Best of...worst of

Best of New Years Eve?:   playing Cranium and Uno with the family

Worst of?:  that Cranium game can be really unfair when cards like this come up!

damned geography genius!

Iphone....

With all of the flying I've been doing, it had slowly become apparent to me that it was damned annoying to have to carry around my ipod and my phone, when, I had given Suzanne an Iphone for her birthday and could see how cool it was etc.....

But, the Iphone couldn't work with work, so, that was a problem.  So, I started looking around at the newer Blackberry's, the Bold, and the Storm.  And those would have been okay too, but, they wouldn't have sync'd up with Itunes very well, and that would have been annoying given how many podcasts I listen to now.

In December, work announced that they had reconfigured/updated their systems to work with the Iphone....and that was it, I was off to upgrade to the Iphone.

It's the best thing.......ever.

I never knew how many apps there were for it; that's been the thing I've learned since I've had the phone that's been the neatest.  There's an app that allows you to track live sports scores on the internet; it's pretty cool.  There's games games games; the variety is endless (and the boys love this feature...we're at the restaurant, and they clamor for the phones.  The ipod features are great....just sync'ing up with my podcasts and my slow but steady march to video podcasts.  We can Tivo stuff and convert it over to be seen on the Iphone.....just figured out how to do this yesterday in fact and will probably start Tivoing more in the belief that I'll get a chance to watch in on the Iphone eventually.

I've been, slowly, adding album cover art to my music library...it's been a pain in the ass matching up the stuff that Itunes hasn't been finding automatically, have to open up amazon.com, find the album, and update all the info for those songs.   So that's cool now, seeing the album artwork when I never cared about it before. 

And the price, and size, of portable hard drives has come way way down.....using some Christmas gift cardage I just ordered a hard drive (the one I've had for 6 years, at least, that I've stored my music on, is full...it was 80G and cost about $350 and is about 1/2 the size of my closed laptop....I just ordered a 320G for $90 and it's about the size of my Iphone.    So, I'll be able to carry my music (and video) around now.

Eastern Poetry

Some haiku's, submitted for you approval:

Another year ends
Cleveland Browns go home go home
Yes, you suck again!

Nothing game Sunday
Tomlin plays Ben; why Mike why?
My brain hurts; Ben's too!

Congress give automakers money
Needs to bail out the Lions!
Worst team ever? Oh yes!

Best o' the Presents

Maybe not the actual 'best', but, the one each that I'm going to comment on

Kevin - Sibelius 5 Student Edition.  Music composing software....we'll see what comes of this

Christopher - Star Wars.  The big guy had a very very Star Wars-y Christmas.....but, he probably hit his cutest when he spends a lot of time looking over this book.

Matthew - Nerf Vulcan First Strike - Haven't yet loaded the batteries into this puppy....am kind of afraid too...don't know if this kind of firepower is legal!

Suzanne - Santa might be arriving late and bringing this soon, so, that would definitely jump to the top of the list. 

Scott - Suzanne, sometime during the kitchen reconstruction, went to Home Depot and took Christopher along....Christopher saw this book and insisted that this would be Dad's Christmas present (along with a Home Depot gift card).  I'm sure the look on my face was priceless....

Post-Christmas Blah

Spending Saturday morning at the Honda dealer getting the 'service' on Suzanne's Odyssey....blah.

Raining steadily and all the snow is going going gone.....blah.

Went to Selfridge yesterday......I-96 between Howell and Brighton was an ice sheet....got to watch two cars spin out and cross three lanes of traffic to end up in the ditch, one collecting another car while doing so......blah.

Enough blahs....

Boys are happily enjoying the Christmas 'goods'......Santa brought a Wii Fit for the family, trotted that out the other night.....pretty interesting.   Took the boys to Zap Zone last night for a late-Kevin-birthday outing; boys had a good time blasting their opponents into oblivion. 

Sunday's a big football day.....Dolphins (Suzanne) and Chargers (Grandma) are playing in win-and-you're-in games; Matthew ought to be in seventh heaven for those 8 hours.   Happily, the Steeler fans in the house are content with letting the JV beat up on the Browns....

Blah. 

Weekend Update - Late Edition

Friday:  Wake up to 5 inches of snow with more coming....school is closed; Christmas break comes a day early.  Boys are overjoyed by this development.  I had planned on taking the day off to try and get various parts of the house to completion anyway, so, the school closing was another potential delay...happily, the boys either played outside or were overjoyed to see the Wii hooked up again and busy doing that, so, they weren't that big of a pain. 

Friday and Saturday and Sunday:  Suzanne and I have spent a lot of time over the last week painting, and repainting, the basement.   Both colors of blue are very prone to having some white patches come through if you are too light with the roller, so, a 2nd coast was a necessity.  Spent a lot of time doing paint around the trim only to have the contractor come through with a messy caulk job that forced us to go back over those sections again.  Anyway, I think we're finally done with the painting.

looking down the stairs

 

looking from the stairs across the room

looking back towards the stairs (the couch is not long for this house....we're scouting replacements)

towards the walkout

Saturday we finally began putting together the Ikea-closet for Kevin's new room.  This wasn't the easiest of chores...the sliding doors, in particular, were a very frustrating Swedish-engineering moment.  But, the unit is up, and we've installed some drawers and baskets and such.

Also spent a lot of time trying to get the kitchen to a more complete state before the Christmas cookie party on Sunday, so, we installed the last cabinet (a set of shelves) and put the hood over the oven (that was another pain in the ass) and put handles on almost everything (we're still short handles on the cabinets over the refrigerator from the beginning of this project, but, those handles require disassemble of the cabinet, so, we haven't been in a rush to do this).

Cleaning the house before an event is always a chore....starting from the point we did, most of the basement items in the sun room, most of the kitchen stuff in the living room.....I'm in no hurry to do that again, we definitely over-committed ourselves.  But, it's all closer to being done and put away, so, that's a good thing. 

We won't talk about the junk and trash piled in the garage!

Boys had a soccer game on Saturday....they lost 2-0 and certainly had plenty of chances.  For some reason, the team didn't want to crash the net, so, while we had a lot of offensive pressure, it was usually pretty easy for the opposing goalie to scoop up the ball.  Oh well.

The aforementioned cookie party went well; the cousins all had a good time and reacted well to Wiley (who, for the most part, was pretty well behaved, and, very quickly realized that the younger cousins were a sure bet for crumbs on the floor).  Everyone seemed to have a good time, the chicken curry was great,the cookies turned out well (after a few false starts) and Suzanne and I did nothing Sunday night but relax!  

Weekend Update Delayed

Just too pooped to post.....spent a lot of time the last three days getting the basement and kitchen to a complete state for the Christmas cookie party this afternoon.

Quick Update:  Snow snow snow....soccer loss, 2-0, on Saturday.  Shelves, oven hood, and handles installed. 

Pictures and more tomorrow sometime.

Metallic Content

Kevin's ratio of metal to bone in his mouth has dropped quite a bit.  First, surprisingly, he lost a tooth last week; it's the first one to come out via natural causes in ages (I think the last eight have been removed at the dentist's office).  Then, today, the braces and expander came out.  Last Thursday we had the appointment where the orthodontist said "we're good"....and wanted us to come back in five weeks to get everything off.   Luckily (for Kevin!) someone had just canceled two appointments this week, so, today they are off and on Thursday he gets his retainer.

 

Kevin, with Daphne, watching Kevin's favorite show, "Seconds from Disaster" on the National Geographic channel.

Weekend Update

Whew!  Been a busy weekend.

Friday:  It's official; there's a teenager in the house.  Kevin had a great birthday.....  Perhaps one of the sweetest moments was the boys getting some of the cash they've been hoarding in their rooms and giving it to Kevin.....

Saturday:  Kevin 'gave up' tennis for cross-country, but, he also gave up tennis for the chance to ski every Saturday.  Community Ed offers a skiing program; you pay a membership fee, and you pay some bus charges, but, they'll take the kids every Saturday down to one of the three local ski areas.  Saturday was the first event, so, Kevin took his new birthday skis and off he went.  Had a great time, it was cold, but that's good, because today it was warmer and all of the snow would have been slush or gone....

Boys had a soccer game....we lost 4-3.  It was a really good game, and you could chart the team's progress by looking at how we've done against the team we faced Saturday...they were the first team we ever played on the big field, and we lost 10-0.  The second time we played them, we lost 4-1, and the game was tied 1-1 in the third quarter before we tired and gave up some goals.  Today, it was 4-3, and it could have gone either way.

Spent a lot of time this weekend trying to get the basement up to speed before we start putting stuff back into the basement.  Hopefully, the contractor will finish Monday...he just has some trim work and minor electrical work to do.  A lot of paint applied both Saturday and Sunday

 

 

A view from the door of Kevin's room into the room.  The walls are primarily dark blue, with the lighter blue as the highlight.  There will be a white shelf under that window when we are done

Towards the sliding door; in the 'outer' basement, the colors are reversed, dark blue is the highlight. 

The view towards Kevin's door.

Sunday:  More painting.  And then we went over to Eastwood to get the Christmas pictures done.  The main pose will appear in Christmas cards in the near future, but, we ended up purchasing two other poses....you can see them below.

We went in to the pictures knowing that we wanted specifically to take a picture with the boys in the pose above.  Because that pose was the highlight of the last pictures, 2 years ago.

Truth in blogging laws require me to point out that in the newer picture, Christopher was asked to stand on a block.  He's tall, but, he needed a little help to get his face above Matthew's head.

Another soccer game today as well....we lost 7-4 to the best team in our group....we've done surprising well against them, they have no losses and one tie (against us) and today was close for about half the game.  Matthew had two goals and Christopher finally cashed in, which was pretty nice to see. 

Watched the Steelers when we got home...the soccer game was at 5:40 pm, so, missed most of the 2nd and 3rd quarters.  Matthew was really into the game at the end, and went to great lengths to show Mom just how Santonio had both feet in the endzone and that it was going to be a touchdown (when, it probably shouldn't have been).  But, we celebrated, and all's well. 

Commercials

This was number 3 on Time's list of Top Ten ads for 2009.  I don't think I had ever seen the full version until I clicked on the video that I've embedded below.

You can see the whole list here. I'm not sure about the choice for #1, but #2 is pretty good...

Of course, they are remaking the greatest commercial of all time as well.

Visitors

I haven't done a post describing the visitors to the blog in a long time....really, it's the same stable of folk now for the most part.  Grandma and Aunt Melanie; Niceville; a few Lansing IP addresses (Aunt Christine, Kathy) every now and again.  Those are the regulars I know...you walk into a bar I guess, and the same gang is always there.

There's a fair smattering of random visits that don't last that long related to internet searches.  Been a few recently looking for 1st grade spelling tests...I think there was one for "Babenhausen elementary school"....had a run on "dangers of tubing" searches for a while that referred people to the infamous Crab Island post.  Not so many visits from far off places due to the 'next blog' button....that only happens about every 6 weeks now.

I guess the most interesting thing on the visitor front gets to the casual approach I've taken towards the blog over the last 13 months.  At first, I took great pains not to mention certain phrases....the home town, the last name, the schools, because I knew, search engines would pick those names up, and I might get visitors from the community who know us and thought that avoiding that was a good thing.  But, over time, I relaxed, or, got lazy, or whatever, and those words began to creep in (the basketball post a few posts down has the school, for example).....it's just harder to always remember to write generically.  And I may have to dump the blog at some point if the worst case happens and someone from the community gets out here, discovers it, and somehow someway it turns out to embarrass Kevin or something like that.  But, I guess the chance of that is pretty remote.

That being said, there's the regulars I know, and there's the regular, now, that I don't.  98.208.53.130.   Found the blog after doing a search on the busing cuts and saw my post to the superintendent that went nowhere, and now, not every day, but, every couple of days, there's a visit.  So, we have one fan in Okemos at least.

Welcome to our corner of the internet.  Say 'hi' if you see us at the Meijer or something!

Washington - Video

The video camera, at least for me, isn't the best way to capture a sight-seeing trip like the recent trip to Washington (in fact, in Europe, it only really came in handy on the river tour...the rest is better captured through photographs).

It's good for catching moments (I wish I had taken some video of the Schoolhouse Rock songs) and this is one of them...it's the first day, we're on the way to the Capitol, and have stopped at the Grant Memorial.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Weekend Update

Friday:  Kevin had his winter recital.  Kevin was going to do the fourth movement of the Telemann concerto that he's been working on, but, due to some miscommunication with the accompanist, he ended up doing the 2nd movement again.  I think this was a good thing, because, now I have a version of that movement on tape that isn't dreadful.

 

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Saturday:  Boys had their first soccer game in a while, won 6-0.  Both boys played well; Christopher, I thought, really had a good game and did exactly what I wanted him to do, so, that was a good thing.  Matthew, I hear, scored a goal, but, I didn't see it (I think I was too busy tying shoes...oh well).

Finally got the plumbing connected on the sink, so, that's operational.  Need to make a tweak to the hot/cold supply lines (I did it exactly how the directions said, but, Suzanne would like to push the faucet backwards for hot, not forward, so, I'll have to make the switch).  Disposal is installed...plumbing is a little bit goofy, especially the drain from the dishwasher, so, I'm going to have to look at it a bit more in the coming weeks.

Sunday:  Most of today was lost to trying to get the basement ready for baseboard and casing installation; we've been trying to get the bulk of the painting done.  Ripped out the carpet on the stairs (20 years of dirt under that!...yuck).  Been painting the doors, etc.  We got our Christmas tree last weekend; finally started putting lights and ornaments on it this weekend. 

Basketball

Well, today was Christopher's first basketball practice.  You might have thought it was the end of the world.....or close to it.

The big guy came home sick from school Monday afternoon, and spent the next 8-10 hours alternately drinking Sprite and water and puking his guts out.  So, even getting to basketball practice Tuesday night was in doubt.  But, he woke up Tuesday, exclaimed "my tummy doesn't hurt!" (he was literally writhing in pain Monday evening..) and, after spending the morning at home, went to school at around 11 am.  The last thing I told him was "I'll be getting you at Kids Club and then we'll be going to basketball.  I know you don't want to go, I know you've been complaining....let's not have any problems."

Hah.  Like that was going to work.

So, I get him, and immediately he's at it..."I don't want to go...you can't make me go....I'm not going to do it...I'm not going to do it"....and on and and on as he gets in the car...he hits me with his backpack, he pouts, he yells, he's not convinced by Kevin, who played 4 years of rec basketball and liked it, and is not swayed at all by understanding that Kevin had to try all the sports...that's the rule.  Remind Christopher that we went through this before we went to the basketball clinic he wasn't happy about it and afterwards he said he had fun....no dice.  No No No No NO!  No means NO!

Steadily goes downhill from here....Christopher gets increasingly nasty towards me on the drive there and then, we arrive.  He's still saying he's not going to do it as we walk in to the school and he barely can acknowledge the coach.  He stands, on the side of the court, and doesn't participate for 10 minutes.  He threatens to leave...I threaten him with a punishment of no TV for all of basketball season, and, that threat convinces him to stay.....I leave the gym for a while to leave him there by himself just watching and then, eventually, he goes over and begins to participate.

Let me backtrack here....the team, I see upon arriving, is a 2nd grade / 3rd grade team.  Christopher knows some of the 3rd graders from Bennett Woods, but, that's about it.  He's still the tallest kid here.

They start off doing suicides.....there's three pretty athletic third graders, they finish 1-2-3 and Christopher is 4th of the 7 that are there.  They do a dribbling drill, he does ok....they do another dribbling drill with switching hands and he does, to me, awesome, some very nice switching of hands and moving through the slalom they set up.  They do a passing and shooting drill and he scores a basket.  And practice ends, and we go home, and I call Mom...and he takes the phone and tells Mom that he scored a basket(!) and had fun.  And after the phone call ends, and the car is quiet for a moment, and we're listening to the radio, the big guy reaches over, takes my hand, and says "I'm sorry Dad"....

Flomax anyone?

For many men, Flomax, can make a difference in just one week.  That's what the commercial says at least. 

Matthew, who is slowly but surely learning to "hold it" a little bit longer each day, is utterly fascinated by this claim.  These commercials come on, and he's asking Mom and Dad if we can get these magic pills for him ("Come on Mom, they help you to hold it for 12 hours!").  Suzanne and I bust out laughing when he starts asking for the medicine for old men

Most road trips are dominated by the need to stop on Matthew's behalf.  Typically, at least once, there's an 'emergency' where he didn't give us notice and we're struggling to stop before an accident.  This latest trip, despite visiting the bathroom in Warren right before we left, we weren't even to Akron before having to pull off the road (literally, he told right as we were passing an exit, and the next one was a ways off) to find a tree with his name on it. 

Washington - Epilogue

(blog note:  This is the first post using Windows Live Writer as opposed to Blogger's online editing tool.....we'll see how it looks and whether this is an improvement or not.  Posting images with Blogger's tool is a complete pain-in-the-butt....I'm hoping using this is a lot easier.)

Forgot to mention two things that we'll always remember about the trip.

1)  The boys were really really really taken with the songs from the musical.  So much so that they were memorizing them the second night, and so much so that they would walk down the street with Kevin singing the songs.  This was cute, and nice, as any time spent singing was time that wasn't spent bickering and fighting with each other.

2)  Kevin was really really really fascinated with the Washington Metro system.  He begged (and begged, and begged, and frankly, grew to be damned annoying about this) to take alternate routes home from certain places.  He had a map of the Metro system and laid out a new line, the Gray Line.  He cried in anguish as Suzanne and I told him that the Underground and Metro in London and Paris were way more advanced and cooler than Washington's system.  I finally relented and let him go by himself once and take a different train (red) to a different train (green or yellow) to the train we started on (orange/blue) to get back to the station near the hotel.

Oh yeah, this Live Writer is way better than the Blogger tool!

Chocolate Cognac

Suzanne's Christmas Present Arrived Today!

Installed by two Eastern European gentlemen. The smell of glue and epoxy rules in the house.

from the doorway. No lights on, no flash

the picture above, and the rest of them, have the overhead light turned on

The Trip Home

Left Washington DC about 8 am Saturday morning......spent more than my share of time driving around WashDC missing the GPS turns because the traffic was too heavy or they weren't marked very well, or, because I'm an idiot, and the drive out wasn't an exception. Oh well. We made the decision to take I-68 west instead of coming up to the PA Turnpike....turned out to be a good call; I knew that way was more scenic and less crowded, Dora the GPS Explorer ended up telling us it wasn't any longer, and we ended up driving up near Fort Necessity and Braddock's Grave in Western Penn....continuing our visit of historical George Washington places (the video at the Mount Vernon visitor center about George actually shows part of this battle......should have planned to stop here in hindsight, oh well).

Made it to Grandma's and had some awesome lasagna and apple squares. The lasting highlight of the visit will be Christopher's adventures on the recliner.....he finally got the recliner deployed, and then crawled down on the floor to check underneath it, and, then, later, he has his giant pencil and is fishing under the recliner trying to get something

Dad "What are you doing?"
Cpher "Getting the $20 that's under here"
Grandma "??? There's not $20 under there!"
Cpher "Oh yes there is!"

So, Christopher is still 'fishing'.....Kevin comes over to help out, and Grandma is saying, no way, there's not $20 under there. Kevin looks under and confirms that, yes, it is money, and finally helps Christopher claim his prize....cold, hard, US Greenbacks. Twenty of them.

Christopher, earlier, had discoverd Grandma's two stuffed animals, one, Franklin, a smaller version of the big cat that was no where to be found during out stay (thus, avoiding some serious science-ing and a painful introduction of claws and teeth to Heckyl and Jeckyl's science efforts) and, more importantly, a walrus that had captured Christopher's interest and started some not very subtle discussions about how that walrus might look better in Okemos, not Ohio.

Grandma, quick to seize an opportunity to cash in on the situation(!), offered to 'sell' the aforementioned walrus for a cool $20. Christopher, with walrus in his eyes, quickly agreed, and both parties walked away happy. Joe and Mom spend some time trying to figure out which of their guests may have misplaced $20 and come to the conclusion that it had to be one friend, but, it was surprising that it was only $20, it probably should have been $50 or $100! Can only imagine the big guy's expression if he would have stumbled across those big bills!



Got home around 9 pm. Boys very happy to be home....cats very happy to be released from their imprisonment in the house....cats not very happy to have the resumption of collection for science-ing.

Washington - Part Last

Thursday:

Monument: To go up the Washington Monument you have to have timed tickets, so, Suzanne went out early (letting all of the lazy males sleep in!) and was in line at 8:30 to get the tickets....we made it over there for the approximate 10 am start. The tour is pretty simplistic, in through the ever-present metal detectors, up the elevator, look out the windows, and down you come, with a slow stop on the elevator around the 220' level to look at the blocks states, organizations, cities, and countries donated and had placed in the monument.

Christopher in front of George inside the base of the monument

Looking West from the top of the Monument

Under new occupany soon.

WWII: We proceeded to head west from the WM to continue our monument tour; stopping at the World War II Memorial. The quotes and the murals were pretty impressive; the use of the water in the fountains and in the still pool in front of the stars was pretty cool also. Sadly, despite repeated warnings, one boy couldn't keep his feet out of the water, so, the rest of the memorial walk this day was marred by a Christopher-time-out and continued sulkiness.

This tree provided an irrestible break for the boys after the trip up and down of the Washington monument.

Literally, 10 seconds after this photo, his foot hit the water and, well, Christopher got his turn at the nadir of the behavior-biorythym scale.....

Lincoln: A long walk down here, but, worth it. Christopher, at this point, still wants nothing to do with the rest of the family, and that's why he isn't in the picture below.

There was a moment where we couldn't find Matthew and Christopher; they had moved off to the side to sit and reflect on the day's events.

Vietnam, Embassies: Left the Lincoln Memorial and walked up the Vietnam Memorial....not sure how much of this the boys understood. We explained why all the names were there to Matthew and Christopher, but, I probably will ask tonight if they remember it and why the names were there. We'll see. Hutsell's split up after this; Kevin and I stepped up the pace to catch a subway to get back to the hotel to get the car, Mom and the boys took a small side trip to the Natural History museum until we got back. After we got the car and picked up everyone, we travelled up "Embassy Row" checking out the different embassies and the neighborhoods.

Turkey: Returned to the hotel for dinner and football.....had some turkey and some sides from Boston Market...had stuffing (with sausage!) Suzanne had made. Leftover chinese food? yep, had some of that. Leftover Nachos? Matthew was all over that! Strangest Thanksgiving dinner in a long time.

Nighttime: Everyone came out in the car in the evening as we did a nighttime drive by the sights.....don't know why, don't know if it was normal, but, there was quite a police presence around the Capitol, we passed at least 5 manned patrol cars as we circled around the Capitol. Headed down past the White House and the WM; drove by the Lincoln Memorial and stopped at the Jefferson Memorial. Parking was closed, but, the monument was still open and I think I enjoyed the look of the Jefferson Memorial a lot. Sadly, a boy tripping on the stairs required a return trip to the car for Dad, so, I didn't get to see the museum there, but, Kevin and Mom report that it's pretty impressive as well.

Friday:

Holocaust Memorial: The Hutsell's split up again this morning; Suzanne and the boys went back to the Natural History museum for more animal close-ups, and Kevin and I went over to the Holocaust Memorial. Kevin had watched the movie Freedom Riders recently, so, at least had some idea of what we were going to see, and spent a lot of time reading the displays and watching the films (so much so that I felt like I was rushing him through the museum....we were going to meet the otherHutsell's for lunch and I didn't want to leave Suzanne with Heckl and Jeckyl for too long). The museum was really really well done, they have a display geared for children on the first floor that's really good, and there's a tower of photographs from a shetl(sp?) that depicts life in the town in the and the people and the sad note at the bottom of the tower that the village ceased to exist in 1943. Very moving. I think I'm going to get Schnidler's List to watch with Kevin in the next week or two to reinforce the lessons learned today.

Swimming Pool: Headed back to the hotel after lunch; went to the swimming pool for the last time. The swimming pool at the hotel was a major bust....closed for 24 hours from Sunday afternoon into Monday, and then Wednesday/Thursday Matthew and Christopher are complaining of 'itching'....their skin is all red and we realize the chemicals in the pool are 'burning' them.....Friday, we take a long look at Christopher's swimming trunks....what once were kelly green and blue are some funky aqua-marine shade because they've been bleached out.

Washington - Part Two

Tuesday:


BEP: Tuesday begin with a visit to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. During 'peak' season, you have to get tickets in advance....since the Hutsell's avoid peak season anywhere like it's the plague, we just arrived, waited 10 minutes, and the tour begins. Not surprising for an assembly-line process like the BEP, but, the tour runs like a swiss watch...watch the video, head into the plant, watch the money get printed on one side, printed on another, cut, diced, sliced, etc and so on. Was closer to more money than I'll ever be again in my life.....actually, that's not true, it's not money until the Federal Reserve accepts the money into the system, but, still, something neat about watching sheet after sheet of $100 bills go buy..uh, bye.

BBS you ask? A 7.....about as good as it will ever get I guess.



White House: There's things that the federal government has done well on the touristy front here....we like that the museums are free (as opposed to the high price of tourism we encountered in Europe) and the Capitol was done well and the BEP was done very well.

But the White House? For all of the run-a-round to get in (you can't bring any type of bag on to the grounds, never mind having to arrange a time and submitting you name, birthdate, and SSN) you only get to see about 5 rooms of the building and that's it, you're done. I understand security, I understand it's a 'working' building, but, man, that's it, the center of the free world is walking through the blue room, the red room, the green room, and the dining room, and getting to stand outside three others and look in? Only thing that would have made it worse would have been being charged for it.....

BBS: 5. Still wonder how far Matthew would have made it if he would have taken off down one of those hallways. Would have been higher except for the the Matthew "I need to use the bathroom" five minutes after we had just asked and he said 'no'......and, well, the White House has no public bathrooms.

Bolt: Drove to Alexandria Tuesday night for dinner and to see 'Bolt'. The movie's very good, enjoyed by all....I think Mom gets more of a kick watching Dad enjoy the animated humor movies than from watching the movie itself. Too much Looney Tunes I guess....

Wednesday:

Mount Vernon: At the start of the trip, we had planned on Wednesday being the go-to-Williamsburg-for-the-day day....but, upon reflection of the drive (3 hours with no traffic) and the prediction for traffic (horrible), we decided to save Williamsburg and points south for another trip. So, we moved up our schedule and went out to Mount Vernon. The land and buildings are all owned by the "Mount Vernon Ladies Association", and, if they deserve all of the credit and the feds none, fine, but, the whole complex and the center and the museum are really well done.

BBS: 3 Back to the Monday's issues; Matthew and Christopher playing hide-and-go-irritate your parents by fighting with each other on the guided part of the tour, Kevin with teenage angst I guess.

One of the very nice stained glass windows in the visitors center.

The mansion from the Potomac side.

Mansion from the front. Bowling Green directly in front of the mansion.

Dead President

Washington: Oh yeah, I should mention that well, anybody would have some reservations about coming to Wash DC....and I'm sure that there are parts that I wouldn't want to be in after dark (or even during the day) in a million years. But....I've been pleasantly surprised with what I've seen...especially with Paris and London as recent memories. The Metro has been extremely clean and pleasant, the sidewalks in the city and around the Mall have been clean and friendly, no begging, no strange people walking up.....really, two thumbs up.

Washington - Part One

First, the much-anticipated All-State results were posted tonight. Kevin is the 5th chair viola in the Middle School Orchestra. He'll report to Grand Rapids on Thursday Jan 22, 2009 and rehearse that afternoon and all-day Friday with a Saturday morning performance. Kevin's selection, and my volunteering to participate on a long range planning committee for the school district, has effectively hosed a full family vacation that week in January...perhaps Suzanne and the boys will go and leave me and Kevin to the January cold....

The trip to Washington: Went fairly well Sunday....departed Michigan a little before 8:30 am and landed at the hotel just after 6 pm. Nothing spectacular to report about the trip; I guess the most outstanding thing was that we're staying at a Residence Inn and due to our residual 'gold' status on my account from the timeshare purchase we received an upgrade from our 1 bedroom suite to a 2 bedroom suite, which, will go a long way towards making this week go easier.

Monday: Started the day with breakfast at the RI; they do a good breakfast, not the continental deal at most hotels, but, hot eggs, sausage, pancakes....the boys do well here so paying the extra money sometimes to stay at a RI is worth it.

View on our walk to the Capitol

Christopher and Dad in front of the Grant Memorial

Walked over to the Cannon House Building to the offices of our Congressman (Rogers, the 8th district in Michigan) and went on a tour of the Capitol guided by one of his staff. And that was good, but, a little weird. I wonder if we would have learned more doing the regular tour with the big group but able to have the audio tour and listening.....I wonder if we would have been able to enter the House Chambers if we weren't on the tour...our tour guide, Lauren, couldn't take us into the Senate Chambers because, she, working in a House office, didn't have access. It was nice being in a smaller group, but, Lauren hadn't done the tour in a while, and didn't have the answers to relatively easy questions at times. Oh well. We're glad we were one of the first tours from the House buildings....we walked right into the Capitol but the tours that had started later were stuck in a long long line. The BBS (Boys Behavior Scale) was a measly 4.....ok, it's the Capitol, and it's not expected to have appeal to Christopher and Matthew, but, the 4 is only because Christopher was a little angel...Matthew was a whiny terror and Kevin, strangely, wasn't nearly as interested or appreciative of where he was.

The family in as close as we'll ever get to a good, posed, picture. Notice Matthew already trying to screw things up.

A much more typical family pose.

Air and Space Museum: Made it to the ASM about lunch time and spent the rest of the afternoon here. Boys seemed to really get into all of the sights here and particularly enjoyed the section about what living in space was like. Attended the IMAX showing of fighter pilots at the Red Flag exercises at Nellis AFB, which was really awesome (Kevin enjoyed a few of the scenes that showed sky diving....Mom, later, admits that she missed this, and other parts of the movie as she snoozed...) But, very typical of their ages, it soon became more a mission to get through it as quick as possible, and Mom and the boys left about 30 minutes before Kevin and I did.

Kevin, whether enjoying the subject matter more, or responding to his parent's commentary about how he was going to get the most out of the trip after his rather poor performance at the Capitol, really took his time going through the ASM, particulary enjoying the meterology/satellites sections and the WWII aviation section. The real highlight for Kevin was the trip through the full-motion flight simulator...he was the pilot, I was the gunner, and I took great pains to tell him that upside-down rolls should be held to a minimum. We only rolled twice, but the shoulder harness only keeps your head and torso in place, my legs would end up bent over the harness on the ceiling/floor, and I'd be yelling "KEVINNNNNNN!" and he'd be laughing.
BBS: A solid 8.




Dinner: Went to the ESPNZone.....service was really really slow, and the games were ridiculously priced and expensive, but, the boys all responded that this was the best restaurant ever, so, I guess it couldn't have been that bad.

what happens when you let a boy near a camera

times two