Rookie of the Year!

Posted on May 22, 2010 by jeb

Kathy, Danny, and I went to Claire’s track banquet. There were over 200 girls on the Brookwood girls track team, so with family there, it was one giant banquet. Claire achieved the following awards:

Scholar Athlete (2nd semester in a row… she’s working hard on her schoolwork!)
Perfect attendance (practice and meets… she is very committed.)
“Letter with Recognition” for having best 100 meter and 300 meter times for the season (1 of 2 of the Hurdlers to achieve w/ recognition)
Rookie of the Year, in part because she now holds the 7th all time record time for the 300 meter hurdles at Brookwood, was 1st county JV, fastest on Varsity team, and several other things we’re still trying to decipher.

On the way home she asked several times what the word “Rookie” meant.

She ended up with two large special plaques for #3 and #4 w/ photos and records on them. She also got a gold pin for the letter to go on the letter and jacket she already earned in cross-country. A certificate for #3.

She sure went up to the front a lot. Reminds me of one of Kelly’s big years.

There were a couple of tables with lots of printed photos for us to pick up. Claire runs with a very intense look on her face. Looks like she is running from lions!

WOOHOOO CLAIRE!!!!

(This is a great shot… Claire leaping over all of those arch-rival Parkviews.)

Claire’s career running stats:

Love, You As A Third Grader

Posted on May 15, 2010 by jeb

Kelly’s third grade teacher, Mr. Franklin, had a tradition of having the kids write a letter to their future senior-in-high-school selves. Kelly’s letter to Kelly arrived this past week, thanks to a great teacher.

Dear Kelly,

How am I? I better be exellent! because your my future and I want my future to be perfect. Now let me tell you a little bit about yourself. You want to be an author, and you want to have a healthy family. Have you ever wondered who the people are in your class? because now you are going to have a lot to learn. You hate those dumb guys (who are not important) Kyle, Tripp, Cody. My best friends are Rachel Cousiar, Taylor Jarrol, Jenniffer Coe, Arielle Byington, and Nikki Weaver (who lives in our neighborhood.)

My teacher is Mr. Franklin he has brown hair and is real funny and nice (but he can get a little strict; he lets us have fun Friday and loves Georgia bulldogs. Your hobbies are soccer, swimming, writeing, drawing, and reading. I wear glasses and have short golden brown hair. I’m pretty scared when I’m alone at night. I hope you brightened up your day!

Love,

You as a third grader

Dear Kelly,

I hope I wasn’t too strict on you. I always described you as “fiesty.” I bet you still are! You were a cute skinny little 3rd grader. Congrats on your graduation!

Mr. Franklin

Mother’s Day Facebook Fight

Posted on May 9, 2010 by jeb

Claire’s Status: I love you mamma c! 🙂

Kathy C and 2 others like this.

Kelly: I love her more. #1 fan right here.

Claire: i made her laugh more this morning… score.

Kelly: no way, you missed when i brought her breakfast. she was laughing even harder, AND the first thing I did when I woke up this morning was make her laugh.

Like I do every day…

Claire: but she could barely breath when she read the MENU. and thats all she cares about. which i made all by myself.

so har har …

Kelly : Okay, you made her laugh once today, I usually make her laugh once every day of my life.

Soo… what does that mean?

It means I’m her #1 fan, as stated above.

Claire: i make her laugh everyday too. that cake thing will outdo your raft… one sharp object and its a goner.

Kelly: I was the one who picked out the cake thing….? An no you don’t. Remember when mom ranked you as the 3rd funniest child in the family?

Kelly: …and I was the 1st funniest.

Kathy: hahahahahaha!!!!!

18 minutes ago

Jeb: Thanks to all 4 kids for making Mom’s breakfast in bed routine one of the funnest ever! (Even Nicole was able to join in via Skype from Armenia.) I’m not sure she ever laughed so hard.

6 minutes ago

Kathy: Dad is right… this was one of the funnest Mother’s Day morning breakfasts in bed. I was tearing up alright, but it was tears from laughing so hard. How did I get so lucky to have 4 great kids? I know I didn’t do anything to deserve that blessing, so I am just thankful. I love you all!! xoxo

2 minutes ago

Bullfrog #7 – An Unhappy Ending

Posted on May 9, 2010 by jeb

Kathy walked into the kitchen late one afternoon last week and spotted a hawk sitting on the edge of our deck rail. He was holding a bullfrog with one talon and tearing it to pieces. There were little pieces of frog flying all over the deck. Kathy called quietly to Kelly who came and saw a bunch of yellow parts coming out from inside the frog. They both went to get a camera, but when they got back, the hawk and frog were gone.

Kathy said the whole thing was gross as were the gross frog bits on the deck. I got the honors of hosing off the remnants. All previous bullfrogs faired much better when caught by me.

Red Pal Repair

Posted on May 3, 2010 by jeb

Our original Tivoli Pal (featured here in a 2003 post) went into surgery over the weekend and is doing quite well. This one lives in our bathroom and then floats around on demand to run on battery.

Kathy and I have had a hard time keeping it working though, because the power jack (not plug) seemed to have a short and would stop working. We would wiggle the cord, pull on it, lean it against the wall… all kinds of strategies to keep the power flowing. Finally I decided to take it apart and see if there was anything I could do.

We knew it was not the plug, because trading plugs with the Yellow Pal made no difference. It had to be inside the Pal. Six screws later, I had the front of the Pal removed to reveal all of the wiring, speaker, and other major organs. While plugging the power in and out and wiggling the connection, I noticed a tiny spark on the circuit board.

I photographed the board with my digital camera and zoomed in. I could see where one of the solder joints was cracked all the way around. A neighboring joint also looked half cracked. So I got my old soldering iron that I bought when I was a teenager, and went to work. Good as new! (Even if my soldering joints are a bit ugly.)

Ralphie Fishback

Posted on May 2, 2010 by jeb

I just came across Stout’s adoption papers dated 5/30/04. His name was Ralphie. He weighed 10 pounds. (He is now a healthy, strong 19 pounds.) He was described as a 1.5 year old “Terr X” that was tri-colored. Mary Springer was his foster mother. She was with the Society of Humane Friends of Georgia. Mary did a good job that day!

His age was a guess at the time. We decided that we would just say he was born the same day as Clyde so they could be the same age and have birthday parties together.

We have no idea where Stout came from. He was very skinny, but lively. Kathy thinks he may have been owned by a hair dresser and that he was in a house fire. He sounds the alarm any time there is smoke, and early on, he did not like the sound of a hair dryer. Perhaps the hair dryer set Ralphie’s house on fire.

Stout’s Bullfrog Snack?

Posted on April 18, 2010 by jeb

Back in February, I was cleaning out the pond from all of the leaves and sticks that had accumulated through the winter. I heard a strange, deep chirping sound and saw a rustle in the vines that hang over the back edge of the pond.

Investigating, I found a bullfrog who was in a semi-hibernetic state because of the cold temperature. I had disturbed him with the net as I was cleaning out leaves. He moved very slowly. I noticed that he was missing a front leg. I left him alone in the vines. “Let sleeping frogs lie,” is the old expression.

I told Kathy about the three-legged bullfrog. She laughed as we both imagined Stout (who is always hunting around the pond for frogs and fish) had gotten himself a frog-leg snack.

Yesterday was a gorgeous spring day. Kathy spent most of the time cleaning up the front pine beds. I spent most of the day burning the old picnic table, some scrap wood from the basement repair, and a bunch of sticks, logs, and branches that had accumulated over the winter.

As I went by the pond, I saw a bullfrog sitting on the side. I went and grabbed the net and using my rush-and-swipe technique (frogs have to think a second before acting), I got the net in front of him and he jumped right in. Stout was very excited. Sure enough, the three-legged bullfrog. While I should have put him in a bag in the freezer, Kathy has banned this recommended practice, so I let him go in the storm drain. Last seen hopping down the storm pipe. That’s #6 in this continuing saga of pond bullfrogs.

Now the twist here is, I may have an answer to the question: Do the bullfrogs climb down the storm drain some 400 yards under a street and then come back? If I spot another bullfrog missing a front-right leg, we’ll know.

Stout and the Bee

Posted on April 3, 2010 by jeb

Kelly told us all week how Stout was protecting her from bees. If bees came near her, she could call Stout and he would jump, bark, and snap at the bees to chase them away. Since I’ve never been able to get Stout interested in chasing away roaches, I wasn’t sure why he was deciding to chase bees, but Stout and Kelly have a special relationship.

Kelly sent me this amazing photo on Friday. I’m including two sizes. The left is screen size and the right is high resolution.

I asked her if she has used photoshop, and she said no, that it was a real shot. I later noticed how she had made all but Stout and the bee black and white. Kelly admitted she had used Photoshop to do that. I hadn’t even noticed it at first, but it really made the bee and Stout stand out. She then said she had made the bee a little bigger.

“Well that’s using Photoshop,” I told Kelly. She thought I meant had she taken two pictures and merged them. She meant the photo was real. Enhancing photos is just something she does with almost every photo she takes. That’s normal.

I showed this photo to some of our designers at work. They were impressed. The whole idea that kids have grown up enhancing photos on the fly is something new. It used to take chemicals and dark rooms to do what Kelly did with this photo… and forget making the bee bigger.

I think it was a great shot, enhancements and all. I hope there is some money in her future with this kind of creativity.

300 Hurdle Win at County

Posted on April 3, 2010 by jeb

Kathy did a good job snapping photos of Claire racing the 300 JV hurdles at the county meet at Mill Creek. Claire did an even better job winning it.

After the Saturday prelims that narrowed the field from 32 down to the top 8, Claire knew she would have some stiff competition. For the Monday finals, I was glad to see she was in lane 4, because that meant 4 girls (lanes 4 – 8) would line up staggered ahead of her and 3 would line up behind her. In a 300, there is only one bend, and the girls are staggered about 10 feet apart to allow for the advantage the inner lanes have over the outer. I think it helps Claire to have some competition to catch.

In the prelim race, Claire just shot down the first straight away and passed all of the girls ahead of her before the bend, finishing with a big lead, even though she took the last stretch slower than her start. In the finals, she started strong and finished strong. You can see by the time she came around the bend, which is about 2/3 of the race, she had a good lead.

See the whole sequence here.

Way to go Claire!

Telephone Cord Tie

Posted on March 28, 2010 by jeb

In Mom’s move, she and I went through a lot of old files to determine what needed to be shredded or kept. I figured any tax files older than 10 years were not needed. The box below holds old tax records and check registers, both sources for The Histories.

Several files were bound with decayed rubber bands. But the files wrapped with telephone cords were secure. (Zoom in and see center file.)

I also found this vintage John H. Harland company check register.

Stonegate's End

Just another Five Forks Network site

Author Archives: jeb