How You Know You're in California

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A New Frontier

To all my rabid fans:

Some of you may know this already, but for those of you who have been kept in the dark, I am posting this blog, today. I’ve been unemployed since October. Not a fact that I’m terribly proud of, hence the seeming secrecy. The reason I’m coming out to admit it now is because I’m on my way to begin a new opportunity, a new job, and in many ways a new life.

The same day I lost my job, I started taking classes at Salt Lake Community College’s School of Applied Technology. That was nothing more than a coincidence. I’d been planning to start school on the 19th of October for several weeks… but the timing was still impeccable.

My “Technology?”: Professional Truck Driver. I took the 280 hour course, night classes. 5 hours per day, 5 days per week. Less time for holidays. On December 17 I received my Class A (commercial) driver license, with hazmat, tanker, and doubles-triples endorsements. I continued going to class, earning additional experience, until my 280 hours were up on Monday, January 25, 2010.

Several weeks ago I received a job offer from Werner Enterprises, and they scheduled me for Orientation starting on January 29. I’m currently sitting in the Greyhound bus terminal in Salt Lake City. It’s 5:39 PM, January 27. My bus leaves at 6:30, I have 15 minute layover/transfer in Las Vegas at 1:15 AM. I’ll arrive at the San Bernardino terminal at 6:05 AM. This is per my itinerary, though with the recent weather, anything is possible.

Tomorrow I’ll check in to the La Quinta Inn, and begin orientation on Friday. If all goes well (and let us all pray that it does), I’ll pass my physical exam and begin driving for Werner on January 31. I’ll have 6-8 weeks of training (300 driving hours – with a driver trainer), during which I’ll make peanuts, but I’ll get very necessary experience. Once I’ve completed my 300 hours, I’ll become a solo driver. At that point I’ll start making real money.

Because this blog is intended for family events, and this is a huge family experience, I’m posting it here. However, I am planning on posting my daily experiences on a different blog: The Trucker Diaries.

For the time being, I really want to express my love for my wife and my daughter. I know they know I love them, and I know that they love me. I am going to miss them terribly over the next few weeks when I cannot see them in person. I am extremely grateful to my Heavenly Father, however, for the blessings of cell phones, internet, and wi-fi. because of these wonderful inventions, I will be able to speak to my wife on a nearly-daily basis, and should be able to Skype-Video phone both her and my little girl on a relatively frequent basis.

I don’t know how fathers of old could leave their families for months and even years at a time with nothing more than the mail system to help them keep in touch. And I admire them for their fortitude, and their families for their resilience. God bless them for their sacrifices.

A New Video Craze

It's been a while since I posted any videos, so I'm going to take this opportunity to post a couple. I have lots, but they tend to be a bit long, and... well... the longer they are, the more closely related you have to be in order to thoroughly love them.

So, I'm only going to post two short ones.

First: The Pirate Triker Chick


Second: Does this make me a good father, or a bad one?

As Promised

Cordelia, like her mother, suffers from "Pose Face," which is to say, when she poses for a picture, she looks completely uncomfortable, unhappy, and insincere.  Sometimes getting her to smile naturally is a real chore.  I'll let you guys decide which of these is obvious pose-face and which is pose-face with an actual smile getting through as daddy made silly sounds.

No More Makebelieve

As is common, I'm sure, among children whose parents both wear glasses, my darling little angel-monkey loves to put on her parents' glasses, or Mr. Potato Head's glasses, or anything that looks like it might be glasses, and pretend they are hers.

As of yesterday, she no longer needs to pretend.

Several weeks ago, we had her evaluated for preschool placement, and one of the tests they did was a very rudimentary vision exam.  Whereas she did fine when using both eyes and when using only her left eye, her right eye was extremely weak.  Weak enough that the examiner couldn't say exactly what Cordy's vision in that eye was, so she simply put down 20/80 and advised us to see an optometrist.

Tammy and I happen to have a very good optometrist who also examines children, so we scheduled an appointment with him.  Two weeks ago I took my princess to see him.  He confirmed that her left eye was strong and needed scarcely any correction, if any at all.  However, he could not determine anything better than 20/200 in her right-eye.

Based on refraction and other tests he was able to do on his end, he had a good idea of what prescription she needed, but because she was tired and angry from the dilation drops he'd given her earlier, she wasn't in the mood to cooperate with the actual "look at the picture and tell us what you see" exam any more.

Yesterday, we picked up the new glasses, and she seems to like them.  Wore them all day yesterday without a complaint (until just before bed - she came to me and said, "Gasses off now?"  To which I replied, "Of course, but we have to brush our teeth and put on pajamas, now").

She wasn't happy about that.  But she agreed, eventually, and she also agreed to wear the glasses again today.

Another thing:  She is supposed to wear an eye patch over her strong eye for 2 hours each day, to help force her weak eye to work, and strengthen.  She has a cute pink eye-patch for that.  I'll try to get a picture of it and post it later.

Anyway, that's what's up for now.

Christmas 2009 - The Year of the White-Boards

Merry Christmas - belated, everybody!

Some of you spent Christmas with us.  Some of you received text messages or phone calls.  Some of you thought I forgot all about you.  But I didn't.  I promise.

When I was a kid, Christmas was always a very simple event (at least to my recollection):

• Christmas Eve: Open one present, always somehow managed to be pajamas.  Go to bed.
• Christmas Eve: Try to stay awake and listen for Santa Claus
• Christmas Eve: Have parents tell you over and over if you don't stop talking to your brother, you won't fall asleep and Santa won't come
• Christmas Eve: Fall asleep.

• Christmas Morning: Wake up and wonder if Santa had come, yet.
• Christmas Morning: Continue waiting and wondering.
• Christmas Morning: Stop wondering about Santa and start wondering if parents are ever going to wake up.
• Christmas Morning: Start wondering if parents are dead.
• Christmas Morning: Hear sounds of life coming from somewhere in the house, hope it is mom and dad.
• Christmas Morning: It is mom and dad!
• Christmas Morning: Collect stockings.
• Christmas Morning: Open presents (one at a time, each person gets a turn).
• Christmas Morning: Dad cooks breakfast.

• Christmas Day: Play with new toys, read new books, enjoy life.
• Christmas Day: Continue playing, maybe fight with brothers about whose toy belongs to whom.

• Christmas Night: Go to bed and start planning for next Christmas.

You see, when I was a kid, my grandparents all lived out of state. There was no way we were going to be able to make multiple-hour drives in each direction on Christmas, to see them.

As an adult, now, all of my remaining grandparents are still out of state.  Cordelia's grandparents, however, are not.  And Tammy's are here, too.  So Christmas becomes a bit more... shall we say involved?

I found out Christmas Eve that I was going to have to cook a turkey (yay!), and the turkey was still frozen at my mom's place (ugh!).  But it was a Butterball, so I didn't need to worry about having to prep it in order to keep it juicy (yay!).  So I went to my mom's got the turkey, came home, and began the rush-thaw of a 16 lb turkey.

Based on everything I could find on the internet, it was going to take 8 hours to thaw it in cold water.  So I put the bird in my largest picnic cooler, covered it in cold water, and set my alarm for 5:30 (it was about 10:00, so the turkey would be ready to cook by 6).   We didn't need to be to the in-laws until 10, and the gobbler was going to take about 4 hours to cook.  So we'd be a little late for breakfast, but not too much.

Got to bed by 1:00. 5:30 rolled around and my alarm didn't go off.  Fortunately (sort of), I woke up at about 5:50 and checked the time.  Jumped out of bed and finished prepping my bird and dropped him in the oven. Or her.  Thought about going back to bed.  Gave up on that idea. Watched some shows on Hulu.com that  I'd missed.

Eventually, it was time to get up.

Christmas Morning:  Cordelia is greeted by this sight (though less blurry...):

As you can see there are a lot of presents under the tree.  Most of which were actually for parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, etc.  However, I thought it looked better having them all piled up under the tree so we looked like we'd been completely spoiled :)

The trike is Cordelia's, as is the Crayola desk in back.  I haven't taken a great picture of it, just yet, but you'll see it in some of the following pics.  One of her favorite gifts, this year, came from her Uncle Chad (Tammy's brother) and Aunt Patty.  You'll see it in all of the following pictures.

Both the Crayola table, and the magnetic easel have a white-board side, and a chalk-board side.  Cordelia also received 3-4 pre-school books with white-board qualities (ie, you use a dry-erase marker to write on the pages of the book, and can wipe them clean).  She also received a Disney Princesses white-board message board.  Methinks a number of people out there know my little girl pretty well.  She absolutely loves to color and to draw.  Sometimes I think she loves to draw more than color, even.

She does portraits, too, though I haven't caught any on camera yet.  She tends to erase as soon as she finishes.

Anyway, after opening presents at home, we went to my parents-in-law for breakfast (two casseroles: hashbrown and french toast, both very good - especially the hashbrown).  And opened more presents.

Then we came home, and started finishing up the preparations for the afternoon/evening.  The turkey was as close to perfect as I could have hoped, the gravy came along very smoothly, the stuffing was cooking up easily (though I hadn't thought ahead and gotten anything to go with it, so it was mostly just flavored, moist croûtons).  My mom and her new family (my new step-father and two step-sisters) arrived around 3, 3:30, and we played games until my dad arrived.  Then we ate lots of turkey and its table-friends, visited, opened more presents, and all-in-all had a really nice evening. 

Unfortunately, my youngest brother (the only one who lives within a reasonable distance), was unable to bring his kids over.  He ended up with a stomach virus and had to stay home.  He was sick enough his wife had to stay home from work.  So my dad, who rents their basement, took their presents with him, as well as some leftovers.

And that was the Christmas of the White-Boards.  We had a jolly time, and we certainly hope you all did, too!

Booger Art 101

While fun to create and sometimes interesting to behold, the art of decorating the wall with ones nasal mucus is decidedly gross.

Yesterday, as I was reading Cordelia a story before her her nap, she started picking at the wall.  At first I thought there was a scuff or other blemish on the wall and I turned to tell her not to pick at it.  But what I saw wasn't a nick or scratch.  It was an encrusted booger.  I was certain.

I asked her outright, "Is that a booger?"

She informed me that, "Yes. It's boogy."

Needless-to-say (yet I'll say it anyway) I put a stop to the picking even more definitively than I would have if it had just been wall-picking.  I informed her in as stern-but-loving a voice as I could muster, that she was not to put her boogers on the wall anymore.  It is gross and she needs to use a tissue if she has boogers in her nose.

She said "Okay, sheesh."

When I started cleaning it off the wall, I discovered several more pieces of art; fortunately, it seems the discovery was made before it could get too out of hand.  I'm going to have to keep a close eye on the wall, and start having her clean it up if it continues.

I did make an observation, however.  Gross as it may be, I have to point out that boogers set up like concrete.  I wonder just how much influence boogers had on the invention of krazy-glue.

You may note that I did not post any pictures of Cordelia's Booger Art.  It's not an attempt at preserving any kind of copyright to her art.  It's mostly because it was really gross.  And it's doubtful I'll be taking any pictures of future projects, either.  Unless there's a coolness factor that outweighs the gross factor.

<*fingers crossed*>