photos

Leahpeah and me, approximately before and after our trip:

Onward, y’all! And hey, what’s up with the hot weather out here? And when are the darn water temperatures going to rise to go with the air temperature rise?

Tyler is 15 now and has been playing competitive league basketball pretty much for 4 years I think. He’s been playing football even longer. He’s on the High School Freshman teams for both.

Anyway, yesterday I took Tyler out to his basketball games in Santa Barbara. It was a pretty good time overall. Ty reminds me somewhat of me at that age, but then I think all the kids end up reminding me of my best and worst qualities at that age. Tyler has great focus, which I had when I wanted to, about art or what interested me. Tyler loves sport, and being on a team, which I despised at that age, other than, perhaps, hanging out with my friend Chris or working on a mural.

So we drove out to Santa Barbara from Moorpark, and got there just in time. First game was against Sophomores and Juniors, and the boys got beat, but they played well and didn’t resort to any nasty play—the opposing team got I 3 fouls for unsportsmanlike conduct over the course of the game. After the game, one of the referees took the whole team aside and complimented them for not giving up, not laying down, and for “playing classy”—the team coach said this kind of a compliment is rare, and was proud of the performance the guys showed.

The facility they all played in is called the Thunderdome. The thing is shaped like a cross, and can have up to 6 games going at any one time. We were on court 1 for the first game. They fit that many games collapsing folding bleachers. The name always makes me chuckle, though the stadium was built before Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

We had a bit over an hour between games and I decided to try out UCSB’s pool facilities. I hadn’t swum yet, and I gotta do that if I am able. It was real nice, though it took me a while to get there since I had to track down an ATM first. But I got about 30 minutes in of laps. Their pools were huge! When I was done, they even had one of those swimsuit-spinner things that dries out your suit. Lots of college kids working out, playing games, swimming and using their gym facilities.

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Tyler hung out with his team while I did that. I ran a little late, but luckily with the number of games going and the natural margin for error at tournaments, I was right on time for the game at 7 which started at 7:15.

Ty’s team was evenly matched for the second game. They were tied 17-17 at the halfway point—the games are played in two 20 minute periods. But the other team hustled real well in the second half and they got ahead by about 12 points. Moorpark started to close in them, but when the buzzer sounded we lost by 4. Disappointing loss for the boys. Of course they were tired from playing a game just two hours earlier, but so was the other team. There is another game today (Sunday).

On the way home we got sandwiches—I wanted to get some well-made fast food—a non chain take out burger joint, but we found a Subway and got footlongs. It was good stuff and we both ate hearty.

Like I wrote, Tyler is 15 now and has his driving permit, so he can drive. He didn’t ask to drive on the way there, but he asked on the way home. Saturday night on the 101 out of Santa Barbara didn’t sound like fun to me, so I offered him Oxnard to home, and he did fine. He’s sort of iffy on some of the transitions—he turns a bit too wide going left, but he listened to criticism and kept us safe. I never felt like we were out of control.

Next week on Saturday I’ll be attending my Sister’s wedding around Washington, D.C. I’m so excited for her. She and Daniel have been together for a long while, and we’re so happy for them both.

Today we have some last things to do at the old place, and another game for Tyler. I’m not sure where swimming fits in, but then I never do know. I’m on a four-streak (Taxes broke the last one). I guess I’ll see how it turns out. I’m not sure I have a specific goal in noting the streaks. I know very well that stuff happens to break the days-in-a-row swimming streaks. But there’s something important about this keeping track. Somewhat like this article about Jerry Seinfeld’s “Don’t Break The Chain”—here’s an article describing it: Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret:

Years ago when Seinfeld was a new television show, Jerry Seinfeld was still a touring comic. At the time, I was hanging around clubs doing open mic nights and trying to learn the ropes. One night I was in the club where Seinfeld was working, and before he went on stage, I saw my chance. I had to ask Seinfeld if he had any tips for a young comic. What he told me was something that would benefit me a lifetime…

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. But his advice was better than that. He had a gem of a leverage technique he used on himself and you can use it to motivate yourself—even when you don’t feel like it.

He revealed a unique calendar system he uses to pressure himself to write. Here’s how it works.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

Welcome to Thunderdome!

Took this photo with my phone this morning at the old house. It’s of an old, faded photo in a dilapidated frame. This shot by Leah is from a bit before I knew them—I think.

They are so tiny! They’re now all between 13 and 19 years old and look quite different. Three of them drive. Yikes is probably an appropriate word to say at this point.

Incidentally, I discovered the other day that I’ve become a patriarch. A mild one, but a patriarch nonetheless. It’s not unwelcome, and I don’t know when it happened, but I’ll not turn back.

Onward.

But only because I’m narcissistic:

Photo of me and Erin’s cat Frida from I believe 1990 (though possibly 1989, but I doubt it):

Thankfully, my mustache phase did not last too long. I suppose every man has to try it out for a while.

Thanks Erin for posting that!

The craziest part of the photo, as I think of it, is not that I have a caterpillar on my lip, but that Frida actually seems happy to be snuggling with me for a minute. She’s now, er… reluctant to be friendly with me, or anyone but Ewon!

Tuesday morning on the way to Camarillo I was stuck in some traffic:

Yesterday morning I went into work early, via PCH, and the overcast was sort of pretty:

And this is what I look like after a swim:

I think of swimming laps as a bit like methadone. I’m looking forward to the heroin of the ocean to be available.

There are much worse vices than swimming. I know because I’ve tried them.

I enjoy having candy at my desk. My co-workers like it too. The lesson on these Starbursts is that the tropical flavored ones have wrappers that look just about the same as the regular ones, but they just don’t taste good enough, and taste too different from the regular that they are surprising in a bad way.

So, no more tropical Starbursts.

In other, more substantial and important news, Leah and I found a rental on the other side of town—I think we’re finally going to have the space we need for the family. We’re in a 3 bedroom duplex and we’ll be moving—assuming we get it—into a 4 bedroom house with a nice back yard and a little deck and some view. Cross your fingers that the credit checks and background checks and whatnot go well. We really like the realty guy we’re dealing with—straight shooter, go-getter, and several other peppy terms apply to him. Dropped off the paperwork to him on Monday.

So how’d we do it? On Saturday we drove around where we want to live, every street, every cul-de-sac, looking for signs. The ones on craigslist and online typically have folks interested already. I drive around as safely and quickly as possible, up every street, keeping track of where we’ve been and basically “learning the map” as though I were starting a level in a first-person shooter. Leah is my RIO (that stands for Radar Intercept Officer) and we look for signs and symptoms of rentals and leases. We look at all the signs. Sometimes it’s just a “this house was just painted by Acme Painting Co.”—and usually it’s “this house is for sale” —but sometimes it’s a “for rent” or “for lease” sign. And that’s what we wanted. So we did that for about 3 hours Saturday morning and got 5 great leads, including three I know have not shown up online. It was a great, productive morning.

Later on we drove down the coast from Oxnard to Malibu. It was a beautiful drive, and we kept our eyes out for people in the water without wetsuits. The water temperature is still in the fifties—but Spring Break brings out the bathers and I just might be crazy enough to go into the water at that temperature. Summer can’t come fast enough as far as I’m concerned.

Later on, we had lunch and saw paparazzi, as Leah chronicled.

Easter was chilled out without the kids around, but in a good way. We’re looking forward to them getting back from their trip with their dad.

So this year my driver’s license expired, and so I renewed it and I had to kiss my party trick good-bye. I used to love proving I once had hair to my waist by whipping this lovely photo out.

No longer, my latest license just has a standard issue terrible photo.

I suppose I could aim at 2013 to have long hair again, though it would be quite a bit grayer by then.

My birthday was quite mellow yesterday. Leah sang to me and gave me cake and it was just fine.

This weekend we’ll try and go out.

Also coming up this weekend: looking for a place to live! Fun. Which is to say, not really very fun.

I’m a sucker for seeing how things get made—“how do they do that?”

So seeing photos over on Rick’s blog of Joe Bennion throwing some of his pottery—well—I was blown AWAY! Really wonderful to see the work being done. And Joe has even more photos over on his blog.

Joe Bennion does beautiful work.

The completely appropriate title on this post from over in Vintage Ads is “Banana Hell.”

Enjoy.

Photo by Leah. As our pied cockatiel gets older, supposedly the feathers of his face will get more and more yellow, a process we can see happening slowly with him. It’s hard to suss out how much personality he really has. He’s not quite like a dog or a cat, where there is true loyalty shown, his motivations and preferences are more subtle than either. He will hiss when he doesn’t like something, he will bite if something’s happening he does not like, while if he likes something he’ll sort of dance around or coo a bit. He’s very fun to watch, and having him on my shoulder makes me appreciate the way movie pirates have Parrots on their shoulders. I suppose birds are what people watched before they did before television.