My darling little girl is growing up. At 1:13 PM, this afternoon, Erin turns 10 years old. Happy Birthday, Erin!!! She is becoming a wonderful young lady and her Mom and I are extremely proud of her. Erin will kick-off the birthday celebration weekend with a family party tonight at home. Tomorrow, after a wonderful breakfast of sourdough pancakes and bacon (for the second week in a row), Erin will have another party with several of her girl classmates from school.
On a side note, we closed on our house exactly one year before Erin was born. Therefore, we have now been in our house 11 years today. Boy, how time flies. Maybe it is time to replace the wagon wheel light fixture in the dining room. Nah!
Back in September, I posted about my experiences with helping my mother-in-law get her TV ready for the switch to over-the-air digital TV. At that time, I knew it wouldn’t be my last encounter with this technology. All of the televisions in our house are connected to the Dish Network except one. We have a TV in the utility room in the basement. It is an old 13 inch with rabbit ears and dials on the TV to change the channel and adjust the volume (no remote). The only time it gets used is when I ride my exercise bike in morning before work. I watch the Channel 12 news while I ride. Basically, it gets turned on every day for about 45 minutes at the same volume and same channel. In mid-February, because of the nationwide switch to DTV, it will cease to work.
Back in December, I applied for and received a $40 coupon from the government for a converter box. On Saturday, I went to Best Buy and picked an Insignia Digital Converter Box and an RCA Digital Antenna. I have to say that I was more than skeptical that this would work given how far we live from the major Milwaukee metro televisions stations and the fact that the TV is located in the basement. I pulled these items out of their boxes and installed them without reading any of the manuals (I think that is a technique I learned growing up). I hung the antenna from a nail in the floor joists of the floor above. I turned on the converter box and the TV and everything worked far beyond my expectations.
That television now receives 24 different channels including the eight MPTV Channel 36 variations. All of the channels come in very strong. On top of that, the converter box comes with a remote that controls channel selection and volume. Granted, I still have to turn the television on and off by hand, but now I am not confined to watching the same thing every morning and I can even change things up in the middle of my workout. I’m sure that seems like a small thing to many people but, to me, that is a huge step forward.
Yesterday we finished up Little Women at Waukesha Civic Theatre. We went out with a bang. We had our only sold-out show of the run on Sunday. It was a really good show too. When you have that many people in the audience, they seem to respond so much better to the show. After the show, we struck the set, costumes, and props.
Either A.J., Erin, or I have been a show or rehearsal since the beginning of March. A.J. rehearsed and performed in Over The Tavern during March, April, and May and fit a band concert in the middle of that. Erin had her spring concert for Milwaukee Children’s Choir in May and the Dance Tracks dance recital in June. Both A.J. and Erin also rehearsed and sang a song at the WCT Preview Event. Personally, I rehearsed and performed in Shadowlands during March, April, and May. I rehearsed and performed in Little Women during April, May, and June. And I rehearsed and performed a scene for the WCT Preview Event.
As of today, the Dramagoons are on a hiatus. We have no band, choir, dance, or theatre-related activities planned for the near future. We are going back to being regular family for the summer.
On Saturday night, we had tremendous rain storms here in southeastern Wisconsin. One of the local communities reported 6.5 inches the period between 4pm and 9pm. Our household did not fair too badly but it wasn’t great either. I had, unfortunately, not taken the time to clean the gutters of the spinners that had fallen in the last couple of weeks. So when the hard rain came, the water quickly started pouring over the gutters. By the time I got the gutters cleaned and the water flowing out into the yard the sump pump was not able to keep up with the flow coming in.
For two hours, Kristi and I had to bail the sump pump into buckets and pour the buckets into the deep sink to help it along. We had some water seep into the basement in several places which resulted in a few puddles but no major damages. Today we went to look at the Fox River in Waukesha near the theatre. As you can see by the pictures, the river is up quite a bit. They actually closed off one of the bridges over the river. Many of the benches near the river are under water and those large bears are usually on the shoreline.
A while back, the Disney Blog mentioned a contest that Disney was having to recruit a Chief Magic Official of the Disney Parks for their “Year of a Million Dreams (Part 2)” campaign. According to the rules of the contest as described on the official website, you had to submit a video no longer that one minute describing why you would be the perfect candidate for the position. Additionally, the video could contain no music and the only children allowed in the video had to be your own.
I decided to make a fool of myself and enter the contest. Below is the video that I submitted. The rules indicated that they would narrow the entries down to the “Top 20″ by Feb. 7. I have not been notified so I can assume that I didn’t make the cut. I figured I should put the video on YouTube. This way, I can make a fool of myself in front of a much larger audience. Enjoy!
We had a whole bunch of snow here in early December. So much so that we were in a panic over the the possible ice damns on the roof. About a week before Christmas, the weather warmed up and we lost most of our snow. We still had a “white” Christmas but there wasn’t much there.
Our family has a tradition of sledding on New Year’s Day if there is enough snow. Our back-up plan is bowling. It was looking like another year of bowling until yesterday. We received about 6 inches of the fluffy white stuff. More than enough for some fun sledding adventures.
Today is our 18th Wedding Anniversary. We met during freshman orientation at Marquette University. We dated all through college. I went into the Marine Corps and she went on to Grad School. We had a few rocky moments while I was in Yuma, Arizona and she was in Iowa. Two months after she joined me in Arizona, we decided to make official that very December. It has been a wonderful 18 years. She is truly my “lobster”.
Before I post my Thanksgiving message, I have to mention that I passed a milestone last week. I have now been blogging for a year.
There are many things for which I can give thanks. I am thankful for a wonderful, happy, and healthy family. I am thankful for a job that I enjoy and that provides me with excellent pay and benefits. I am thankful that I have been able to enjoy my participation in community theatre and have been in four shows this calendar year. I am thankful for having time to learn to the play the piano.
I hope that everyone can enjoy as many blessing as I have this year.
On Thursday we got a new driveway. The wonderful guys at JBS Construction came in and did a great job. They were scheduled to take two days to replace the asphalt driveway and concrete sidewalk with all concrete. The weather forecast indicated that there might be some rain on Friday, so they worked 12 hours and finished it all in one day. Kristi said that at one point there were six guys out there working to make it look great. I am very pleased so far. We have to wait a week before we can drive on it but it looks good already.
We now have some work to do to fill in around where they laid the concrete but it is going to be well worth the effort. No more patching of the asphalt every few years and porches are no longer separating from the house.
- New blog post: Deathtrap: This is one of those better late than never posts. A.J. and I went to see Deathtrap at S... http://bit.ly/QTUnJ - 1 week ago
What could be better on Friday the 13th than going to see DEATHTRAP at @SunsetPlayhouse? AJ and I will be there. We've heard it is awesome! - 1 week ago
Most days at 10, I can watch the Brise Soleil open on the Calatrava from my desk. I should go out to hear the musical accompaniment once. - 1 week ago
The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and all is right with the world. It is going to be fabulous day. Happy Friday, everyone!!! - 1 week ago
To all of my fellow Jarheads out there, Happy 234th birthday today... Ooh Rah! - 2 weeks ago
