle the ivory they way that they do. My futile attempts at teaching myself from their books has not fared quite as well. I just cannot seem to make my fingers do what I want them to do on command without a great deal of perspiration and focus. I'm a fairly good typist, but that seems to be a detriment when it comes to the c-d-e-f-g scales. Rats. And something else: gas prices. What is going on here!? Oil prices have gone down to $40/bbl but the unleaded regular is creeping up. Let me guess, the refineries are down for annual maintenance. Riiiight. I call bullshit on that!

Technorati Tags:Gas | Piano | Karate | Children | Illness

Labels: Children, Gas, Illness, Karate, Piano

Hrmmm, spent the day struggling with a SNMP issue at work only to find out that someone created the issue thinking that they were checking in a configuration file for Solaris instead of SUSE linux. Major oops, since we were only deploying this to linux hosts. Heh. That's what I'm reduced to at work these days, spotting other people's missteps.

And now on to the important stuff: the perquisite benefits of being a middle-age, middle-class dad. Grab the Tyrants and stuff them full of dinner while they bang on the piano and do their 100 pages of math and spelling homework. Quickly laing waste to the tasks at hand, we grab a couple containers of 'Little Smokey Cheese Wursts' (not bacon wrapped, sorry) and head off to the drowning pool were we simulate the storming of Normandy. The Old Ladies flee in fear as the Tyrants plow into their hastily formed defenses. It was almost funny to see the looks on their faces as they skimmed over the surface of the water like pink little patrol boats sans torpedoes. Wrap that up and skip the hot tub; it was closed due to too much sloughed flesh in the intake valves. Yetch. Quick change into the TSD clothes with a second (dry) set of swimming clothing on underneath - they each get a hard boiled egg and we hit the Karate Studio. Flash forward about an hour, we have just finished sparring so the class is over. The Ever Patient Mrs glides in the door and they all run off to Swim Team Practice for 2 hours; Genghis with his Lobster Chunks, Attila with her Mandarin Orange Slices, and both with a stick of string cheese. A few hours later, I limp out of the studio after getting rolled fairly throughly and meet up with the rest of the Haupertonian Household where a roaring fire and loyal Cybernetic Mastodons bay longingly at the beginnings of a light flurry of snow coming down. Of course, that snow is quite efficient at making those mountains of dog deposits in the back 50 look more like a pristine range of Matterhorn look-alikes than what they really are: Frozen Turd Bombs. Can you believe that (aside from the nasty cold I'm battling) this is an optimal day for me?

Technorati Tags:Illness | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Piano, Swimming, Tang So Doo