I'm no tree hugger...

I've got something to share, and need to make a blog post, so this is it.  The thing I want to share is at the end...

The last couple of times I have been to the store, I have been asked if I want my stuff in bags.  (Things like big packages of diapers, boxes of Capri Sun, that sort of thing.)  I always say yes, and I always want plastic.  The bagger was a little annoyed at the diapers, and today the bagger was mostly just amused, I bought $60 in drinks.  (Pop, Capri Sun, Gatorade.  It was all on sale, and it is hot here.)  Why do I always want my stuff in bags?  Because we use the bags as garbage bags at home.  The garbage doesn't pile up, and is just the right size for Kate, Mary, or Emma to carry out to the can.

We have a recycle can, they come every other week to pick it up.  We easily could fill the can every week if they came that often.  We started getting the recycle can when our garbage can started filling every week.  It cost as much for a second can is it did for a recycle can so we tried it out.  So far so good. 

That's about as environmentally friendly as I get.  It doesn't bother me that I drive a car around.  I am not worried about my carbon footprint.  (Here it is.)  I once buried 150 pounds of burnt spaghetti in the middle of a forest.  And not very deep.  I am sure at some point a bear and some raccoons came across it and either had a feast, made a mess, or at the very least said "What in the world is this?"  I never went back to check on it after.  I really should have.

Game time

Catan: The card game



I won, beating Tara.  (Blue deck.)  The score was 12 to 11.  Tara was "cheating" by trading in mixed sets of resources.  (She claims it was a lack of knowledge of the rules.)  It had been a while since we had played this, it is really nice to be able to play the game on a table that is actually long enough to keep all the cards on...

5 Things

When we get to the point of not being able to get the girls to pick things in house, I sometimes have them go pick up 5 things and show them to me.  I don't make any big/small/significance assignments, I just have them bring me 5 things, then have them put them away.  Tara had a treat box that the girls can pick out of from time to time.  The treat box has things like comic books, little kid books, stickers, workbooks, stickers, pencils, sometimes candy, just little stuff for them to pick.  I usually tie performance with "5 things" to getting to pick out of the box.  This seems to be a fairly motivating thing for at least Kate and Mary, who try to outdo each other.  (Sometimes just the person in the lead at the end gets to pick out, sometimes those who do a good job get to pick out.  This keeps them on their toes, although it also gets Mary to try to keep bargaining to not be in the lead, but still pick out.)  It seems to work better than just telling them to clean up, since they can easily find and grab 5 things at a time that need to be picked up.  The fact that I made a competition out of it takes care of the rest.  Once they get all the big stuff, they start to say that everything is done, and I have to make suggestions at that point, but they eventually start tuning their focus and finding lots of stuff to pick up.

Today we "played" 5 things, you can see the results.  This might seem insignificant, until you consider these are sets of 5, and it was stuff the girls picked up and put away, in a house that wasn't that messy...

The 4th of July is coming

Enjoy.

Spending a day with Ruth

Today Tara went on a day trip to do a quilt shop hop.  She seems to like those things.  We loaned our big van to the ward for Youth Conference, so Tara took the Minivan.  Missy and Tara's Mom were planning to go with her, and Tara was taking the girls to her sister's house, so we were short 1 car seat.  I talked Ruth into coming to work with me to solve the problem.

We took Ruth's scooter with us, I figured she could ride it around the office.  In the morning, Ruth watched parts of The Tigger Movie, and did a fair amount of coloring.  We would have watched Shrek, but when we got to the office and opened the case, the DVD was missing.  Today was a "fun walk" on campus, which I had forgotten about.  Ruth did a fair amount of walking on it (maybe a mile total), and a fair amount of being carried.  I kind of hoped to have her get tired and take a nap this afternoon.  The wellness people that sponsor the fun walk gave her a balloon, and tied it to her wrist, but she was offended by the tying to the wrist, and make me old it.  After the fun walk, Ruth watched Doogle.

At about 2:30, she got bored and started riding her scooter around the office until she could tell I was not paying attention, and made a bee line for the door.  She started going down the hall a little and saying "Dad, I am all the way down here", then running back down the hall and into the office.  This was o, I guess, but the voice got quieter and quieter to the point that I decided I needed to go look for her.  She wouldn't stay in the room by that point, and I didn't really want to shut the door to bar her in.  (She seemed to like going out to the outside doors and hang on the crash bars for the doors.)  We ended up leaving.

Tara's little trip is until sometime after 8pm, so I took Ruth to Golden Coral for dinner.  She had a large variation of foods.  The waitress gave her another balloon.  I had a fair amount of the fish fry.  The fish was just the way I like it, crisp and brown on the outside, tender and flaky on the inside.  I did not like the fried liver pieces or whatever it was.  I tried a sugar free cookie, but it was hard as cardboard, if they are all like that, I will pass.

Afterwards, we were to Toys'R'Us to wander around.  Ruth bought a Disney princesses ball, (with her allowance money) got to ride in one of those silly little kiddie rides, and we almost won a stuffed elephant from one of those claw machines.  (I only on the only grab I tried, I had the elephant, and got it 2/3 of the way to the prize door, but the thing is designed to shimmy and shake on it's way over, and the elephant dropped back onto the pile.  It fell into a position that I didn't think it was worth 50 cents to try a second time...)

We came home, Ruth did 2 puzzles, then fell asleep on the couch.  I guess I can take going to sleep at 6:30pm as a fair trade for not taking a nap...

In Training

John and Jess were gone from work (to Boston) last week, which meant if something happened, I would get the call, time off for a new baby or not. I did get some calls, but not too terribly many, nothing that was incredibly hard to fix. John and Jess brought me back a Red Sox mini bat. This was very nice of them.

I clearly need to work a little on Adam's form, he is choking up on the bat a little too much.

He does seem to have pretty good form for bunting.

Ticket to Ride

Tara, Missy, Steve, and I played Ticket to Ride tonight after the girls "went to bed." The results? Not exactly what I thought they would be when the game was winding down. I knew Steve had the longest train, but he only had 5 tickets, which I thought would be a problem for him. Tara had 70 points just from laying down track. I had a ton of tickets, but in the last 10 hands, my game started to fall apart. I picked up Portland to Nashville, which I could have finished on the next turn, but Steve blocked Portland on that turn, so I didn't get it. I kept taking tickets trying to find New York to Dallas, which I already had, but Tara had that ticket in her hand.

1st - Steve - 130-something points
2nd - Me - 110 points
3rd - Missy - 90-something points
4th - Tara - 80 points

The real truth

I think Dora the Explorer's cousin Diego is really a communist. Just thought I'd share.

Age of Empires

Last week, I lamented that our weekly Age of Empires sessions were waning. Not many of my siblings have been participating.

This morning, I woke up at 8:30. I missed the game this week. I didn't realize it was Saturday. I guess skipping work for more than a week has me a little messed up...

Goal Tournament

Once a year, in our department at work, we have a little golf tournament. One year we got a sponsor to do some prizes, but that was the exception to the thing. The outing is always a scramble, since there are varying skill levels at play.

This year, it was a 2 man scramble, Steve M and I were on a team. We ended up 2 over par, which I thought was really good. We ended up winning by 7 strokes. The accomplishment for me was that I only lost 2 golf balls and 1tee for the entire thing...

I don't plan to make a habit out of it.

Parking ticket

On Wednesday night, I parked the minivan in front of the house at the street. I didn't think about it at the time, but the minivan didn't have a parking pass in it. Thursday morning, I had a parking ticket. (We have no overnight parking without a pass.)

I went in today it see if there was anyway to talk my way out of the ticket, but I got stonewalled. Drew didn't think I was going to be able to talk my way out of it... I asked if I could apply the $10 ticket towards my parking passes for next year, the girl just laughed a little and told me to talk to the city council about that.

Oh well, my (10 dollar) mistake.

Jury Duty

I got a jury summons today for federal court. My service is from September to December of this year. I hope they know what they are getting into. I don't know that anyone would want me to serve on a jury. Maybe I am wrong. I fully plan to try to pull the following 3 cards:

• Brother who is a cop
• Brother who is in the army
• I'm a Unix Systems Engineer

I'm banking #3 is my ace in the hole. I suppose the fact that it's a federal jury means I it would be a Grand Jury, right?