- This is quite an amazing story related (pointed at by @RyanSelby) http://bit.ly/cZnHNz #
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April 30, 2010
Wayne’s twitter updates for 2010-04-30
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April 29, 2010
Wayne’s twitter updates for 2010-04-29
- RT: Toy Story 3 is finished. Pixar's 11th feature film is in the can. (via @leeunkrich) #
- Neat profile of RenderMan from @upcomingpixar! http://bit.ly/absMD0 #
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April 28, 2010
Wayne’s twitter updates for 2010-04-28
- I hate tracking down memory stompage bugs on STL data structures. #
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April 27, 2010
13th anniversary
It slipped by a little bit, but Monday was my 13th wedding anniversary. A friend says that’s it’s a Russian tradition to call it your family’s birthday. I like thought alot.
The day was pouring rain. We were dazed from Maui. Sara had streams of paperwork from school with the last days before us. It was our full day o work, daycare, and school. We’re leaving for another trip next week. Maui was our anniversary gift. We even went out to eat last week.
It still felt nice to acknowlege the day. So we made chocolate covered strawberries with the girls. A great day.
Wayne and I finished Moloka’i, the story of father Damien. Great and fascinating story of hardship and generosity.
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Biking
I volunteered at Sara’s school today. With all the craziness swirling around me, it is a nice way to feel grounded. It reconnects me with her school and class. I love Sara’s school experience. I get giddy just thinking about it. There were so many cool things. Teaching the kids tallying with a coin toss; dictating stories from writers workshop; seeing the cool books they find at the library; helping kids learn how to balance on bikes in PE.
It’s bike riding in PE right now. Sara missed some practice sessions last week due to learning to snorkel in Maui. But we’re back and into school mode. She was put in the learner group. That means her pedals were removed and she worked on gliding and balancing without training wheels. She was a little sad about being in rhe basic group but excited to earn her pedals. I got to see her receive that honor today. She still needs to work on pedaling, but her efforts got acknowledged in front of her entire class. Tomorrow it’s riding with the big kids.
We went to our normal lunch at Lunchbox Laboratory. After I dropped her back, I visited with a friend for a few minutes. After school, I took them both swimming. A taste of normal life.
Photos:
Sara with big dog at her afterschool care. Bikes and helmets in the gym. Sara without pedals.
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April 26, 2010
Wayne’s twitter updates for 2010-04-26
- I'd love to see a picture of Jason Chen "pants'ing" that search warrant. #
- Having just returned from Maui (and seeing a picture of the cast in Mama's Fish House) I found this interesting. http://tinyurl.com/y2t6k5x #
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April 24, 2010
Wayne’s twitter updates for 2010-04-24
- Really going to miss Maui! 80F and sun everyday vs rain & 45F in Seattle. I can see why folks come and never go back. #
- About to touch down in Honolulu. One part of the marathon trip home. http://yfrog.com/5dw4dyj #
- Waiting on baggage at SEATAC. On a good day the wait can be longer than Heathrow during the strike. Sigh. #
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Toilet travel
Laura doesn’t like toilets that flush while she’s on them. We encountered a lot of them on our Wisconsin travels. The worse were in O’Hare. They were automatic flush and covered in plastic. She flatly refused to use those. She cried when I told her there was no other choice. The weirdest thing about the plastic cover is the true waste. I will change the plastic for the next person, but if I walk into a bathroom, I automatically change the plastic. I hate the water from a premature flush getting caught up in the plastic involutions.
Honolulu toilets are automatic flush. Laura was trepidatious. We didn’t realize they’re on Hawaiian time. No premature flushes. Laura took glee in pressing the flush button before the sensors were even thinking of activating.
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Maui departure
The poolside condo. But no pool. Like I said before, the ocean is the best pool.
5:30am again. Get out by 8. The shelves are barren. I have a few apple slices. Girls eat cereal. The half gallon of milk has gone bad. Wayne and I split the last, sweet bits of strawberry guava jam on bread. No one wants 2 day old edamame. PBS is on in force. We use it to finish packing. Empty dishwasher. Wash last plates by hand. Put PJs in luggage. Brush teeth so I can put bathroom bags away.
Case the Joint. I actually find some shorts in a forgotten drawer. We almost leave a plug at the gate. Looking behind is a very useful habit my traveling Dad taught me.
Goodbye, Hale Pau Hana!
Rental car dropoff is fine.
Navigating thru the airport is complex. We get thru the line to a kiosk and Wayne realizes we forgot to got thru agricultural inspection. He futzes with checkin while I hurriedly schlep the bags to agriculture. We have to even do Sara’s carseat base. I head back. There’s a huge group approaching before me. A moment of grace in the hurry and fury. An inspector appears out if thin air before I even get in line, slaps a sticker on the base, and frees me to return to Wayne to get our baggage checked.
Security in Maui. The only Xray machine in the US that is set off by my hip replacement.
Sara cries when she realizes the puddle jumper to Honolulu is too short for a movie.
We have a blast turning the safety information card into a
reading exercise. I’m impressed that my girl keeps making leaps and bounds in that area. She would interpret the pictures for me. We talked about airplane safety. She noticed the differences in planes I normally ignore when we contined the exercise on our bigger plane to Seattle.
In Honolulu, there was a huge map of the islands on the wall. We continued academics with geography. We discussed the definition of an island. We passed a gate for Japan with a double decker plane. We talked about Japan as a country, looked it up on the map, and compared it to the Hawaiian Islands. School at the airport.
We found Gordon Biersch at Gate 29 (?). A blessing. A known. There was a table for 4 that opened up just as we arrived with a lovely corner for a stroller and lots of bags. Laura was starting to act silly with tiredness. We split a turkey melt and a grilled cheese with French fries. Ok food that hit the spot. Finally our gate got assigned and we found a home base.
The 5 hr stretch yawns out. So I write. I like to know where I’ve been.
Hawaiian quirks
Left side of plane in back quarter- all aisle seats have odd metal boxes bolded to the floor competing with my feet for a very cramped space.
Pasta is tepid. Turkey sandwich on croissant holds up well, even better than Gordons fresh turkey melt (with damp underside, but good bread.)
Doug picked us up. What a blessing! Home in my own bed at 12:30pm Seattle time.
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Beach books
I didn’t have time before Hawaii to pick and choose my book. The trips have been coming fast and furious (in fact, I have one more in 2 weeks). Despite the loveliness that is travel, it also takes lots of time and energy. My priority was to buy a new bathing suit and jeans. Luckily, Land’s End/Sears served me well.
Back to books…Mom gave me 3 books before I came home from Atlanta. I cracked Sue Grafton’s latest…U (I think) the night before Wisconsin. I stayed up till 4am reading. I didn’t take it since it’s a hard back and I needed to travel light. I consumed it when I returned.
The second was A Heart for Horses by Molly Cross. The silhouetted cover of a girl riding a galloping horse beguiled Sara. I was interested in the premise – a female horse whisperer in rural Oregon during WWI. Fiction isn’t always gripping to me even with horses involved. I knew there’d be lots of other things mixed in, hard stories of life and trajedy. No popcorn fare. Like a cold ocean, I was slow to wander in. The book came to Vancouver. I blogged in short bursts of time. I opened it, but wasn’t grabbed.
Finally, the 5 hr flight to Maui came along. There was no other option. So I grabbed the paperbook on my nightstand. Time and boredom forced me into it. And I was glad they did.
So I didn’t mean to spend my time thinking about rural, ranching Oregon. I didn’t mean to be haunted by a story of a good man wracked with cancer so he can feel it thru his skin. I didn’t mean to feel the rawness of love. I didn’t mean to dream about the roughness of an Oregon winter outside on horseback or a girl struggling to be independent but falling in love, but I did. On the beached of Maui. In front of sunsets. It was a good plunge. A ‘for my own good’ type read.
Then I was left with nothing. And another 5 hr plane ride. I wandered into the common condo laundry room. Beach reading filled 2 shelves- romances, NYT bestsellers, thrillers. Nothing really took. I could have read another Sue Grafton of the past. Too soon. I chose James Patterson’s Sam’s Letters to Jennifer. The James Patterson I know writes tight crime thrillers with great characters, but gruesome crimes that pushed me away. This must be a different guy. The book is anything but tight. The story slips around throwing emotional curveballs at every turn without grabbing my emotions. If I see, “I laughed and I cried” on another page, I’ll scream. But I’m stuck. On a plane. Nicolas Sparks writes this type of stuff much better. Ahhhh, for an Oregon winter and an unbroken horse.
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