Scary Tiger Alex

Alex with tiger face paint.Alex only had a half day of school today so he ended up spending longer then usual at after care. They had all kinds of stuff to keep the kids busy like movies, games, and face painting. To my surprise he actually got the face painting done and had them paint him like a tiger.

When Jen arrived with Andrew to pick him up he just kept looking at Alex in horror. All night he kept saying, “Alex has a mean face” and was very relieved when the paint came off in the shower. “Hey it’s Alex’s face again” he said. Jen and I thought it kind of looked like he had grown an Amish beard.

Back in the Water for Competition

Last night Jen and I represented our respective employers at the Richardson Corporate Olympics. With the exception of last year I have been competing in the event since 2002 and I’m pretty sure Jen hasn’t missed a single year in that time. The only change was when she defected switched from competing for the TI to RISD when they started fielding a team.

Each year they seem to tweak the scoring format a little bit and this year the only two individual events were the 50 Free and 50 Back. They also have a mixed relay but we didn’t swim on those teams. Since the meet has a large number of people who have never really swum before no one is allowed to start off the blocks which makes things a little difficult. Overall we were pretty successful in our individual races, RISD ended up winning the meet and TI placed third.

Swimmer 50 Free 50 Back
==============================
Jen 32.42 38.79
Derek 27.26 31.24

Hu! Ha! Uh!

Johnny BravoI received this post card in 2002 from Deanna and Doug after a trip to Atlanta, Georgia. She writes:

“We had a fantastic trip down south.” and “spent their time hiking, eating, drinking margaritas, enjoying Mexican Cuisine, visiting CNN, and touring Coca-Cola.”

In fact this post card is from visiting the CNN building. A couple of years after their trip we drove over to Atlanta and met them there and did just about the same things. At the end of the CNN tour they had the obligatory gift shop which had merchandise from all the Turner broadcasting networks including the Cartoon Network.

I never watched an episode of Johnny Bravo but according to wikipedia it was on from 1997-1999, and then again from 2000-2003.

Speling Test Friday.

Every day Alex takes has to take his daily planer between school and home. One of the first things they do in the morning when getting into class is write the message of the day that he needs to bring home to show us. We sign it, he brings it back to school and the cycle repeats itself.

Yesterday he came home with the following message:

Speling test Friday.

Apparently he’s inherited my spelling genes.

Grüsse aus Appenzell, Schweiz

Appenzell, Switzerland - PostcardThis is another one of the old postcards in my collection from way back in 1996 from Appenzell, Switzerland. I’ve actually got a couple from here that I’ll post but this was the first one in the series that I received.

All of of my Switzerland collection were sent to me by Deanna who spent a summer with a family in the town of Appenzell.

She writes

“I live in the country, overlooking the town of Appenzell. It’s so nice here! My room looks out onto the Alps and I can see Austria from the property.”

It sounds like she’s actually describing the pictures on the front of the card, not a real place she could be staying. Maybe she was feeling a little guilty about living in the picturesque Swiss countryside and tried to make me feel better by adding,

“We don’t have a T.V. so I’ve been reading a lot. Please videotape some of the Olympics for me.”

Hah, so it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. While she was living in scenic Appenzellerland I was wasting away in front of the TV watching the Atlanta Olympic games. Come to think of it, I did tape the Olympics but those tapes have been long gone now.

After all these years I never actually known where exactly in Switzerland Appenzell was but Google quickly answered that question for me. However, one link lead to another and I found myself checking out the official Appenzell web site and I have to tell you it they make it seem like their town comes right out of the pages of Heidi.

“This is the home of happy hens, contented cows and placid pigs.”

I don’t think your going to find many towns that describe themselves that way.

Hurrican Ike – Plano Update

Well, according the weather.com we are under a flood advisory, flash flood watch, and wind advisory, and if you look at the weather map you would think we under amazing rains.  In reality it’s only been drizzling for the last couple of hours and so far we haven’t experienced any really strong winds so I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that’s as bad as it gets.

Hurrican Ike – On its way to Plano

Looks like we are going to be doing a little Hurricane Ike preparation tonight and tomorrow.

Issued by The National Weather Service
Dallas/Fort Worth, TX

11:24 am CDT, Fri., Sep. 12, 2008


… TROPICAL STORM WIND WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM SATURDAY TO 1 AM CDT SUNDAY…

… NEW INFORMATION…

TROPICAL STORM WIND WARNING ISSUED FOR AREAS ALONG AND EAST OF A BOWIE TO GATESVILLE LINE.

… WATCHES/WARNINGS…

A FLASH FLOOD WATCH IS IN EFFECT ALONG AND EAST OF INTERSTATE 35 FOR SATURDAY AND SUNDAY.

… PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…


DUE TO THE WINDY CONDITIONS EXPECTED… LIGHT-WEIGHT OBJECTS SUCH AS
TRASH CANS AND LAWN CHAIRS SHOULD BE SECURED… AS THEY CAN EASILY
BECOME PROJECTILES IN HIGH WINDS. POWER OUTAGES MAY BE POSSIBLE… SO
HAVE FLASHLIGHTS… BATTERIES… A FULL TANK OF GAS… CASH… BOTTLED
WATER AND NON-PERISHABLE FOODS ON HAND JUST IN CASE.

… WINDS…

SUSTAINED WINDS FROM 35 TO 45 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 55 MPH WILL BE POSSIBLE SATURDAY.

… INLAND FLOODING…


STORM TOTAL AMOUNTS WILL RANGE FROM 1 TO 2 INCHES OUTSIDE OF THE WATCH
AREA… WITH 2 TO 4 INCHES POSSIBLE WITHIN THE FLASH FLOOD WATCH.

Just Pick a Book!

Last night while I was trying to get the boys to bed Andrew was taking a long time picking out a book. He would pick one book off the shelf, leaf through a couple of the pages, and then drop it at his feet. He kept doing this for a couple of minutes and he was ankle deep in books, I couldn’t even see his feet anymore, when I finally grew frustrated and I told him,

“Pick a book already or we won’t read one.”

He pick another book off the shelf, looked at it and said, “This one.”

Just Me and My Dad. Of course. I’m pretty sure they do this on purpose.

New Orleans Trip – From Way Back in August

I was thinking to myself the other day that I didn’t post any pictures on the web site in August and that I don’t recall actually taking very many pictures. I started going through the camera’s and found that there were a bunch of pictures from the August New Orleans trip on there. I had completely forgotten about the trip.

Jen and the boys spent a week in New Orleans while I stayed back to work. Kelly was in town during the week as well taking care of stuff before her move and through a series of events I ended up missing my flight and driving with Kelly from Dallas to NOLA.

Here are the August New Orleans trip pictures.