Order Horizon

We have been a little concerned about Alice’s reading ability. She ended up not exceeding expectations at the end of kindergarten. Mom has been working with her over the summer to try to get ready for first grade. I help a bit and was getting worried because Alice has a lot of difficulty sounding out words. She is good with letters and sounds but has difficulty putting them together. She will frequently get stuck even though she has all the sounds in the word in order, e.g. “p” “eh” “t but doesn’t hear it as “pet”. Some of her mistakes are quite bizarre. In the previous case, she might sound out all the letters and then guess “pill”. It just seems kind of an odd sort of mistake to make.

However, Alice has been doing better since school started. Yesterday she even made up a bunch of word cards to play with, just some index cards that she wrote words on, although she needed help with some of them. At least she’s expressing some interest in words and reading. So perhaps there’s hope for her playing her GameBoy on her own yet.

Posted by Dad about Alice at 6:27 PM | Comments (0) | Trackbacks – Ping URL|

We bought Charles an Electronic Snap-Kit a few days ago. He had a good time with when we got home, building a number of the projects. It’s a very nice kit, the one thing lacking is a good explanation of how the circuts actually work. I suppose Charles can experiment with them to try different things — there are a number of variants on the same basic setups which serve as nice compare and contrast set ups. Charles is still enjoying it today, so it’s lasted longer than many toys. I will probably consider getting him the next kit up, with more pieces and projects since he seems genuinely interested. He has been asking me a lot of questions which I try to answer by dredging up memories from college which I haven’t really used for a couple of decades or so. it’s a whole family education!

Posted by Dad about Charles at 8:07 AM | Comments (0) | Trackbacks – Ping URL|

First day of soccer practice. Corwin has the same coach as last year and mostly the same team, although naturally all of the formerly in 8^th grade players have moved on. It’s a big team, at least 25 players (possibly more) which is a bad number, not quite enough for two teams but too big for one. Corwin had to get new shoes which Mom, thinking ahead, had us check for the day before\ practice rather than 20 minutes before.

Charles has a new coach. I thought he might get his coach from last year but as far as I can tell he’s not a coach this year. Instead Ema’s dad is his coach and AnnaO is on his team. For once, though, RachelG isn’t a teammate. Charles’ team has only 3 4^th graders so it is a young team which means Charles will have to upgrade his game this season. He’s started well — the bit I watched had the kids running up and shooting goals from out in the field and both times Charles was the only one who got his ball in the goal. If he does that and gets his running game back he should be golden.

Alice isn’t doing soccer these days, she’s too busy with dance and acrobatics. It’s just too hectic to try and get her to soccer practice as well.

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Chook eggs! Mom’s chickens have started dropping eggs. Naturally they are not using the roosting box. Instead they are dropping them in the corners of the cage. Still Mom was quite pleased. One was even a double yolk which Mom declared to be lucky.

Posted by Dad about Pets at 7:48 PM | Comments (0) | Trackbacks – Ping URL|

We went to a local arts fair here, despite much whining from the children. Alice was wearing her “Alice” dress and we have three or four women stop us along the way and compliment Alice on her dress. For once she wasn’t thrilled about being the center of attention and admired. Overall it was nice, if small, but the one thing that bugged me was they had stages with performers but no signs describing who was on stage! Gosh, surely they could afford little name cards so you can see what group was putting on the show.

Posted by Dad about Alice at 6:23 PM | Comments (0) | Trackbacks – Ping URL|

Corwin discovered a month or so ago that Mom can’t do the Vulcan hand sign, where you spread your first and second fingers to one side, and your third and fourth fingers to the other side. Corwin pointed this out to Charles and Alice who, it turned out, could all do it¹. The kids thought this lack on Mom’s part was utterly hilarious and they brought it up on a regular basis. Corwin acquired the habit of when he was being criticized by Mom for some lack (such as of utensils while eating) he would just Vulcan hand sign back at her. Mom was not generally amused by this but what can she do? Not the hand sign, at least.

¹ Clearly inheriting it from me. Probably a big reason Mom chose me as breeding stock for her offspring.

Posted by Dad about The Kids at 6:16 PM | Comments (0) | Trackbacks – Ping URL|

I was looking at some Charles Lego™ work the other day and I asked him what the outboard pods on his spaceship were. He said he had no idea. Apparently it was a complete mystery to him, despite his earlier penchant for having a detailed description of every piece of a design. Apparently it’s all visuals and aesthetics, he’s been infected with the modernist school of art. So sad at such a young age.

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We were short on milk so Mom, while out doing some organic shopping, bought some yuppy milk which just means they saved money by processing it less while charging more. One thing that wasn’t done was “homogenization”, a consequence of which was that there were a number of fat lumps floating in the milk. Basically butter without the salt. The kids hated it. I found it a bit annoying but tolerable, especially if used for chocolate milk (mmmmm, chocalate flavored milk fat …). We eventually got through, partly because the milk fat lumps float so they went early and after about half way there weren’t any left.

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School tomorrow! Last free day for the kids. Not that they did anything special. Charles’ second grade teacher moved up to fourth grade and as punishment has Charles in his class again. Alice has a new teacher. Mom has been working with Alice on her readin so hopefully she’s not too far behind when she starts.

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We had Laurie, Sara, their parents, kids, and brother Dan over for a cookout. It almost ended disastrously when Mom set the grill on fire and melted the control handles but, thanks to Dad’s incredible talent at mechanical adaptation, we were able to keep on cooking (after Mom put out the internal grease fire with baking powder). Much fun was had, although my attempts to get a Kaplan project started was done in by some “help” from Graham. When it got dark I went to check on my glow sticks and discovered that while I had a good supply, they had suffered from significant decay. Rather than leaving on the shelf until they were totally useless I let the kids fire them all up. This was met with much enthusiasm. One fun project was gathering up the sticks and throwing them en masse in to the air to create technicolor hail. It was quite interesting looking.

Glow stick hail

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Time for a vacation wrap up, now that we’ve mostly recovered. Little things I forgot to mention —

• Alice started a collection of shells the first day on the beach to which she was totally dedicated, to the point of getting upset if any one messed with the shells. By Tuesday it was basically forgotten.
• Uncle Evil taught Corwin how to make one of his signature dishes, microwaved cheese. I asked about Uncle Evil’s other signature dish, “potatoe things”, but he said Corwin wasn’t quite ready for that yet. The fulminating look from Mom might have influenced him a bit. Mom claims that microwaved cheese is unhealthy but I am not clear on why it’s more unhealthy than non-microwaved. Uncle Evil claims it’s better because a lot of the fat boils out in to a pattern of little fat puddles. It’s food and art!
• After we visited the battleship Alice complained that Corwin and Charles got toys but she didn’t. Of course she didn’t get any because they didn’t sell any plush items. For Alice, the vacation is about the toys. Uncle Evil tried to help by wrapping a brown napkin around some cotton balls from the Corwin hand repair kit and calling it “Mr. Potsticker”. This didn’t make Alice happy but the boys thought it was awsome.
• When we had lunch at the Biltmore, Mom ordered Charles the “Plowman’s Plate” which was grapes and a variety of cheeses. Charles liked most of the cheeses and definitely liked the opportunity to sample more fancy cheeses. One result is that he acquired a taste for goat cheese to such an extent that this week, while shopping with Mom at an international food store, he and Corwin insisted that she also buy them some goat cheese. At the same lunch I had a bison burger which was quite tasty. It didn’t taste much different from very good beef. Definitely worth giving a try.
• At one point I called Alice “white-butted girl”. Alice objected and started to say “Why would you call me that? Why not white —” at which point she noticed Dad’s expectant grin and changed to “never mind!”.

Posted by Dad about Family at 7:21 PM | Comments (0) | Trackbacks – Ping URL|

Corwin’s Funbird on a D12

Corwin and I went out to launch some rockets with the club today. It was a busy day but I needed to get some test flights in for a church project I am working on. The day went reasonably well, with just one close call but otherwise some nice flights. My test flights all went well. Corwin had several flights with his Quark until he lost it in the sun. He had been flying it on just ½A motors to keep it in sight but one blink and it was gone. However, I received an email later from another club member who found it in (as expected) a place where none of us thought it could have landed. I had a nice flight on the Royal Momba on an F45-5. It went almost out of sight and then drifted almost in to the power lines and the road but this time I was waiting for it and snatched it as soon as it landed so it didn’t drift in to traffic. I also got my two stage rocket working after a disappointing failure last time. Two for two on successful launches. Yes!

Dan, Noah, and Dan’s father came out to watch us launch for the first part of the day. I think Noah enjoyed watching the launches.

Another reason we went out was that a local news channel had emailed me about doing a feature on us. Of course, the club is always looking for good publicity so I had to help out with that. That went well. While we were launching another local TV channel called and then came out to get some footage. That makes three TV shows the club has been in this year. That’s more than the entire previous history for us. Odd.

Posted by Dad about Boys at 6:52 PM | Comments (0) | Trackbacks – Ping URL|

Laurie, one of my best friends from high school, was back in town today. She and her family are living in London these day but she still comes back now and then to visit her family who live near us. The entire set was back, including Sara and their brother Dan, who is the boon companion of Uncle Evil (you should have seen the kids eyes get big when, introducing Dan, I casually mentioned “yeah, he goes on adventures with Uncle Evil”). We had a lot of kids, two from Laurie (Grace and Noah) and two from Sara (Ella and Graham) (Dan, fortunately for humanity, has no known progeny). It was nice to talk to Laurie and her siblings again. Alice had a good time together with other girls. Noah liked Charles’ massive collection of Lego™ and Kapla. Charles played with them a bit, while Corwin mostly hid and played on the computer.

Grace and Ella styling in the Barbie car

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I noticed today that Alice has a lot of skin peeling off the bottom of her feet, particularly on the bottom of her heel. I asked around and Mom claims that it’s “normal”. Corwin had this happen but, being Corwin, he had long since picked off every bit of peeling skin. Charles and I, however, managed to keep our foot skin on. I wonder if it’s because Alice walks on tip toe so much the bottoms of her feet got sunburned. But that doesn’t explain Mom or Corwin. I’ll just put it down to “freaks”. I noted this to Alice who replied “Hey! I am doing some growing here!”.

Posted by Dad about The Kids at 10:00 AM | Comments (0) | Trackbacks – Ping URL|

Struggling through vacation recovery, trying to get the energy to actually do something.

Meanwhile, here’s a picture of the kids having fun with inflation while Mom buys booze.

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Not much to write — we piled in the car in the morning and drove home. On the way Mom pointed out and lets us stop at Smokey Mountain Knife Works which claims to be the world’s largest knife store. It’s certainly very large with far more knives than you could look at in a day. I picked up a few things, plus a new camo folding knife for Corwin, and a multi-accessory folding knife for Charles, now that he has his whittling chip. We didn’t stay as long as we could because I decided we needed to leave before I had too much stuff to fit in the van. Charles was very helpful at that point — the moment I stopped to look at anything he would grab me and say “we have to leave! Now!”.

We got home around 7 PM, relaxed a bit, and started recovering from our adventure. I thought that in the old days, vacations were relaxing because as strenuous as they were, they were still less work than one’s job. Now it’s the vacations that are the most strenuous activity we experience. I was totally exhausted and aching when we got home. A week of work and I should be OK again.

Posted by Dad about Family at 9:35 PM | Comments (0) | Trackbacks – Ping URL|

Today’s adventure was Biltmore House which Mom had been enjoying yesterday day until she was ripped away in an untimely manner by an overly demanding husband and her two whiny boys. Her ticket was good for a second day and kids with adults are free so we needed only a ticket for Dad. Therefore off we went in the morning.

Mom and I left the kids in the van while we popped in to get a ticket for me. Mom had ordered it online the previous evening so we expected to pop in, get it, and head out. There was a line marked specifically for such orders. However, there was a couple there who decided to spend their morning getting tour guide information from the express check out lady who was unwilling to shift them off to the actual information desk or let someone else take over the express lane. Mom eventually became irritated enough to complain to one of the other staffers that it was somewhat silly to have an express lane that wasn’t express. The reply was that one could pick up pre-ordered tickets in any line. The question of why there was a line specifically marked for that was left unanswered. We managed to get the ticket by shifting to another line and 20 minutes later we left, the obstructing couple still chatting away with the staffer.

Then it was off to the Big House for a tour. No photography is allowed inside the house so no pictures from that. The kids were pretty good for the first part of the tour (just like the Battleship adventure) but were getting whiny by the end. The most interesting part to me was the amount of staff needed then to have what are now common amenities.

After the Big House we toured the gardens, and then some gift shops. Unfortunately for Alice these were adult oriented and had a rather pathetic selection of stuffed animals. Next, at Corwin’s request, we visited the working farm. There was a courtyard type thing with a number of pseudo-authentic workshops such as a blacksmith shop which was Corwin’s favorite. Near that was the actual farm. We didn’t go out to watch the crops grow, although Mom popped out to see the herb garden. The kids and perforce me spent our time in the animal husbandry section which had goats, lambs, horses, and lots of chickens. I am not sure any two chickens were the same breed. Mom was thrilled.

The kids liked the animals. They even had a large tank with chicks in it (I presumed male chicks, as they would be expendable but Mom said I was too cynical). Most of the chickens were skittish but a few were laid back or stoned and could be easily picked up. Corwin made friends with one, which sat by him placidly until interacted with by Alice. Some of the bantam chickens were able to scuttle under the stall door and hang out with the very large horse, which prevented humans from bothering them. We were told that one chicken had taken to nesting in the horse’s hay and even laying eggs there, which lead to the horse eating an egg, which resulted in quite a lot of equine unhappiness.

As we exited the area we dropped by one last gift ship which had a few stuffed animals in it, albeit pricey ones. Alice was finally satisfied with a chipmunk while the boyen purchased cork pop guns, something they were able to use to annoy Mom the entire trip home.

To reward the boys for not melting down in complaints we went back to Fun Depot for another evening of child fun. The only downsides were that it was raining, so no outdoor go-karts, and the attendance was down, so Charles and I had to do the electric go-karts as the only car on the track. Charles seemed to have a very good time at it anyway. To pay for that we made Charles do the wall climbing again and this time he got all the way to the buzzer at the top.

Corwin with his chicken friend, Alice saying hi, Charles building in the dirt

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