i came back

I guess I've been away awhile. But, as eBaby would say, "I came back."

This time with another project, or a project for a project. Many years ago, we built ourselves some wooden kayaks. When we moved to Mayberry, the best place we had to store them was under our deck. I built a platform with 4 wheels to roll the boats under the deck to keep them protected and out of the sun. When we moved to the current house, we finally had a garage, but the boats stayed under the deck because of the way the garage door was installed (or, actually, the way the garage itself was installed).

Somewhat connected to the next big thing, we are planning an addition to the house. But to build this addition, we have to demolish the deck. This left the boat furniture with no place to live. However, that's not bad news because I've had my eye on a new fancy garage door opener (geeks only) for a while now just hoping the old one would break. Installation of the Rolls-Royce of garage door openers freed up the entire garage ceiling to hang the boats. We should've done this a long time ago.

I won't give any details on the home addition yet, I'll need something else to blog about in a few months. Perhaps I'll attract more fiscal analysts by then.

I’m not even supposed to be here!

[I wrote this while sitting on the plane yesterday. I was supposed to be in San Antonio to celebrate my 13th anniversary on the Riverwalk with Alpha. Bummer.]

10:49am Central time
We can't land because of tornados in the DFW area. Good to know. I don't mind the delay; take your time- thanks. At least it explains why we're climbing. I guess my connecting flight will be late too. I hope nobody on the other end is concerned and I hope there's no reason to be.

Well. We don't have enough fuel to continue to circle DFW. So, on to Longview, TX for fuel. Yuck.

Yay! It looks like a bumpy landing. Couldn't we have gone *away* from the weather?

Very bumpy landing. There aren't thunderstorms here, just 30mph winds. There were t-torms, 60mph winds and tornados @DFW.

The people who work at the Longview airport will have stories to tell about the day that all the jets from the big city done shown' up.

We're only here b/c there was no place to park in Shreveport. What the hell? We're not even good enough for Shreveport?

The runway here isn't even totally flat. There's a bit of a dip in the middle. I don't think they're really equipped for big jets here.

I know they're not going to let us off the plane. Even if they did I don't think there's enough room in the "airport" to hold one S-80 full of people, much less us and the 6 other diverted jets (6 confirmed).
There’s a "ground stop" @ DFW. I guess that means the weather is really rotten. Maybe it’ll also mean that my connecting flight gets delayed enough that I can be on it.

I looked online to see the status of my other flight. It had taken off from Colorado Springs and also has not made it to DFW. It's listed as "arrival city changed" or some other low-information status. It's probably somewhere west of DFW, or maybe even Shreveport. At least that means there could be a chance I can still be on it when/if it leaves for San Antonio.

I can see a handful of people walking across the tarmac rolling suitcases. I hope that doesn't mean AA is giving up on getting some of these flights to DFW. Maybe those are scheduled Longview flights? Do they have those?

Scratch that. They're taking us back to RDU. I wonder if a tornado actually hit the airport? [No, but they did have 70-100mph winds and evacuated the control tower when they saw a funnel cloud.]

Now sadness sets in. I haven't seen my wife and daughter in a week. It's our anniversary, and I’m on my way back to RDU at so... This really sucks.

So, why aren't they taking us to another city in Texas? Austin? San Antonio? Houston? Hell, New Orleans. Really, isn't it a waste to take us back to Raleigh?

Too late now. We're back in the air. Very rough air. I'm pretty sick of this. I hope if I can get on another flight later that the weather will be less bumpy. I know this is safe, in relative and statistical terms, but my lizard brain tells me that being thrown around in an airplane thousands of feet off the ground is a bad thing.

[Well, we made it back to RDU without any additional problems. Then, I stood in a long line and got a new ticket. I leave for Austin tonight. Of course, they’re predicting thunderstorms on this end tonight, so keep your fingers crossed.]

When Alpha is out of town, I usually end up answering phone calls that come up as “unknown number” on caller ID. No, I’m not so bored for conversation that I’ll answer the phone just to talk to somebody. I just never know when it will be her calling from a hotel or borrowed phone.

So, last night I answered the phone for one of these “unknown” callers. They said they were a research firm doing a survey. It’s well known that I enjoy giving my opinion. Of course, I haven’t been sleeping enough so I must have forgotten that we’re in the middle of political campaign season. Oops. But still, I wouldn’t have minded if it hadn’t turned out to be a push-poll from the Clinton campaign. I guess my leaning towards the Obama camp has fallen the whole way now.

It wasn’t a full-on Atwater or Rove negative push poll. It may even have come off as subtle to some people. It simply asked me how certain statements might affect my vote. The statements about Obama were negative about his readiness, experience, lack of policy, etc. The statements about Clinton were positive statements about her readiness, experience, strong policy, etc. I’m married to a PhD social psychologist; but I didn’t need her to tell me what was going on.

The funny thing is, if the situation were different, I’d be happy to vote for Hillary Clinton. In many ways I admire her. The right-wing really did seem to start attacking her from the very beginning of Bill’s first term. (Fear strong women much?) And, if she ends up with the nomination, I’ll be happy to vote for her.

The thing is we need us some change in this country. Not the generic campaigning politician, “change.” What we need even more than that is a change of names on the Whitehouse china. Our last 3 presidents have been named Bush or Clinton. In five presidential elections, we the people pulled the lever more for Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush*, Bush. Before that, the first Bush was VP for two terms. If we the people go: Bush**, Bush**, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Clinton… The last time there wasn’t one of those names in the Whitehouse was pre-1980. Do you think some people might think that US President is more of a birth right?*** Will the elections in 2016 be a compulsory showdown between Not-Jena Bush and Chelsea Clinton?



*Or, Gore depending on the maths you use.
**Vice President, duh.
***Yes, I know about John Adams and son John Quincy Adams. The four terms between them and the vastly smaller pool of citizens makes that excusable. Besides, they’re Alpha’s family.

from an enclave called dovetail?

These videos were emailed to my mom by my aunt, and were forwarded to me. I was just about to forward them to everyone I know, but realized that big attachments like that really aren't much fun to get for everybody.

I've never added video with blogger, so I hope this works well enough.

I'm sure I could find a use for the walking table, but I'm not sure I need it. If you had that expanding table, part of every dinner party would have to be expanding the table and setting the table while your guests watched.

happy birthday to me

I'll have a hunka-hunka birthday cake tonight, or more specifically- PIE! I'm old, but who cares.

As far as I could tell, nothing of great interest happened on this day in 1969 other than my birth. In 1968 Apollo 8 was launched on a mission to orbit the moon. 1970 Elvis Presley met with President Richard M. Nixon in the Oval Office to discuss fighting drugs. Hunka-hunka creepy dudes.

better than duct tape

I was going to just post this photo to my cell phone pics gizmo, but it was to genius to be missed. I had to put the picture here. I can only assume it must be the work of a clever electrician, but I don't know for sure since it was just parked on the street downtown. Apparently, the Honda Element has a utilitarian bolt-on roof rack system- probably at least $399.99 from the dealer. This ingenious owner probably spent less than $30 for 4 junction boxes, several feet of conduit, some bolts and a few cotter pins. Good jorb.

happy thanksgiving!

Here is it, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I'm at work. But, unlike any pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday in recent memory I am not frantically trying to finish a dozen different things so that I can avoid the guilt of taking a vacation day on Friday to have a nice 4-day weekend. I even worked on the Friday after Thanksgiving a few times. This is the first place I've worked where I get the Friday after as a holiday.

That's a nice example of my career shift from over-worked engineer to underworked. I like it better this way. I'm probably also a funner person to be around. It's certainly more fun to be me.

So, have a Happy Thanksgiving. Be thankful. Eat too much with your family. Watch the Cowboys win on Thursday and watch the Longhorns beat up on texas a&m on Friday.

p.s.- did anyone notice the cell phone pic thingy?

does anybody remember this?

It may be a little strange, but I found myself singing this song to eBaby during her bath a few nights ago. I hope she enjoyed it, even though I couldn’t remember all the words. Then, this morning my brain wanted me to sing the hamster dance song. I managed to irritate myself with that one.

I need something to read

Most of my life I wasn’t a reader. In high school, the assigned reading never seemed all that interesting to me and reading it just never caught on. In college, as an engineering student I didn’t feel like putting my free time towards anything resembling a book. It was very much bike before books. Then, several years ago, while we were still living in Austin, my wife’s aunt sent around an email survey asking about the books we’d read in the past year. “Hmmm,” I thought, “perhaps I’ll just put down what I wish I’d read?”

So, out of guilt and shame, I started reading. It’s a good thing I did. As the years went by, I really appreciated how fun it was to fill my mind with a good book as a way to escape the stress of the day. Now I’m hooked.

Of course, there is a problem. Since I haven’t always been much of a reader, I’m terrible at knowing where to find my next book. I find an author I enjoy, and then read too many of their books until uncovering the formula of their genius starts to diminish the enjoyment. Examples: see Carl Hiaasen and Tony Hillerman. Great fun, but I know what’s going to happen- more or less (Although, Hiaasen did break some of his own formulae in Nature Girl).

Right now, I am on a self imposed ban on books written by authors named “Neil.” In the past year or so, I’ve read 2 books by Neil Stephenson (Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash) and 3 books by Neil Gaiman (American Gods, Anasi Boys*, and Stardust). I need something different. There are a couple of books by both of those authors that are on my list to read, but I don’t want to do to them what I‘ve done to Hiaasen and Hillerman (and the “Neil” tie-in makes a great conversation starter at parties).

So, if anyone is out there, please give me some suggestions on books to read. I’m open to almost anything. I’ve recently enjoyed books as disparate in genre as Lonesome Dove, Odd Thomas, Something Rising, The Time Machine, Harry Potter VII - Whatever, Hounds of the Baskervilles, Kitchen Confidential, and You Suck. I even waded through a book that had me constantly complaining about how poorly it was written: Subterranean by James Rollins, just because it was there on my phone. Yes, on my phone. In addition to the more conventional books on paper, I really enjoy listening to books on my iPod and learned to read from my phone to avoid carrying a 1200+ page paperback on a trip to Europe. So, any media will be accepted, even comics if someone can make the slightest case I’ll enjoy it.

If I can avoid all works by authors named Neil, I only need a few books to get me through to January. On January 8th, I will be reading the long awaited Firefly Rain, by Richard Dansky. This will be the first time I’ll be able to read a book by someone I actually know. I can’t wait to buy him a beer in exchange for signing my copy.

Friends have been the best source of reading lists, and I look forward to more.

It’s delurking week, so say something. Thanks.

*If you haven’t read Anasi Boys, or even if you have, get the unabridged audio book read by Lenny Henry. I really can’t begin to say how much he added to the book.

blogging the deck

So, when I wrote my first real blog entry, it was to show-off my mad shed-building skills. That was back in May 2006. A wee bit has changed in the Truxillo-Romaine household since then. I am both surprised and not surprised that I’ve gone well over a year since my last construction project. However, almost on a whim, we built an addition to our back deck this weekend.

It’s not really a deck, because it sits on the ground, but that actually made it more difficult to build. The decking sits on 2x4 sleepers that sit on the stones we built the deck to cover. The problem is that all the shimming and leveling of the sleepers was more tedious than we thought it would be. If it were really a deck, I would have leveled 6 or 8 foundation posts and erected a framework to attach the decking to (and building permits!). Once the first few beams are leveled, the decking goes fast. Instead, we were leveling the sleepers under the decking about every other deck board.

The results are quite nice though. It lets us walk out into the backyard barefoot without having to walk on the stones that hurt feet of all sizes. It gives us more room to use more of our yard too. We’ve been talking about building an outdoor seating area with a Japanese-like feel: close to the ground for adults while being child sized. We’ll skip the built-in hibachi.

Mini-Me is ONE YEAR OLD Today!

It really has gone fast. I never intended this blog to be much, much less a "daddy blog" but that seems to be all I post anymore*. I guess that's just what happens when you become a parent, and you kid becomes the center of life. It's all that and more fun than it sounds.

Happy Birthday e.Baby!

*And, after calling out a friend's blog for not posting, a recent flourish of posts has me behind.

Why yes, I have been under a rock.

[Apologies to everyone over the age of 37, or anyone routinely referred to as "mom."]

This past weekend while celebrating Alpha's birthday with food and fake sport (Hubig's Pies & Bocce); a couple of friends were talking about a short from SNL called Dick in a Box. It sounded really funny, and apparently won an Emmy or something.

So, last night we looked it up on the You Tubes. It was as funny and clever as advertised. It also originally aired in December 2006. We just heard about it, despite the according to Wiki over 33 million people have watched the clip on You Tube. Also, if you haven't seen it, do take the time to watch My Box in a Box, too. It's a parody of a parody and who doesn't love that? But, you've probably already seen that too.

Like I said, I've been under a rock. The rock just started walking and she turns 1 year old on Monday. The trade-off of being a year behind on pop-culture has been worth it.

That's Where it Came From?

With Alpha and eBaby off on a work trip with Alpha's mom for company, I needed to do something that I wouldn't normally be able to do. The last trip, my activity was staying up late reading that damn book (boy wizard who-will-not-be-named). Tonight I decided to take a late-night bike ride.

This is something I haven't done in a very long time. So, I put a few extra lights on the single-speed, donned a shirt that would be seen, and rode off into the dark night. I'd forgotten how fun riding in the dark is. The area near our house is very secluded and very dark, but with the shirt I was wearing, I wasn't worried about being noticed by the few cars on the short bit of road I was on.

I decided to take the paved bike path towards the museum instead of the park road. The park has developed a few soft spots in the dirt surface that would be impossible to see in the dark. Even on predictable pavement, I had forgotten that the faster you go, the further you want to aim your lights. It was funny to use the brakes going down hills only because I didn't feel comfortable with how many seconds ahead I was able to see the bike path.

Once I was safely through the "speed" of the "downhill" section I was happy to be climbing up from the pond and past the horse farm. The silence was equal to the darkness, only while the darkness was pierced by my feeble bike lights, the silence was mainly taken up by the frogs and bugs. In its simplicity, the single speed doesn't make much noise. Just as I was beginning to enjoy the night noises, feeling alone in the dark I got the answer to a question that had been asked on another dark night, mainly, "Where did that deer come from?"

Yeah. Except it's actually scarier to have a deer jump out in front of you when you're only on a bike. It's also good that as a smaller target, I was spared the body-work the Scooby-Blue had to endure. Apparently, the deer like to sleep in the ditch between the bike path and the horse fence and the spook easily. It must have been my shirt.

I'm the Man?

When I started this blog, I described my employment as "over-employed engineer." I was really tired of feeling like I spent more time at work than I wanted to without really spending enough time to ever feel as if I had caught up with my responsibilities. It just wasn't fun anymore. Every night when I got home from the office, Alpha and E-baby had already been home for almost 2 hours. There just had to be a better way to live than to miss out on family for low job satisfaction.

Well, I finally stopped complaining and did something about it. Now, I work for the state. After nearly 15 years as a design engineer in construction, my new role is as the owner. I am "the man," or something. I'm not really engineering structures anymore, but my experience is still going to good use. I think the change will be fun, and the best part is coming home on time. We've even started taking short evening walks again.

T.R.B.I.B.P.

That would be the obligatory Texas Roadside Baby in Bluebonnets Photo if it wasn't obvious. For people that don't know Texas, you might not guess that it has some of the nicest wildflowers you'll see anywhere. Ladybird Johnson came up with what was one of the best marketing/ fiscal/ tourism/ just plain good ideas ever. Plant wildflowers along the side of the highways and beautify the highways, don't mow all summer, attract sightseers and give people a reason to slow down and enjoy the flowers. Of course, part of the springtime in Texas is also seeing people actually stop on the side of the road to take pictures of babies eating flowers.

Well, why would we be any different?

Following In My Own Father's Footsteps

When I was a child, my dad was the kind of dad that would build us stuff we needed and stuff we didn't know we needed until he built it. On Friday afternoon, I became that type of dad, too, and e.baby is only 6 months old.

E.baby loves to stand up. She can't do it all on her own, but she loves to practice. She knows we're holding her up. Then, she stood up while holding the toy-holder on her overstimulation gym. She didn't know that I was holding the bars to keep it from falling over, so she seemed to be even happier that she was holding herself up. Yes, a big step in the world of a tiny child.

This gave me an idea... I could build her something that would be perfect for her to stand with. So, I stopped at the Lowe's on the way home on Friday and purchased $7.98 worth of PVC pipe and fittings. Add about 20 minutes of work (including clean-up) and we had a new toy.

She seems to like it, even if it does have bar-codes and "PVC-1120 SCH.40 PR 600 PSI @ 73deg F [ASTM D-1785]" written on it. And thus, I have become my dad, building toys for my child from industrial supplies.

Funky Chicken, or Jive Turkey?

That could be the most important decision you ever make. Bigger than "paper or plastic?" A better window to your soul than "boxers or briefs?"

I admit it. Some decisions are hard to make. Myself, sometimes I find it hard to decide what to eat for lunch. Some decisions are easy though. I knew that getting married to Alphagal was the right decision. It was very easy, and I made the right choice. Easily, the best decision I've ever made.

On the other hand, it did take us a long time to decide to have a baby. I probably didn’t know for sure if that was the right thing well into the pregnancy. But, you know what? It's amazing. We were never less of a family when it was just the two of us, but with e.baby it really adds purpose. When a sleepy little child holds on to you, there is nothing wrong in the world.

Being Sick is Boring

I've spent the last 2 days home from work, sick. I'm not fond of work, generally, but it beats being sick any day. And I don't say that just because sick time and vacation time are the same thing at my office (I rarely get sick, so it isn't a problem). The thing is, being sick is boring. When you feel like crap, it's not as if there's anything to do that's much fun. The good news is, tonight I feel like I might be getting better. My plan is to go back to work tomorrow.

More good news- I finished the bike. The old brake levers didn't work with V-style brakes, so I just bought a cheap "upgrade" kit with brakes, levers, and cable in one box. The whole project cost less than $200. The photo shows the new bike hanging in the center and most of the others in the shot. I think the only one that didn't make it into the frame is e.baby's little red bike. Some people might say we have too many bikes, I just say the garage is too small.

Another Bike to Not Ride

I actually only bought the new frame because I thought it would be a fun project. I figured very roughly that I had most of the parts to build up a new bike, so when I saw a frame for $45 I figured I couldn't pass on it. Yes, for $45 I didn't expect much. My $45 delivered a painted blue steel frame with low quality welds, almost something you expect to see , "huffy ironman triathlon pro titanium boron steel*" printed on the sticker. But, my Forty-Fiver does have standard disc brake mounts, rack mounts, and anything else you'd want in a low-cost steel frame. Paired with a $35 rigid fork, it should be a fun ride.

Yeah, I have named the bike, it's the Forty-Fiver. I've already had a headset put on, and I need to buy a stem and bars. From my used parts bin, I have installed a bottom bracket and the STX-RC cranks. I have also have front Deore V-brakes, although I don't know if the brake levers I have will work with them. I have two full pairs of cantilever brakes that I know will work with the levers, but then I'd also have to dig up some cable hangers, since even for $45 they assume you'll come up with v-type brakes.

My Klein hard-tail may be almost 12 years old, but it's still a great frame and I've kept it fairly updated. The more I think about it, the Forty-Fiver needs to be a bit quirky because I don't actually need another bike. At first I had planned to use some old grip-shifters and put full gears on the bike, but along that quirky idea the Forty-Fiver is going to be a single speed, and I might not even install the rear brake. My best friend growing up had a BMX bike with only a front brake- why not just build the 26" version? Let's see: rigid fork, single speed, front brake only... opps, I think it's a BMX cruiser.


*real bike: Dianaverse took me to a creek at Dix to try to rescue one from the mud for free. Everything below the waterline was toast. Last week Alphagal saw one listed for sale on a message board at her place of employment.

Well. Now that the blog of fun was finaly updated, it's my turn. I have been busy since my last entry, but as you may know, the bike is still collecting dust. I don't really need to say what I've been up to, since it's not as if there are people who only know me from my blog. And, to save time... they say picture is worth a thousand words (does this make my entry longer than it is?). Hook'em.