Timmerov's Blog
wrapping paper
our walls are covered with kiddie art. some of it's kinda nice to look at hanging on the walls. one in particular looks like something a preschooler would do, because surprise surprise a preschooler did do it. it's been dibsed as special to alisa. and as such is off limits. this artwork makes wonderful wrapping paper for birthday presents.
out of gas
i chose to take alisa to bella vista because it was where we went on our first formal date several children ago. she wore a red dress and a french braid. the view was spectacular. we had abalone and venison. it's located a surprising distance from civilization. alisa had a new car and we hadn't yet found out what it means when the empty light comes on. we pulled into the gas station at alice's just as the car died. alisa said, we made it. i said, they're closed. fortunately, alice had a key and sold us enough gas to get down the hill.
sacher torte
alisa wanted a sacher torte for her birthday cake. there was no way i could make one. so i tried to get one at the prolific oven in palo alto. they really wanted to make something on their list. so i ended up with a chocoalate on chocolate two layer cake. it was good. but it wasn't a sacher torte.
bella vista
for dinner last night we got all dressed up and went to
bella vista on skyline. the view was spectacular. alisa wore a red dress and a french braid. she was worried about falling out of the dress. like i said, the view was spectacular. i wore my suit and a tie. i cannot remember the last time i wore a tie. this one was was checkered with hundred acre woods characters. we had abalone for appetizer, veal and duck for entrees. yum.
alisa
happy birthday darling. love you.
sad day
b and g's little friend and neighbor miranda is moving away. they bought a house about two miles away to be right next door to her grandparents and to be in a better school district. the boys are sad. sigh.
ip phone
i don't use my ip phone very often. so i'm not real familiar with all its features. like say the mute button. alisa was in texas for the day. i needed to teleconference to a meeting. so i set garrett up in front of the tv watching dora and bob. he needed a potty break. so the whole staff heard him yelling, dad! i need you to come wipe my bottom! i now know where the mute button is.
bed making
i've never been a fan of making the bed. no one's gonna see it. so why bother? but we have a cat. and she likes to sleep on the bed. we trained her to sleep on the foot of the bed away from the pillows. but then we turned the bed around. it turns out to be a whole lot easier to make the bed every day than to teach the elderly cat that the foot of the bed has moved.
wurst maki
every year alisa's sister julie and drew host a big bottle party. it's pot luck. they usually come up with an unusual theme to go with a very large bottle of wine. this year's theme was german and asian. i made wurst maki. (also called deutsche roll.) i thought it turned out pretty good. the sushi mat alisa got for mother's day was very useful. there were no leftovers. the first one didn't look as good as the later ones. as alisa swiftie said, i was on a roll.
hockey divas
my next hockey team will be named the hockey divas. divas are really exceptional singers. when it comes to playing hockey, we're really good singers. the name was inspired when i misheard alisa say the boys were playing hockey like demons.
rescue operation
a while ago i ferried a friend of mine to columbia airport (near yosemite) in my plane to pick up his plane. it got a nice shiny new interior. while we were there we got to participate in a rescue operation. apparently some kids got in trouble snow camping and needed to be air lifted out. our contribution was pushing our airplanes out of the way so the helicopter could get out of the hangar.
baby proofing
garrett's three and a half now. i finally got tired of unlocking the bathroom cabinet doors every time i wanted a bandaid or shaving cream. i got out a screwdriver and removed the baby proofing latches. yay!
priapus
so the players were griping and moaning because they had been taken prisoner and their captors had taken away all their weapons, spell components, and holy symbols. i just told them to suck it up. it could be worse. how? they demanded. you could be a cleric of priapus.
peak oil
i'm kinda looking forward to the next few decades when energy isn't ridiculously cheap. we won't be able to afford as much of a whole bunch of things. for examples: obesity, medicare, grass lawns, suv's, beef, war on drugs, gay marriage bans, prisons, etc.
cryptic crosswords
games magazine has a particularly twisted puzzle known as the cryptic crossword. to make it more interesting we use a variation that's usually applied to poker. now, i'm not going into details here but think of something that starts with ess tee are and rhymes with blip.
wiki
i successfully installed mediawiki on admin. it was relatively straightforward. i'd publish the url but it's for clan lord game masters only. at least for now. two things needed to be installed first: php and mysql. both were also straightforward. wiki's rock.
darwin v newton
if i were to go to the kansas school board hearings, i wouldn't talk about darwin. i'd talk about newton. classical newtonian mechanics is taught in high school physics classes all over the country. and no one complains. the thing is - classical mechanics is just a theory, not a fact. and in fact, classical mechanics is wrong. in some cases it's absurdly wrong. this paperweight here on my desk when treated as a classical black body should be radiating lethal amounts of gamma radiation. i should be dead now. clearly, it's not. but we teach physics classes without any fuss. why not? because it doesn't offend anyone's religion. not anymore. though it used to. copernicus predicted the positions of the planets very simply using the mathematical trick of putting the sun at the center of the system. no problem there. but then galileo and bruno said it's a physical reality that the sun is the center of the system not just a mathematical curiosity. bruno burned on a stake for his heresy. galileo recanted when he faced the inquisition. we've achieved a bit of enlightenment since 1633. at least with that theory. which is useful. even if it is wrong.
evolution
evolution is under attack again by the kansas board of education. apparently, scientists have boycotted the hearings. that sounds kinda dumb to me. like the sunnis boycotting elections in iraq.
sunglasses
we went to bonfante gardens. i'm sure my sunglasses were in the truck/bus/suv thing when we left. but i couldn't find them for days. i looked everywhere. finally i gave up and went to target and bought a new pair. and of course i found the old pair when as soon as i got home and went to put the new pair away. pah.
tower
we recently replaced our sprint broadband wireless internet connection with speakeasy dsl. now we have this question of what to do with this 20' tall tower in our back yard. i was thinking of taking down the diamond shaped transceiver and converting the tower into a flagpole. run up a nice jolly roger. argh! anyone know where i can get a federation of planets flag? or better, a brown coat independents flag.
katz
we had house guests for a while recently. they brought a cat. our cat katz didn't take too well to having a strange cat in her house and specifically not in her litter box. katz is like an octogenarian in people years. so it was pretty surprising to see her with her claws out and starting fights. eventually they divided up the house. then jasmine left. and katz moped around all day, mewling pathetically. apparently she was lonely and missed that other cat. felines. sheehs.
forfeits
the first time we were scheduled to play the shootahz... they didn't have a goalie and forfeited. pah. so we were looking forward to handing them their wheels last week. but they only had three skaters and forfeited again. double pah. rather sux to have paid for 10 games and only get to play 8.
bait machine
one day, alisa needed to ship something and keep it cold. the helpful man suggested dry ice. but he warned her to pack it in plastic so it doesn't get wet when the dry ice melts. oh yeah thought alisa. good idea. where does one get dry ice? well there happens to be a fish place in town. outside they have a vending machine that dispenses live bait. true story. she points it out every time we go on a date to the restaurant next door.
first swords
i recently re-read fred saberhagen's books of swords trilogy. 'course when i read it the first time it was three books. now you can get them all together in one
book from amazon. once again i found it to be an enjoyable read. 'course i'm rather fond of the fantasy genre.
counter
the other day i heard garrett in the bathroom. it sounded wrong. so i checked. he had climbed up onto the counter and was standing at the edge over the potty whizzing away. to his credit he got most of it into the pot. but we still had a little talk. i swear i have no idea where he gets it.
alisa swiftie 3
i love my wife. i shared with a friend this alisa swiftie, cold pizza is not something i can warm up to. his response was, keep her. heh. yeah, i think i will.
zebra cow
alisa made the most spectacular animal hoods for bennett's first grade springtime production of the lion king. one of bennett's little friends was pestering alisa about his zebra hood. bennett told him it looks like a cow. a cow!?!? a brown cow. i swear, i have no idea where he gets it. ;->
asfelkar
the gm dutifully prepped the dungeon. he knew all the monsters, spells, encounters, npc's, everything by heart. no gm has ever been more ready. the only thing he didn't do was say the names out loud. the game broke up when we met the ruler of the realm. i am lord ass-fucker. sometimes i wonder if adventure designers do this on purpose.
insomnia
one day garrett informed us that he couldn't sleep at night because he could hear the toys calling to him. gaaaaaaarrett. come play with us garrett. gaaaaarreeeee beeeaaarrrrr. come play with us. to paraphrase
joe, i have no idea where he gets it.
oil
a barrel of oil has lots of energy in it. how much exactly is an interesting question that can be answered pretty easily. just convert it to man hours of labor. take a moment to take a guess how many man hours of labor are in a barrel of oil. close your eyes and think about your answer for a minute. go ahead. no one's looking. the answer is surprisingly large. staggering even. in a single barrel of oil there are fifteen man /years/ of labor. we pay $60 per barrel. at that rate my salary should be $4 a year.
