Pictures

So, from now on, the majority of the photos will be added on Andrew's facebook. It has a far simpler uploader and the blogs are built more for the writing than for the pictures.

Pictures of Tombstone - part 1

This is one of the few times Cole stopped running while at Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone.



Off he goes.

Ever the willing participant.

Headstones that give you something to look forward to.

Some photos from December 21-24

Taken 12-21-08. It has gotten cold here a few mornings.

The pictures below were taken on the way to Tombstone.

I thought this was a neat shot. Interesting coincidence, in "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" there is a picture of a windmill made by the same company.

"Living the dream"

On Saturday (12/27) Mindy worked until 2. We picked her up at work and drove as fast as we could to Tempe. The opening celebration of the Phoenix light rail was Saturday and Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers were playing at the Tempe station from 4:30-5:30 and it was free. We made great time, despite a couple of Arizona Highway Patrol officers who thought that driving in the pack of cars we were in for 15 minutes was a good idea. The Tempe station is right in front of the football stadium and about 300 yards from the dorm I lived in as a freshman. We parked in the stadium parking lot and walked right over to the stage. There were a decent number of people there, but it was really not that crowded. All the trains that went by were absolutely packed. Cole loved the trains and kept trying to get on them. The band played and we had a great time. It was funny to see the crowd of adults almost all our age or older singing along holding their kids. I'll post some pictures of that later, they require some rework as they were taken from a good distance with the telephoto lens.

Now to "living the dream". This came up a few months ago when Mindy and I were discussing what we wanted to be when we grew up. She said her response to that question had always been "I want to be a mom". Now when the boys are at their most pleasant and the earplugs aren't close enough at hand I remind her that she's "living the dream".

First stop on our "living the dream" tour was a women's bathroom at one of the dorms at ASU where we changed both the boys. It was a building built in the 50's so the bathroom was quite small. There is no way this thing met any portion of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).

The second leg of the tour was a bit more spread out. First we drove over to the Mesa temple to see the lights. They were really pretty, but by this time it was 7 so we just drove by. Somewhere between Queen Creek and Casa Grande Parker began his meltdown. It wasn't long before we realized that nothing we had in the car was going to stop the screaming so we stopped at the first "food" place we could find. We were all a lot more pleasant after getting some food in us and thought that it may have only been a two-part tour.

Now for part three. At this point it was probably 8:30 and we got going again. Things went well for a while, Parker was asleep and Cole was just looking around. Then Cole started to complain about everything. We gave Cole a bottle and he kept tossing it at us. After a few rounds of this he really started to scream. Mindy turned on the lights and found that Cole had pushed the nipple in and dumped milk (with ice cubes) all over himself. After driving for another mile or trying to figure out what to do and hoping for a sign indicating an exit in 1/4 mile, I pulled as far off the road as I could-- the shoulder plus another 8'. Just so the image is complete it was about 9:00, 35 degrees, and DARK. With all the rain earlier in the week there was mud at the far right edge of the shoulder which Mindy hopped right out into. I pulled Cole from his seat and we stripped him down to his diaper at the back of the car and put his pajamas on there in the cold, in the dark , on the side of the road. I must mention that the stars were amazing out there. Cole wasn't happy to get back into his wet car seat, but he managed to fall asleep about 10 minutes before we got home.

Sound fun? Just living the dream!

Weekend update

It is now Saturday (now Monday). Time flies when you're having fun. We have had a good week- wet but good. It rained Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Tuesday night we tried to go to the zoo lights at the Tucson Zoo, but it was closed. So we drove through downtown to see if we could spot any trains heading through since Cole thinks trains are the greatest thing ever- without success. We went by work and retrieved my computer and were grateful we had no need to go inside the mall.

The downstairs neighbors were gone for a few days which was really nice since their ears aren't old enough to not hear the boys thumping around up here. Cole and I wrestled for a while before he went to bed.

On Christmas eve we went to Tombstone. I ought to scan the cemetery guide they gave us. For a small town of 15,000, there seemed to be a disproportionately large number of people who died violent deaths, but I guess mining towns weren't where old folks were living, so the majority of people dying in those towns would have been from accidents or murders.

Mindy made a nice dinner, but both of the boys were having the meltdown of the quarter, so it was far from relaxing or pleasant. We got them to bed and Mindy and I stayed up for a while and got the gifts set out. Our "Christmas tree" this year was our red armchair. We piled the gifts on it and in front of it.


Our visitor this Christmas was Wile E. Coyote. As we were about to open the gifts I heard some people out on the golf course behind us yelling. I looked out and they were yelling at a coyote which was at that point standing about 25' from them. They got in the golf cart and drove off and I got out the camera and took some pictures. It rained a lot of the day so we stayed inside and played. In the late afternoon I took Cole for a walk (he ran) out on the golf course. It was probably about 1/2 mile. He ate a little when we got back and went to bed at a decent hour.

Our Christmas Vacation Plans

So we are quickly coming up on Christmas and I am getting so tired that I am thinking words but not typing them. I also need to do this on my work laptop since I am far more comfortable with the keyboard on it (most of the keys have some degree of polishing, and some like the spacebar are almost completely polished clean from use).

I've got from mid-day Wednesday until the 5th off of work. We were trying to decide what to do during all that time off. We had some good ideas and I had one horribly idiotic idea.

During this time off we are going to go to the Sonoran Desert Museum, the Reid Park Zoo for the Christmas lights, Tombstone, and the grand opening of the Phoenix light rail.

My horribly idiotic idea was to drive to New York and surprise my parents. Serious consideration of that idea lasted for about ten minutes. It is just that we could drive there for far less than we could fly and really, who wants to deal with the morons who work at the TSA? It is a group of people that would be working at a fast food joint but for September 11. Now these bozos are going to keep us safe by making sure we don't bring too much toothpaste or deodorant on the airplane or better yet by making us take our toddler's shoes off for security? Right! The least they could do is clear the empty gray bins off the roller table as we all stand there and put our clothes back on after game. It is akin to the doctor that takes you from a "nice" waiting room to a windowless and magazine-less exam room and then makes you wait 30 minutes just to show he is the doctor and you are not.

Anyway, we are not going to drive to NY and I am going to avoid dealing with any TSA people for as much of the next year as possible. We are going to have a very desert Christmas and spend time together as a family and think of ways to wear out the boys so they go to bed early and give us time to clean the house before they wake up in the morning to begin again the process of destroying any semblance of order in the house (using the term 'house' loosely of course).

Cole tonight 12-22-2008

Here are a couple of pictures of Cole this evening. I was feeding Parker and he was off playing. Then he started to walk across the living room to the counter where he grabbed his sunglasses and insisted that I put them on him. He's a great kid and we love him. In case you're wondering, yes, a bomb did go off in the living room.

Books of 2008

Maryanne made a list of some books she read this year, I liked the idea. I'm not sure which of the first three are from this year. I'm pretty sure John Adams was early this year.

1. John Adams by David McCullough was a great read. I didn't really know anything about Adams prior to reading this book. I was impressed by the man and his dedication to this country. This was read either immediately before or after 1776 by the same author, so there was much more familiarity with the events of those times than there otherwise would have been.
2. 1776 by David McCullough details the events of that critical year. I had never realized how many times the Almighty intervened in little ways (weather) that kept the Continental Army from being captured or destroyed by the British.
3. His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis discusses Washington and his role as the commander of the continental army and his unwavering dedication to the cause. It also covers his somewhat reluctant acceptance of the Presidency. The three books combined really helped to reaffirm what an incredible group of inspired men were concentrated in the colonies at that time. While they were certainly not perfect, either in their politics or their private lives, they were men of principle, honor and dedication.
4. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin thoroughly examines the disparate group of men that Lincoln made into his cabinet, and how he worked with and through these men to help steer the country through the Civil War. There were also some great quotes from Lincoln. It also covers thoroughly Lincoln's ability to read people and properly time his actions.
5. Freedom from Fear by David Kennedy is part of the Oxford History of the United States. It covers from 1929-1945. There is a significant amount of the book devoted to discussion of the causes of Great Depression. I read this early in the year before the economy really headed south. The similarities of the conditions leading up to the crash of October 1929 and the further slide of the next three years before things really hit the bottom. Kennedy also discusses thoroughly the isolationism mindset of much of the country during this period and even up until the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941. The war is covered in general terms. FDR and his interesting style of leadership is an underlying theme of much of the book. This is not light reading, but I will likely read it again in the next couple of years because of the fascinating period of United States history that it covers.
6. Truman by David McCullough is another one of his great works. The wonderful thing about most of McCullough's books is that even in softcover form, there is no losing it on the nightstand or an end table. There is also no wondering whether you have it in your bag. This is an amazing tale of a quiet, humble, intelligent man who rose to become President. The parts about him at the Potsdam conference and his dealings with Stalin are enjoyable.
7. Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes is one that I was unable to finish this year. I had struggled through the history of nuclear physics from 1900 or so until 1940 and then someone else put the book on hold at the library so I was unable to renew it. I put it on hold again and got the book back for another three weeks and it was put on hold by the other person again. I gave up since I don't like to read books in a three weeks on, three weeks off manner. The magnitude of the work that was the Manhattan Project, and the concentration of most of the preeminent nuclear physicists of the time on this project is amazing. There is some discussion of the concerns of a couple of the physicists about the proliferation of the technology they were working on and that is when the book was due.
8. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is about a well-off guy from the east coast who had apparently read Jack London's The Call of the Wild one too many times and decided he would live off the grid and eventually go rough it in Alaska. He headed into the wilderness in early spring with little more than the clothes he was wearing and a .22 rifle. A .22 rifle is not much good for killing things, especially if those things are large enough to be a threat to you or are very far away. Not that the .22 was his downfall. He tried to hike out in the middle of the big thaw and couldn't cross the river and six weeks later he was found dead. It is certainly not an intellectually challenging book, but it is interesting as Krakauer traces the guy's path for the year before he hiked off into the wilderness. It is also a reminder of how fragile we really are and how small we are compared to the world we live in.
9. No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin is another of her well-written books and it examines the relationship of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during World War II. I learned a lot about Eleanor and the causes that she fought for, often to the annoying of Franklin, but things that made a huge difference in the country then and since.
10. Tucson Mall Lifestyle Expansion Project Manual by ELS Architecture & Urban Design is a book that I pray none of you ever have to read. It is huge, mind-numbing and contradictory throughout.

There have also been many articles in the Atlantic Monthly that were worth reading and re-reading.

Please do not compare my reviews to Maryanne's - hers are far more useful and much better written.

This just in!

Parker is no longer toothless. We just discovered that one of his bottom teeth has broken through. We were getting a little nervous as Cole had a full mouth of teeth by this age.