White Lightning Axiom: Redux

So, I'm trying to train myself to wake up earlier in the day. You know, so I can shift my schedule a bit so that by the time the Tyrants enter 1st grade, I'll be prepared to pick them up at 1500 hours. If you work backwards ... I'll have to leave work by 1430 to get to their school in time ... which means I'll have to start working at 0630 ... have to leave home by 0600. Yep, should be fun. In other [work] news, the new 'Sprint' is moving along. Within a few hours of starting, we found that the release had failed and we need to have a new build done. One day blown, reset, restart, ipl. I'm really hoping that there will be no other surprises so I can wrap this up quickly and move on to more ... pressing matters.

Environment: It's getting warmer here. A little rain, some sunshine ... yes. Spring IS here. I'm even floating the idea of mowing the lawn on Friday ... mostly to just pick up all the surplus leaves and twigs. There are a few tufts of grass poking up where it survived the onslaught from the Cybernetic Hounds. I'm getting that peculiar itch to do lawn work. Curiouser and Curiouser.

Finally, I'll bring in the deus ex machina to wrap up all this disjointed babbling and red herrings. Last night at swimming Attila leapt from the side of the pool with the expectation of me intercepting her trajectory and facilitating a negative acceleration before her mass/velocity energy struck the liquid inhabiter. Being taken by surprise, I wrenched that durned muscle in my neck (the one daintily attached to the skull and collarbone). TSD practice ensured that I would aggravate it mightily. It is and I'm a bit dismayed at my own lack of cognition about the path I was waltzing down. I would have, could have, should have ... you know.

Oh, and then there is this: Islam vs Catholicism. Don't mess with the XVI.

Technorati Tags:Injury | Swimming | Karate | Children | Spring

Labels: Children, Injury, Karate, Spring, Swimming

Well, the last few days have been ... gone in a trice. Perhaps it's the TSD (taking a tip from Charlie on the PA Turnpike here) that is shortening my days and giving me the prepotency to ignore the less glamorous aspects of my engagement with reality. Work issues, although oppressive and unending (I am now on phone support duty for the weekend) seem to hold less sway over me. Perhaps it was my unparalleled planning (read: luck) that I mowed the pastoral expanse AND the back 50 last night before taking the kids to TSD practice. You see, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights over the last few hours. That would mean the spring growth would be nearly impossible to hack down to size next weekend and I would be slaving away on the lawn for HOURS instead of concentrating on the garden or flower beds. I could only assume that the genetically altered inhabitants of the blighted jungle would try to usurp the Haupertonian empire and conduct a putsch against me ... probably aided by the Twin Tyrants of Turpitude. Nope, the lawn is mowed so I need not dither with that nonsense. All the Mountains of Mastodon Manure have been leveled so the Weekend Doggie Dip Date has been obviated. Since I'm on duty, I'll not see much of the Ever Tolerant Mrs or the Tyrants. All the better to do lawn work till the inevitable signal flare from the Titanic is sent up. I'll be certainly quite circumspect when that happens.

Going back to the TSD class. Over the last few days, I'm fairly certain that I have punished every sweat gland on my body to a point where they have just about given up hope of ever being the same again. Nothing like a 500% turnover of body fluids. Part of this has to do with the intense scrutiny of my forms for the upcoming test in a few weeks. Yep, the Tyrants are going to attempt their Yellow Belt and I'm shooting for the Green. At that point, I'll start on my staff forms (Korean:bong) and I'll be eligible to be buffeted about the head and shoulders in sparring. Of course, not that I've managed to crack the code of higher kicks (rotate your back foot instead of twisting your knee-cap off, dummy), I'll have a slim chance of dishing out at least a tenth of what I graciously accept (thank you sir, may I have another!) My limbs are still quite stubbornly disobedient in many cases. I just cannot seem to get the precision down and that is more damaging to my unwitting partners. More than once I've given a hearty, swift kick to what I was envisioning as the Solar Plexus only to have the foot firmly contact the 'man junk'. The target is rarely amused. I've gotten two nicknames out of this ... one is the 'Steel Crane' for my jerky, robotic formality in which I grind through my forms. The other, is "Uggghhhhhh!". Well, that's what they usually call me when I'm asking the prone figure grasping their groin after I've walloped them in the twig and berries if they are OK. Yeah, I'm sensitive like that.

Technorati Tags:Karate | Children | Plumbing | Lawn Mowing

Labels: Karate, Lawn, Spring, Weather

It's already Tuesday and I'm still trying to scribble about the weekend. I'm quite late to the dance here ... all that is left is the cleanup. Well now, I suppose I should grab the mop and get started. It all started with a fantastic migraine on Saturday morning. That little bastard pretty much wiped out half my sunlight hours. I'm not sure what triggered it, but it never bodes well when something like that crashes into your day like a tsunami of mind-bending pain. After 1300 hours, the vision returned along with my ability to stand erect without fear of loosing the phantom meals I had consumed in the 'dark times'. So, to stick my rigor mortis stiffened finger of spite into the eye of the universe, I crawled out of bed and up the ladder onto the roof of the Manor to clean out the gutters. By that time, the tar shingles were on fire and I was dancing about like a frantic tick on a match-head. It was a short task since I had installed gutter shields the previous fall, but some had come loose due to the elements and those damn squirrels. Destructive little varmints, they really did a job on my tulip bulbs too. All the bird feeders in the neighborhood keep them fat and happy so trying to get rid of them is a loosing battle. I used to live-trap them and them 'escort' them out of the area. More just moved in to live off the fat of the land.

Later on, the Mrs returns home from her weekend hunting trip at the various grocery stores around our territories. The Tumultuous Tyrants of Turpitude were happy to see their favorite target up and moving as well. Pummeling a prone lump of moaning flesh is not quite the challenge they are used to. Within minutes, the 7 billion cubic feet of triple ground hardwood mulch I ordered arrived and the mile-long drive was covered with an avalanche of the musky smelling material. That was the cue to start cleaning out the flower, herb and garden beds so that I could start with that unending task. I did get a bit of the leftover wood moved to the back-50 before the mulch arrived so I did have one bit of good luck.

While the ever helpful Mrs assisted me in denuding the flower beds, the Tyrants played in the sand-pit and demanded to be pushed on the swings every 15 seconds or so. After an extended lesson in 'please' and other niceties (lost on them was the understanding of this, just the mechanics were retained), I turned my attention to the Agricultural Sector. It was nicely tilled so I set to the task of getting the cucumber mounds pulled together and the seeds planted within. The Mrs disappeared inside with the twins and dinner was started. I was left to myself to shuttle tools and such back into the garage before the sun went down and the inevitable temperature drop freezes everything solid. Not quite the success story for Saturday as I would have hoped.

Sunday, however, was a different story. I still managed to wake with an inordinate amount of pain in my thick noggin, but I shook it off and we headed out to the local Home Depot Temple. The Mrs had it right when she insisted we take the POS SuperSaturn. She knew that the limited cargo space would keep me from draining the central bank of all funds. So, we just buy pansies, daffodils, snap dragons, wax begonia and 5 bags of top soil. After stopping at the local Produce Junction for our 2 gross tons of farm product, we made the command decision to have our lunch in downtown Hatboro. If you are not from the area, imagine Mayberry, without all the politeness and snappy dressers.

After frittering away half of yet another weekend day away, the clan raced home as fast as the fission powered fuel cells in the POS SS could take us. Zipped up the Mile-Long-Drive and unloaded the booty. For the rest of the day, we spent our time planting peas, beans, romaine lettuce, spinach, nappa lettuce, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, pumpkin, tomatoes and such. The Mrs, being as helpful as she could with her allergies, purged the herb boxes of nonessential matter allowing the chives, sage, thyme and oregano to get some precious sunlight provided warmth while I plant parsley, rosemary, french tarragon, basil and lemon grass. All the while, the Tyrants play in sandbox ... persistently requesting 'higher' pushes on the swing. The rest of the week ... well, that's just plain frustration in a bottle

Technorati Tags:Garden | Spring | Weekend | Children

Labels: Family, Gardening, Spring, Weekend

Let's make this one quick, shall we? As the demons of unfinished tasks nip at my rear as I futilely flee, I take time to throw an additional albatross or two about my strained neck. I got little done at work yesterday, and I can not claim any growth in technical experience or basic fundamental understanding of the underlying architecture. Ghaaa, I detest the first few steps in a learning curve, it's so difficult to disabuse yourself of the belief that previous paradigms or methodologies are still valid. So much time spent in the 'design', so little time left for reveling in your success. But I kvetch too much, no? I have a job that many would sell their soul for and the opportunities that come with it.

As I mentioned above, the albatross I just scooped up was about 7 yards of triple ground hardwood mulch that I'll be putting on the flower beds this weekend. Provided they manage to deliver it Saturday morning. If not, I'll spend my time pulling weeds and collecting last years dead leaves. I'm not expecting to have to mow since I scalped the lawn when I mowed last weekend. It looked awful, but I wanted to pull up all the detritus that managed to get pounded into the turf. The fertilizer/crab-grass protection and grub control that I laid down should work well too. After the NorEaster flooded the great pastoral plains in the front of the Manor, the marshy expanse certainly had enough moisture and growth-hormones to send up a massive Tropical rainforest. I'll pop the mower deck up a notch next weekend and reap what I have sewn. The clippings go right into the garden to keep the genetically modified, highly aggressive weeds at bay. I'll be putting in the drip irrigation system this year so it'll be that much harder for the Triffids to run rampant over the Agricultural Sector.

And gasoline ... I need to put another 10 gallons in the POS Super Saturn. It's at $2.76USD at the local station. Stupid ethanol blend switchover.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Gardening | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Gardening, Spring