Good weekend with the parents

After some last minute cleaning, I went to pick up my parents at the train station, while my wife and son went to bed. There was some miscommunication and I ended up sitting in my car reading a book for about an hour before my parents' train arrived. My mother had forgotten some pills, so we stopped by Walgreens on our way home to pick up enough to get her through the weekend. She was able to call her pharmacy back home and get the information before the pharmacy closed. However the price for a weekend's worth of pills ended up costing on the same order of a month's supply back home - so much for everything being cheaper in St. Louis. I chatted with my folks for a couple of hours before we all headed off to bed.

Saturday was a fairly productive day at our house. My wife finished staining and started sealing our formerly unfinished entertainment center. My father and I spent much of the afternoon preparing the next set of meals for Oliver including papaya, beets, broccoli, and nectarines. My mother got to spend some time playing with Oliver. Saturday night my wife and I went out to a friend's Halloween party for a couple of hours. We got dressed as a money grubbing attorney and accident victim. The party's hosts were dressed in hand-sewn Ming The Merciless and gypsy costumes. I would have felt a little underdressed, but there were a couple of other people who had ideas like ours. We got to talk to friends and have a few drinks sans baby. It was fun. Then my folks called and we were back to parental duty.

Sunday my wife let me sleep in (and it off) for a bit. When I got up, she went outside to work on the entertainment center and I got to tend to Oliver. A friend who had come in from out of town called and asked if we wanted to go to breakfast at First Watch in Clayton. And so we all piled out to go to breakfast. We got to talk to some friends that we hadn't seen in a while. My parents were talking to my friends and everyone seemed to have a good time. The afternoon was spent indoors, watching Oliver and the football games. I wanted to go out to dinner and when I couldn't think of a good, kid friendly place, we ended up going to Fitz's on the Loop. At dinner my father and I played right and left field as Oliver decided to try and toss his toys on the floor. My mother just about wet herself laughing at the scene of the two of us trying to keep his toys from hitting the ground.

Monday I took the day off of work and spent some time with my parents and Oliver before taking them to the train. We got there a bit early so I took them for a brief tour of downtown St. Louis. Then I dropped them off at the train station and headed home.

The whole weekend came off so much better than I thought it would. My parents were able to get down and play with Oliver much better than I thought they'd be able to. I feel a lot better about leaving him in their care for a short time (like an evening) than I did before. And they had a lot of fun doing so.

Random stuff around our house

While cleaning up for my parents this weekend, I came across a random collection of *stuff* around our house.

Three versions of the Atari gaming console
Several McDonalds Happy Meal toys still in the wrapper
Dried roses in a box with a broken glass top
A wooden model of an F-17 fighter
A wooden missile from the F-17 fighter
Two computer monitors that don't work
A 12" TV set
A glow in the dark model dinosaur
My high school letterman jacket
A 1920's era shop scale

I keep thinking that if we clean enough the house will get clean. Now I'm thinking that there is almost no amount of cleaning that will get the house clean until we do a purging of all of the stuff that we have in the house.

And we have already had one garage sale this year.

Parental visitation

My parents are coming down for a visit this weekend. I'm excited for them to come visit as it has been about six months since they last came to visit.

In that time,
- Oliver has grown from a lump on a log to an explorer on a mission,
- We put up gates to contain our dedicated explorer,
- We installed a new furnace and air conditioning,
- My wife got a new car,
- We put down a new floor in Oliver's playroom,
- We bought a new entertainment center that my wife is staining.

So we've made a number of significant changes. But two days before they get here the house is still messy, and it will likely take our full-time attention to get the house in order before they get here.

To give you an example, last night after Oliver went to sleep, my wife and I went to work. We have a spare bedroom that doubles as a storage room. I had to unearth the bed where they will be sleeping. There were games, puzzles, clothes, toys, and childhood mementos piled on the bed. An hour or so later I got down to the blanket. And then I looked around and still had nightstands piled on top of dressers.

It will get done before they get here. How long? I have no idea.

Success

I wrote earlier about how the new CIO came and spoke yesterday. One of his slides showed his family with his wife and two daughters, 11 and 14. He related a story where one of his daughters said, "Dad, this is the first year where I'm going back to the same school." Because of the various and sundry moves that he's made in his quest to climb the corporate ladder, his daughter had not been in the same place to start the school year for 5-6 years.

I think he told the story for a couple of reasons. First, it was cute. Second, it illustrated that those who want to climb the corporate ladder have to make sacrifices. Third, it illustrated that the path of your career is up to you. Surely no one would have sketched out a career path for a new graduate that looked more like a ping-pong ball's trajectory that anything else. And last, it shows that his career is his priority, not necessary his home life.

I don't want a career like that. I've never felt that that was my calling. I think I'd rather put in my time and get home. As long as I can provide for my family and not go out of my mind with boredom, I'll get what I need out of my job. My family is my number one priority. My health is second. My friendships are third and my job checks in fourth. I guess I'll never be successful like that guy, but I don't plan on missing many birthdays or school plays or games either. I'll be successful in my own way.

What they say and what they do

The new CIO for the group that I'm in came for a visit this week. Yesterday, he had a meeting with all of the IT folks at Citi. This morning I was part of a round table with him. Both meetings were actually worth their time. Everything he said resounded with me. He was candid and didn't moderate his message to fit his audience. There were a lot of things that he said that I did like and was glad to hear. There were some things that he said that I didn't like, but I appreciated hearing him say them. My two take-aways were that 1) he loves Flexible Work and 2) he believes that management should "delight the stars."

But given a later meeting with my department head and her boss, it is unlikely that anything will change. Neither woman is delighted with the prospect of Flexible Work. And when asked about delighting the stars, they replied that they are doing that already. That all of his talk was the same management philosphy gussied up in pretty language. Some of that I can believe, but the results on the ground don't seem to reflect that.

It's days like today that make me love my job.

Roofing fun

A little over a year ago, my wife and I solicited bids to repair two flat roofs on our house. Going through the phone book, we got a number of no-shows or shows with no bid. Finally, we ended up selecting St. John's Roofing because they gave us the lowest bid. A couple of weeks later a family of Mexicans (Mom, Pop, Junior, Sis, and Lil Sis) showed up at the house and over the course of a hot Saturday they put the roof on. That would be the end of the story except we had someone else put on some new gutters and the roof started leaking and molding. After much ado, we got someone to come out to the house and "fix" the roof with caulk and then after much more ado, we got them to come out to the house and fix the ruined ceiling. You can imagine how happy we were when we saw mold appearing in the same room after we had just installed a brand new hardwood floor. Calls to the roofing company have not been answered for the last two weeks. We finally checked with the BBB and found that there have been a *number* of complaints about them to which we have added.

Moral of the story: Some times the lowest bid isn't the cheapest.
Moral of the sotry part deux: Our experience with contractors recommended from Angie's List was much better than this one. I hate to sound like a commercial, but the difference is really obvious from this side of the fence.

Selling my collection

I keep thinking about what Kevin suggested about how I could turn my collection into cash. At this point I'm not quite ready to cut the heart out of my collection and sell it on Ebay, but I am feeling like I might be able to pluck its eyebrows and put the tweezings on Ebay. It's a non-obviously difficult decision for me to make, but it seems like the right thing to do. I get money in exchange for selling off cards that I'm really unlikely to ever play with again and someone out there gets the last Dwarven Sea Clan that they need for their Dwarf deck.

In order to do some market research I've been perusing the Magic card listings on Ebay. I've come to a couple of conclusions. First, there really must be a sucker born every minute because there are hundreds of listings for "75 random cards with at least 10 guaranteed to be rare." In otherwords, you give me your money and in exchange I'll offer you a fictional chance to win a high dollar card and give you 10 Mudhole equivalents. Second, it's really hard to pass on an auction when they are selling off their entire collection that has some good cards in it. There are a couple that I would have bid on if I could remember my Ebay password (Sad, isn't it?) Third, the auctions that I paid most attention to were properly capitalized and spelled - should be a no brainer but apparently isn't.

So wish me luck as I attempt to do what so many others have tried - turn crap into gold by the process of internet alchemy or Ebay.

Parenting while ill

My wife and I are both sick. And no, it's not the same illness. It just isn't easy to be a parent and a patient at the same time.

Thankfully Oliver hasn't caught anything from us (*Knock on head*)

Weekend in our nation's capitol

On Thursday I flew from St. Louis to Baltimore to begin my weekend away. It started with promise as I attempted to give up my spot on the flight to Louisville/Baltimore for cash and prizes. It ended up not being necessary for them to bump me and off I went. On the flight out I managed to finish the book that I was reading - Ninja Soccer Moms, a passable mystery.

When I got to Baltimore, I went to get my rental car. The facility was two miles away from the airport itself, so I was told that I'd need to get back to the airport at least 2-2.5 hours before my flight to make sure that I dropped off the car on time. Once I got my rental I went to look for my hotel in the rain. Evidently it hadn't rained at all during September and Mother Nature decided to even things up this weekend.

When I was booking my hotel I looked long and hard at a Microtel before opting for the Quality Inn a little farther away. But as I sped away from the rental facility, I thought I was going to a Microtel. After getting lost several times I finally found the Microtel only to find that I was at the wrong hotel :( I left the hotel and managed to find the Quality Inn with relative ease.

The Quality Inn was a decent motel. The rooms were clean and the TV worked. However, at about 3:30-4:30 I was treated to an episode of White Trash Theater as some woman shouted and honked at the motel in order for her boyfriend to let her in. Finally either she realized that it was futile or he let her in. Either way I finally got some sleep.

I drove up to Philadelphia to see my cousin, Pat, and her husband, Kevin. They just gave birth to my second cousin, Kevin Broderick. Little Kevin is a cute baby and doing well. Big Kevin's parents were in, and Kevin's mother was quite happy to be holding little Kevin. Pat is adapting well to motherhood. I had a nice lunch with Pat and the Kevins before I took off for DC.

Pat and Kevin had started breastfeeding exclusively, but I was a little disappointed to see that they had opted to supplement breastfeeding with formula feeding, but I tried my best not to let it on. One of the things that they say at La Leche League is "Every parent is an expert on their own baby." I kept this in mind as I talked to other parents over the weekend.

I drove down to Washington from Philadelphia in the rain and dark to my cousin Margaret's house. Margaret had some complications during the delivery of her daughter Grace and ended up having a partial hysterectdomy. While I was there I got to spend some time with my Aunt Joan, my cousin John and his wife Lindsey, Margaret, her husband Nathan, and the star of the show Grace. It was neat to hold a baby that small again. I almost can't remember Oliver ever being close to that size. Margaret is doing as well as can be expected. She should find out soon what went wrong in the delivery room. I imagine that she'll either be okay with it or very very angry.

After dinner at Margaret's I went to Alix and Kevin's place. Alix and Kevin are some friends of mine who left the comfort of St. Louis to work for the government. They were nice enough to let me crash on their couch for a couple of days and entertain me while I was there. On Saturday I got up late and when they got home they asked what I wanted to do today. I suggested the Spy Museum. After a train ride we ended up at the Spy Museum, but it was sold out of tickets until 4:00. I didn't really want to wait that long, so we ended up going to see Serenity instead (good flick even for the non-initiated). Later we went out for Sushi and then called it a night early.

The next morning we went out so that I could buy a wedding gift and then I bought a book for the flight home. They gave me instructions on how to get where I was going. Even with a full set of written instructions I managed to get lost. Fortunately in DC you can't get that lost as if you keep driving in one direction you are bound to hit the Beltway, which I eventually did and got to the hotel where the wedding was going to be an hour ahead of time. I killed the time before the wedding watching football in the bar. God Bless the NFL.

The wedding itself was a nice affair. It was a very elegant Jewish ceremony. David and Jessica looked very good together. After the ceremony there was a cocktail hour where I got to spend some time with Aaron, a friend from high school, his wife Adina, and their baby Noah. I also got to spend some time with David's sister, Karen and her daughter. The dinner was nice. While Aaron and Adina went dancing I got to hold Noah. By the end of the night I was sure that I just wanted to go home and hold my own child.

Sunday night at the Quality Inn was uneventful. I was thankful that there was not a encore of White Trash Theater. I didn't sleep well regardless as I was afraid of missing my extra early wakeup call. I got to the airport and home with no fuss. Getting off the plane I had the feeling that it was good to be back home.

And it is.

Quick hits

Saturday I hosted the draft for our fantasy hockey league. I'd love to report that it went off without a hitch but there were technical problems galore. However three hours or so after we started we finished. So all's well that ends well.

After the draft, I played Magic with some buddies while my wife went to a friend's house to watch the Notre Dame football game and Commander-In-Chief after the game turned into a rout. And Oliver went to sleep upstairs. Briefly. In the Magic game, I learned that I'm still too focussed on duels to do well in multiplayer. When he woke up, I couldn't get him to go back to sleep. After several hours of screaming, my wife finally came home to help put him to sleep. I really need to learn how to get him down or teach him how to go to sleep.

My friend Kevin makes money buy buying lots of cards on Ebay, taking the ones that he wants, and repackaging the rest for sale. It seems like a good way to get cards and pay for them. But I generally don't like selling off my cards. I have this fantasy that I'll be playing with them with Oliver when he gets older. We'll see though.

Hockey starts tonight. I'm really excited about it. I'm not so excited by the Blues' chances at continuing their playoff streak.

I'm headed to DC this weekend to go to a high school friend's wedding. While I'm on the East Coast I'm going to see some new second cousins and some college friends. And maybe I'll go to a Capitals game. As far as I can tell Saturday will be a day to amuse myself in our nation's capital. Something tells me that I'm going to go to the Espionage Museum for sure.