Between church and dinner, we took advantage of being dressed up and snapped a family photo. Dogs included. This one came out pretty well. Only one of the 8 of us had to be brought in digitally. Can you tell which one?
Merry Christmas!
4
Our Christmas Card
Some notes on our Christmas card. The cow came from Kathy’s painting she finished in August. It now hangs in the dining room. The Christmas tree came from the trip Nicole and I took to Jamaica. I used it in a talk I recently gave to 300 middle schoolers at St. John Neumann. The talk was about hope and the Christmas tree on the street in the slums of Kingston was one of several signs of hope.
Claire and Danny both did a good job helping on the assembly line. Kathy recommends using photo corners instead of cutting slits in the card.
Note to self: Lighten up all photos sent to Sam’s Club. They come out darker than what shows on screen. Maybe send a test of several levels of brightness. Try something other than AppleWorks since it has a bug allowing only 1 copy to print at a time.
Understanding A Gigabyte
Kelly and I were driving around shopping together, and we started talking about iPods. She is quite happy with her iPod nano and its protective green and pink iSkin. Kids at school like it how hers looks. (She was allowed to bring it to school in the last week of the semester.)
She does wish she had 4 gigabytes like Claire’s instead of just 1 Gigabyte. I pointed out that she made that choice when I offered to pay half of whatever she wanted. “Yeah… but I didn’t really understand a gigabyte… I have to spend more time moving music on and off my Nano.” But otherwise, she is quite happy with it.
I told her I was thinking about getting the 80 gigabyte iPod. She was impressed. “How many songs would that hold?” she asked. I explained that all of the music we have on our iMac adds up to 20 gigabytes. She immediately got that the extra space could be for videos and TV shows.
I did not think to tell her that our very first Mac with a hard drive only had 20 megabytes of hard disk space. That’s a mere 20% of her Nano.
The tech moral of the story: Always buy up on storage/memory space.
One word: WOW!
For this next girl I have only one word… WOW! — Coach B
That’s how Coach B introduced Kelly as he announced her to come up for one of five special “coach’s awards.” That was the third time Kelly was called up for the evening. When Kathy, Claire, and I joined Kelly for the Cross Country banquet, we had early confirmation that she had lettered for the season, much to our and both coaches’ surprise. But we did not know she was going to be called up to stand in front of the crowd for two other reasons. First she was called up and recognized for being a Scholar Athlete. The photo below shows the new athletics director shaking her hand.
I wondered how she achieved Honors Athlete when she had not gotten her first high school report card. The director explained that for freshmen, given cross country is a fall sport, they used the previous semester middle school grades. So here good work in middle school paid off immediately in high school!
Next she was called up with the group that had achieved their letters. In the photo below, you can see her standing near coach B.
The big surprise was at the end when Coach B announced 5 special awards. That’s when he introduced Kelly with the “Wow” word as he explained she had gone from just barely being able to qualify, to not finishing her first meet, to shaving off almost 8 minutes through the season to qualify for a letter in the final meet. For that she earned most improved and got a special award plate handmade by Coach B’s wife. One of the other winners can be seen in crutches. She ran state with a broken bone in her foot that had to have surgery three days after the season ended.
I asked Kelly if she got tired having to keep going up front. Nope.
Kelly & Claire In Flash
Our company is promoting our MLK Day activities coming up via a website. Kelly & Claire showed up in this flash animation…
Grant Juggles
Click on this photo to see the movie…
DC Returns to the Mound
Each fall, Spring Hill’s baseball team has an off season competition called the Purple and White Series. Half of the baseball team plays the other half for a best of 7 series. This comes at the end of fall practice and helps determine who will start in the next season, which begins in February.
Danny landed on the purple team, which I figured was better if only because it involves more color. He was hoping to get to start a game, but was sure he would at least get to be a reliever. The series started on Friday night. Saturday night was Kelly’s chorus performance in Athens, but Kathy, Grandad, and Gramlie were all ready to head down early on Sunday if Danny was called up for the Sunday night game. (Gramalie and Grandad would drive down the next day as reported here.)
Late Saturday night the word came in from Danny. He would be starting the Sunday game pitching against his friend Mike Scanino, but the coach wanted to move it to a day game, so he would start at 3 p.m. That was just too early to drive down, so I sent instructions for Danny’s roommate, Patrick, to get some good photos. I let it be known there would be a bounty of brownies.
Danny was stiff for the first inning and pitched 29 pitches, but only one run scored. He was able to settle in the next four innings and keep the White team from scoring. He had a total of 71 pitches for a total of five innings before a reliever came in. Scanio did not fair so well, the Purple team scoring 6 runs in one inning against him. The final score was 8 to 3, Danny taking the win. Although he felt bad about it being one sided, he still enjoyed his first official trip back to the mound. The Brookwood playoffs seem like a long time ago (and 20 less pounds ago.)
Danny was able to play in two more games. He came in as first reliever in the 6th inning on the Wednesday game. He had 8 pitches and no one got on. The Purple team won the series 4 to 1, but the coach wanted to play one more game. Danny was the starter for the last game on Friday. While it did not “count”, he still had a good showing pitching 4 innings. He did not allow any runs and had several strike outs.
Meanwhile, Patrick has some camera problems, so the only two known photos are seen here. One is just after Danny pitched on Sunday. That’s ice on his arm.
I’m glad we got these two photos, though. It’s good to see DC back in an official uniform… and a Purple one at that. Patrick will get his brownies.
“The Run Of Her Life!”
We had to get up early this morning for Kelly’s last cross country meet. The freshman boys would race at 8 am and the girls would race at 8:30 am. Kelly and I left first because she had to be there at 7:30 a.m. , and the drive was more than 30 minutes away. Our destination was the same course that had wiped Kelly out for her first meet.
Kelly was bundled up in a ski cap and parka. As we approached the field (which is in the Chattahoochee river basin) Kelly observed that the frost on a golf course and the fog made everything look like snow. I told her to hold up her fist at the course, shake it, and say “I defy you!” (Inside joke… she laughed.)
The sun rose and warmed things up a bit. Kelly and her friends huddled together during the boys’ race, getting themselves psyched up for their race. Kathy, Claire, Clyde, and Stout arrived just in time for the beginning of Kelly’s race.
Kelly intentionally started off slower than the pack so that she could choose a target in front of her to pass. This was an approach her coach had recommended. Sure enough, she started passing one girl after another. While three orange-suited girls from Parkview broke way ahead, Kelly was one of the leaders of the Brookwood team by the 1 mile mark. By the two mile mark she had passed all but 6 girls, holding 7th. She was the lead Brookwood runner. Her coach spotted her and yelled… “Look at Kelly! Cashel is having the run of her life!” He was very surprised and excited about how well she was doing. He started shouting encouragement to her at the various bends that would snake in towards the crowd.
“Don’t look back Cashel! Keep pushing Cashel!” As she approached the end of the 3 mile race, he shouted, “She’s going to break 24!” She not only broke 24, but she stepped on it with a 23 min 30 29 sec strong finish. She placed 7th and earned a medal. Her teammates all congratulated her on such a strong finish, and her coach was amazed. (We decided he was surprised because he had not noted her time last race and did not fully realize the progress she had been making. He must not read this blog.)
After some socializing, the four of us celebrated at a nearby Waffle House. (Clyde and Stout had to celebrate in the car.)
And her coach was right. This really was the run of her life. Way to go Kelly! What a great way to finish the season!
Claire Earns Blue Nano
Claire has worked very hard in her first semester of middle school. Many many long and late nights to keep up with all of the homework. More than one night involved a few tears as she tried to figure out how to get it all done. Her planner has a lot more planning in it that my own work calendar. She scratches off each task as she completes it, and as I flip through it now, her calendar looks like every day is filled with scratch marks.
Her probe math class was a real challenge, but she slowly built a B into an A, finishing with a 90, so she landed straight A’s and made honor roll. Hurrah!
As a reward for all the hard work and starting middle school off so well, she is getting to trade in (with me) her iPod shuffle with an iPod nano. She was very excited and decided to get a blue one. Seems like blue has always been her favorite color (including the blue iMac Grandaddy now uses… we ordered an orange one, but it arrived blue. At the time 4-year-old Claire was so excited Apple had decided to send a blue one.)
When I ordered Claire’s new iPod I realized the lowest priced Nano only comes in aluminum. The colors are a step up in price. Clever Apple. No matter, offer stands. I get a shuffle out of the deal and Claire is getting a pretty good lesson in how hard work can pay off.
She’s been watching it on the FedEx website shipping from China to Alaska.
Big Brother’s Home For The Summer
The recording: Listen
The transcript:
6/7/2006
D = 18, K = 13
You have two old messages.
Old message.
One. Wednesday. 5:50 pm.
K: Can you tell mom to come pick me up?
D: No.
K: Why?
D: You can just walk home. Bye.
K: What?
D: You can just walk home.
K: But we don’t have the key.
D: To what?
K: Mom took the key with her so we can’t get out.
D: Well just… well does someone else have the… well tell the lifeguard you want to get out then just walk home.
K: Why can’t mom take me home?
D: She’s painting.
K: What?
D: She’s painting.
K: Ugh…. bye.
D: Bye
(pause)
K: I’m not coming home.
D: What?
(click)