TeeBee's Blog

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Snow

Not much - maybe 4" so far, 'tho it is still snowing. Kids get a 2 hour delay. Looks pretty - there hasn't been snow on the ground for weeks and without it, winter looks grey and dirty.

teebee

Surprise, part III

1/26/04

We all sleep in a bit (until 8:00). This is our last day, so we're all a bit down. We all flop around for awhile. I take kids to hotel arcade - fast n' furious air hockey until breakfast. Check out, kill an hour until shuttle arrives, then van back to airport. Check in, train to terminal, then hurry up and wait until flight time.

We reminisce about the weekend. Emma's favorite - "Splash Mountain" (same for me). Alex's favorite - "Buzz Lightyear".

Hmm - cooling towers of a nuke plant off in the distance - wonder which one?

2:16 pm - onboard plane, waiting for departure. Attendents try to find 2 seats together for last-minute mother + child. Someone moves, mom + kid find seat.

2:27 pm - getting pushed away from gate

2:35 - airborne!

3:16 - cruising altitude of 40k feet. Nothing but clouds as far as the eye can see

4:30 - coming in for landing

5:00 - down, in terminal, waiting for valet parking van

Back to valet parking, back in van, rolling homewards. I'm struck by a sudden feeling of displacement - what am I doing here? Gina notes how in Florida all cars were spotless and up here all are filthy with salt and dirt.

Get home to a rousing welcome by the dogs. Cats yawn and go back to sleep. I go next door to get Emma's hamster Sally from the neighbors. Quick pasta supper, Lisa stops by again with her friend Bill, we all talk while the kids get ready for bed, and that's that.

How would I summarize the weekend? My goal was to give my family a fun escape from winter, and that's what we had. Gina says "When are we going back?", so it must've been a success.

Pics when I get a chance.

teebee

Surprise, part II

The continued saga of our hero and his family at Disney World

1/25/04

Up at 7:30 Today's weather: partially cloudy and 76 degrees. Rumors of snowstorms up north - who cares!

Breakfast - yum!

9:54 AM - on a bus heading for Disney!

Rides:

- Buzz Lightyear
- People Mover (Alex + I)
- Space Mountain (girls)

Meet up with my sister Jen, spouse Mike, kids Charlotte and Lena @ Toontown Fair. Go thru Minnie's house + Mickey's House. Charlotte and Jen go off to meet Mickey whilst we mill about. Get FastPass for Pooh ride, then split up. We have lunch at Pinnochio's something-or-other, then "Small World", then ice cream in the shadow of the building that used to house the gondola terminal, then meet back at Pooh ride with Mike and Charlotte. Afterwards, say goodbye to J&M, and head off to Liberty Square.

- Haunted Mansion x 2 - first Lisa, Emma and I, then Gina and I. Emma is a little scared; decides she likes the thrill rides better than the "dark" rides.

- 3:56 pm - am writing this from lie for Big Thunder Mountain (again) - whee!

- 4:30 - waiting for Alex + Mom to come back from Tom Sawyer Island

Big to-do about gift for Alex - he wants a pirate pistol but you can't bring them onto the plane and we didn't check any luggage. Go round and round, some tears are shed, settle on having it shipped.

Monorail, bus back to hotel. Bus driver tells us best pizza in area is to be found at Chevron station next to hotel. Lisa and I walk over, have a draft beer while waiting for pizze. Pizza guy gives us a lift back to hotel. Pizza, beer, subs, wings, TV, bed.

More later

teebee

Surprise!

We went to Disney World for the weekend. Left Friday morning; got back Monday night. We didn't tell the kids about it until Thursday night - we wanted it to be a surprise. Well, it was, and then some.

It started about 3 weeks ago. If you read this blog regularly, you know we had a very busy fall and holiday season. So busy that I felt we needed a vacation from the holidays. I started thinking "Hmmm - what if we went to Disney for the weekend? Nah - it'll never happen. Airfares will be throught the roof and we'll never find a room." Just for laughs, I started looking into it and it wasn't too bad. Ran it past Gina and to my surprise, she said "Let's do it!". We also decided to ask Gina's sister Lisa along, who has also been very busy and IMHO would both (a) benifit from a vacation and (b) be lots of fun to boot (both proved to be correct).

So we plotted and planned and kept our big mouths shut vis-a-vis the kids. Thursday night at dinner we tell them. They are mildly happy, to say the least. They pack up their backpacks (our stuff was already packed), went to bed, didn't sleep, and we were all off by 8:00 on Friday.

Here's a log of the weekend activities. I took along my palm-blog (a pad and pen) and took notes whenever I had time and the mood struck me. Might be a bit rambling, but I decided to transcribe word-for-word instead of editing - gives more of a "feels like you are there" feeling. Or maybe I am just lazy.

Friday 1/23/04

10:53 AM - we're on the plane (Southwest); boarded with "A" passes. Alex and me in front, the girls behind us (Gina, Emma, Lisa = "the girls"). Alex checks out the SkyMall magazine. We're sitting over the wing, which my dad always said was the smoothest spot (something about moment arm or something).


Alex takes out his mini-can of Pringles and starts munching away. I run into one of the guys that used to work at the local package store - he's on his way to Sarasota to work on a documantary but he can't tell me what its about. Whatever.

11:00 - taxiing along for takeoff

11:11 - cleared for departure...

11:12 - We're airborne!

11:24 - cruising altitute

11:51 - Snack Time! - peanuts and Ritz snack mixers! Whoo-hoo

12:20 - Bumpy!

12:47 - Alex and I look thru his "I Spy" book.

1:32 - Final descent!

1:54 - We're here! Lisa quote - "Gina woke me up 17 times!"

Outside it is 68 degrees and dry. Shuttle picks us up. Stop at grocery store, pick up lunch and other stuff (water, etc). Note - grocery stores here sell beer and wine! Off to hotel, check in. Room nice, hallway is beat (wallpaper needs repair).

Check out pool, hot tub. Pool is cold, hot tub is hot (duh). Kids and I change into suits, go into hot tub. Girls sun themselves. Kids go swimming in pool, I demur. Back 2 room, change, off to Downtown Disney for Dinner.

Emma is feeling tired (she was throwing up the night before - go figure), so she and Gina go back to hotel. Lisa, Alex and I go to Rainforest Cafe - noisy, poor service and crappy food but atmosphere by the gallons. We can't figure out bus schedule so we take a cab back to hotel - $5 well spent.


1/24/04 (Saturday)

At Disney World at last!

Start off at TomorrowLand:

- Buzz Lightyear
- People Mover
- Speedway (kid in front of us couldn't find gas pedal if his brain was tied to it!!!!!)
- Space Mountain (Lisa and I; my first time - really really really fun!)

Lunch - hot dogs and burgers with a really argumentative family next to us

Next - Mickey's Toontown Fair!
- Mickey's Barnstormer
- Minnie's House
- Mickey's House

Then Disney Train to Frontierland!
- Splash Mountain w/me, Lisa and Emma - also very fun and not too wet!

My notes - "am writing this while in line for Big Thunder Mountain with Lisa and Emma"

- Big Thunder Mountain - also very fun

- Tom Sawyer's island - exploring
- Pirates of Caribbean - Lisa, me and Emma. Emma is unimpressed

- Then Alex and I do Jungle Cruise and Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse while girls do Splash Mountain.

Meet girls again, monorail back to Tix + Trans Ctr, bus back to hotel. Bus driver leads us in singalongs, tells corny jokes, has Alex in stitches.

Dinner at hotel restaurant - we're all tired so we eat light. Emma hops in hot bath. Everyone's in bed by 9:00.

More installments later!

teebee

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Very warm birthday wishes go out to my mom! Of course, she is in Florida so she already has the warm part...


teebee

Skating

Got the pond cleared on Saturday and we all went skating. No question that the ice is thick enough - it hadn't been above freezing for 2 weeks and the ice was grey and concrete-firm. A friend who's son plays hockey gave us 3 old sticks and a couple of pucks and we spent the day playing hockey (or a variant thereof). Ditto Sunday and Monday. Now my feet hurt.

Skating is one of the few things I can do better now than when I was a kid. As a kid I wobbled around on overly-flexible leather skates, my ankles turning out at contortionist-like angles. My older brothers were much faster and agile, so I was reduced to 2nd or 3rd string when it came time to play. My current skates are around 15 years old (a Valentine's day gift from Gina) and as long as I keep them sharp, they work great - roomy enough for that extra pair of socks and stiff enough to keep you upright. Am currently trying to figure out how to skate backwards. I sorta have it, but it feels very clumsy.

Emma is pretty good on skates. When we got the hockey sticks, she took to it right away and spent all 3 days with one in her hand, either chasing me when I had the puck or being chased by me when she had it. Her key to success is that she really likes it, and if you like something you'll keep on doing it even if you get cold, tired or sore.

Alex is still learning. I bungeed together 2 milk crates and put casters on the bottom, and this acts like his "training wheels" He zooms around the ice and yells at us (in mock anger) when we use the milk crates as a moving hockey goal.

Of course, now I've created a monster. They can't wait until the weekend to go skating again, and want me to come home early so they can go down to the pond. Gina doesn't skate, so I'm it. Fortunately, I'm happy to oblige (but maybe not the come-home-early part).

teebee

Music

I finally got the stereo hooked up in my new shop - it's my Dad's old receiver and casette player, with some speakers I found at our landfill's take-it-or-leave-it. I wonder why it took me so long. In college the stereo was always the first thing set up when you moved in, and the last thing packed up when you moved out. I've been in my shop for weeks now, and am just now getting the music up and going. Does this depress me? No; just another little something to reflect back on.

I remember my first stereo. My folks bought a new one and gave me the old one. I scrounged up a speaker from somewhere and spent many nights trying to get WEEI in a little clearer. They still played Wolfman Jack back then and I thought he was great.

I moved up to a clock radio after that. I made the mistake of cracking it open and wiring in a bigger speaker in hopes of better sound. Must've been an impedence mismatch or something, 'cuz the sound stopped working entirely after about a week.

By that time I was a working man (paper route), and armed with my hard-earned cash went up to Tech HiFi on Endicott Road in Danvers ("Listen to what your money can buy, at Tech HiFi!"). I think it was a Technics SA-80 receiver , Sony PST-1 turntable and some no-name speakers, but man it sounded great. Now I had the potential to seriously annnoy my brothers.

My first 2 albums were the Beatles White Album, and George Carlin's "Class Clown". I ignored my brother Ed's urgent advice to buy Led Zepplin 1 (I did buy it later, of course). Radio stations at the time were WCOZ (before it went soft-rock - "COZ-y music!") and WBCN. 'BCN used to play Doctor Demento late at night on Saturdays, and I can remember desperately staying up to hear the Top Ten (usually "Fish Heads" or "Shaving Cream").

High school saw the usual late-70's rock and roll albums make their way into my collection - Zepplin, Bowie, Santana, Clapton. The New Wave made its intro with the B-52's (a big hit with everyone in my family and the first signs that we all liked to dance). I think Ed got it for me for Christmas 1980. I still have it.

College is where my musical tastes really exploded. Amherst and Northampton each had 2 or 3 used record stores where you could pick up stuff in good shape for $3-$5 (and sell your old stuff if you had to). Taping was big - I still have a briefcase-like box filled with Maxell and TDK's.

After college, things slowed down a bit. I didn't have the time (or inclination) to sit down and listen to records all afternoon. Radio was still big (WRSI and WMUA mostly), and I bought the occasional album to add to the collection.

CD's put a whole new twist on things. Kinda took the fun out of things a bit. Putting on a record had become a comfortable ritual - slide out the dust jacket, hold the album by the sides, set it up, coupla passes with the Discwasher, that scrtch-scrtch-thump as the needle found the groove. Oh well, times change.

I don't listen much to music anymore when I'm in the car. Mostly I listen to AM talk radio (no, not Rush or his ilk; mostly "Fresh Air", "The Connection", Tavis Smiley, etc). I remember when I'd borrow my dad's car (the Fairmont or the Saab) and would find the radio set to AM talk, with the treble all the way up and the balance/fade set so that only the front left speaker would play. I'd snort in derision and set it up "the right way". Now I do the same thing as my dad (except for the one-speaker effect).

So I've got sound in my shop again. I alternate between rock-and-roll on WAQY and jazz on WMUA. Sometimes I miss the old days of my musical youth. Mostly I'm comfortable at what I've become.

teebee

Hmm - who has been reading my blog?

Remember that blog entry I wrote about The Game of Life? Well, what should appear in yesterday's Hampshire Gazette but a column about The Game of Life! Have I been plagerized? Who is reading my stuff anyway?

teebee

Did I say it was cold?...

-6 this morning, with wind chill approaching -30. Good gawd.

Remember all that poetic crap I wrote about the cold, etc? Feh!

teebee

What's in a Name

Yesterday's sermon by Pastor Fran was about names and their meanings. She related how as a child she really didn't like her name - Francis. It was only when she discovered its meaning - "A Free Woman" - that she really began to accept her name.

I used to be up on what names meant and all that, but forgot most of it. Here's a few names in my life and what they mean:

Stephen - Greek: "crown"
Gina - Japanese: "silvery"
Emma - German: "whole" or "universal"
Alexander - Greek: "defending men"
Edward - Old English: "rich guard"
Joan - Hebrew: "god's gracious gift"
David - Hebrew: "beloved"
Jennifer - Arthurian Legend: "fair one"
Benjamin - Hebrew: "son of the right hand"
Henry - German: "ruler of the home"
Norman - English: "northman"

Courtesy of Parenthood.com and Behind the Name.

teebee

OK, now it is really cold

-2 on the bank clock as I went to work. 8 when I went out at lunch. Supposed to be -12 tonight. Cold so your nose pinches when you breathe. Air feels so dense you could bite it. Visibility goes on forever. Car creaks and snaps as you get in.

I don't mind that much. I kinda like it when it is really cold out and I'm well-bundled. Last night was poker night ( I busted out completely) and I walked to/from the game. It was probably somewhere in the single digits. The moon was only a few days past full, so it was lighting up the night. Stars and planets had an extra twinkle. Each frosty breath was a sharp reminder of life - you notice each one. I cut across the field and the light dusting of snow squeaks under my shoes. I remember in freshman physics we worked out how cold it had to be before snow squeaked - can't remember the answer but obviously it was cold enough.

Seems to me that extremes like these make the normal weather more tolerable. Next week it'll probably be in the 20's and we'll be saying "Huh - not too bad today".

teebee.

Cold

10 degrees outside when I got up. 14 on the bank clock as I drive to work. Sure wish I had a garage.

teebee

The Game of Life

"The Game of Life,
The Game of Life,
and you can learn about life
when you play the Game of Life!

Fun!
Thrills!
REVENGE!
It's great!

So play
The Game
of Life!

The Game of Life
A Milton Bradley Game"

When we were at Ed's for Christmas dinner, his kids got the Game of Life game. I had a fast and furious game with Alex and Jessica, trying to keep the game going while dealing with the way the game has changed in the 30+ years since we all played it as kids. Salaries are separate from jobs - you can be a teacher and make 100k. Buying a house is different. No "Revenge". No "Poor Farm". You even have to put all the little houses and whatnot in place on the board before you start. This isn't my "Game of Life" - it is some new modern interpretation, and it wasn't the same.

This week, Gina got out her old original Game of Life and with stern warnings to be very very careful with it we were allowed to play. Ahh - this is familiar territory. Start off with a car and $2k. Of course you go to college - business path pays only $5k while in college you could become (dare I say it) a Doctor and make (bum da-da bum!) $20,000! Look - there's Art Linkletter on the cover ("I Heartily Endorse This Game") , and on the $100,000 bill! Well, if Art sez it's OK, that's good enough for me!

Auto and fire insurance - no thank you. Life insurance - maybe; it's worth $100k at the end of the game. "Start a business - pay $12,000"? I only make $6k, so I get a big red Promisary Note (I hate those!). Get married, spin for presents (get $500 - whoo-hoo!), and we're off!

"Lucky Day at the Races - get $10000! Keep it or Spin for $150,000!". I spin and win! Pay off promisary note ASAP. Another Payday too!

Ahhh - a chance to buy Stock and play the market. Stock is definitely worth it. I buy and play, and lose $25k - crap!

Hit a few big payoff spaces along the way - "Collect $200,000 for famous painting". Get a few kids (first a boy, then adopt twins). Shoot - Alex lands on Revenge and takes $100,000 from me - waah rats no fair! "Too careless - turn in fire insurance" - like that's gonna affect anyone.

Alex is first over the toll bridge ($20k from everyone else that crosses it) and first to Millionaire Acres ($100,000 bonus, plus he spins for a lucky number and if anyone else spins it they pay him $10k). He's loaded, and will win, unless...

I get to "Day of Reckoning". Not enough $$ to win. I take a chance at becoming a Millionare Tycoon and put all my money on 6. I spin. Unbelievable - 6! I win! Alex does not take it well - goes off to his room and makes an angry sketch of me and puts it on his wall. Sigh - the price of victory. I pack up all the money in the boxes, fold up the board, and Life is over.

Not mine though, especially when I can meld past and present via a simple board game.

Life is good.

teebee

2004

I suppose this is the time where I should be writing carefully crafted reflections on the past year, and poignant resolutions for the new. Sorry - not on my day off. If you want reflections on the past year, read my blog archives. If you want resolutions, tough - they're private.

I will come out of curmudgeon mode long enought to wish all my readers (all 3 of them) a happy new year and best wishes for a prosperous 2004.

Oog - now back to my coffee.

teebee