Fightin' Fires

Our church is about 20 miles south of town in a small west Texas town. On our way to service tonight as we were leaving town we were surprised to see a small grass fire in the ditch along the side of the road. A bunch of vehicles had stopped and people were out there stamping out the fire with their feet and pouring soda on it, or whatever they had in their vehicles. It wasn't a very big fire, maybe 10 foot by 10 foot and the situation looked pretty much under control. All the same, I still called the fire dept as we drove on.

About 10 minutes farther down the road I saw a Roman candle go off in the distance, maybe a mile or so ahead of us. This is very odd because we don't see fireworks often here. They're highly regulated because this part of the state is extremely dry. It's like a giant tinderbox. By the time we arrived where we saw the fireworks, there was a significant brush fire going. One pickup had pulled over. No one else was around, so we stopped to see if there was anything we could do.

I grabbed the big 4 foot floor mat from the back of the van while Anna dialed 911. The guys in the pickup had put the fire out on one side of the road, but it had jumped the road and had burned 50 - 75 feet of the opposite ditch. They told me they didn't think we'd be able to do much. The fire was spreading quickly to the fence line and a big stand of mesquite trees on the other side. I ran across the road and began to smother the fire with the floor mat. (It's the big heavy, rubber all weather type.) This worked surprisingly well, probably due to the fact that Anna was back in the van praying the fire would go out. It didn't take too long to stop the fire from spreading further south. The wind was blowing north pretty good, and the fire was still spreading that direction, with some pretty good sized flames licking the top of the fence posts. By this time the guys in the pickup realized that we might have a chance at putting it out and jumped in to help. It took us several more minutes to get the rest of it, and a few fence posts had been lit up really well. The mat got pretty hot and I think it's ruined, but we put out the fire, saved the fence, and kept it from spreading to some innocent rancher's pasture. That was a pretty good feeling.

After we had the fire mostly out, the guys told me that they had been driving down the road when some idiot in front of them tossed a roman candle out the window right in front of them and basically fire-bombed the ditch. About this time, the Sheriff pulled up and we told him what happened. He took off about 100 mph down the road and was soon followed by two deputies. I went back to the van and realized that we still had 6 minutes to make it to church on time. I wreaked pretty bad, but we went ahead and went. After we cracked a few jokes about being baptized with fire, we had a really good service.

Curious George

Tori just announced that she is getting married.

"Really?" I replied.

"Yes, in my dress."

"Who are you going to marry?"

Without missing a beat she fired back at me. "Curious George".

Hawk and Small Deer Commentary

So, yesterday morning I got up and went for a run. When I came home, I noticed a very large hawk perched in a mesquite tree across the alley. I grabbed the camera and tried to get close enough to get a good picture of him. Alas, I was unsuccessful in sneaking up on him, and he flew off before I got close enough to get a decent picture. I did get this one, from a distance:



When I came inside Hope asked to see the pictures I had taken. I showed her the picture of the hawk and explained what it was she looked up at me and said, "Did you kill that too, like the deer?"

-----

Incidentally, Trevor gave me a hard time about my deer. I believe he said something like, "They can only get bigger in the future." Take a look at the picture above. That's typical central Texas country side. What do you see for the deer to eat? We don't have corn fields down here. Deer eat cactus, grass, mesquite trees, and pecans. They don't get very big. I'm proud of my deer, even if it is puny.

First Deer

I've wanted to go deer hunting on and off for several years, but I've never had the opportunity to do so. This year, I've been blessed with some folks who have invited me to come hunt with them. This afternoon, I took my first deer - a midsized doe. Here's a picture:

Honey Do List: Conquered.

This is a historic moment. My "Honey Do List" is officially empty for the first time in I can't remember when.

I completed the last two items on the list today which were:

1) Replace Furnace Filter
2) Fix Fridge Water line

The first one was easy. The second one was annoying. The water line to our Fridge is attached to the back via a 1/4 inch compression fitting. The copper tube was fixed to the back of the fridge with a clamp to keep it from recoiling against the fridge. However, the Fridge broke a few months ago. Yes, my less than one year old Amana had a compressor failure. So, we had a loaner for a while. When the appliance people returned our old Fridge they failed to hook the clamp back up to the back of the fridge. This became really annoying, because every time you filled up a glass of water when the water would stop the copper pipe would recoil and hit the back of the Fridge making a clunky sound. This also happened every time something happened to put back pressure on the line, like flushing a toilet. So, every time anyone flushed the toilet, the fridge would make a light "clunk". Annoying, but not the end of the world, so I put it off.

Today, when I went to fix this problem, I realized there was a side effect. Every time the pipe recoiled, it put additional pressure on the compression fitting at the wall valve. Over time, this loosened the fitting and it leaked a drop of water every time it recoiled. I took everything apart and discovered that the copper pipe was worn from all the recoil and also had been crimped. Finally, I noticed that the brilliant plumber hadn't bothered to put any pipe tape on the threads either. If he'd done this it probably wouldn't have leaked. Anyway, the good news is that there is a plastic catch basin in the wall and the floor is laminate, so there was no damage from the water. I went to Home Depot and got a reinforced plastic supply line with pre-installed valves for $7.50. Incidentally, buying the parts and using the el-cheapo plastic hose would have cost over $10.00. Go figure. Anyway, I got it installed (with pipe tape on the threads) and now it's fixed. No leaking and no more annoying noises coming from the Fridge when you flush the toilet in the middle of the night.

WOOO HOOO. No more Honey Do list for me!!!! Yeah!

Wait.... What's this??????? Anna is walking towards the Fridge with a pen.... No!!!

Don't do it honey!!!!

ARGH.

Guess I lied.

Wax

Every now and again, something happens that reminds me how small Brownwood really is. A few weeks ago, I woke up and I couldn't hear out of my right ear. This happens occasionally to me. Apparently, excessive ear wax production runs in my family. Go figure.

So, not wanting to wait several days for a normal doctor appointment, I grabbed the phone book and looked up "Urgent Care". They were able to get me right in.

When I showed up at the office I soon realized that the 80 something receptionist was the doctor's Mom. I thought it was nice of the Doc to employ her Mom. Besides, she was a nice lady and chit-chatted with me while I waited.

A few minutes later I was taken back to an exam room where the Doc looked at my ear briefly and declared, "Yup, you got a load of wax in there. I'll be right back."

I expected her to return in a few minutes with one of those Welch Allyen ear cleaner thingies that shoots water into your ear and also has a vacuum line so it simultaneously blasts the wax out and sucks it up. Instead, she return pushing a metal cart covered with a cloth. she pulled back the cloth and I stared in horror at a row of surgical tools. Things to poke you with, a small syringe, a medium syringe, and a syringe that was larger than my forearm.

What happened next is something I can't really even begin to describe. Water and hydrogen peroxide where loaded into the mega-syringe. This was thrust into my ear and a torrential burst of water was propelled into my ear canal. Then, another tool would be used to poke at the wax and scrape some away. This was fairly painful. The Doc was fairly sympathetic, but continued on. This went on for almost an hour until finally the last stubborn glob of wax relented and came out.

Meanwhile, during the hour torture session I learned all about the Doc's goat farm.

When the Doc rolled in the cart full midevil tools a part of me wanted to return to my primal Flight or Fight instincts. I should have listened to myself. It would have been morally and legally reprehensible to fight off a Doctor and her 80 + year old mother. Listen to your instincts when they tell you to FLEE!

Footnote: This really wasn't a completely terrible experience. Admittedly, it hurt, but I survived. And my ear is all better. I now use Debrox every two weeks to keep them all clean. Anyhow... if you thought this was funny..... just wait for Part II. Coming soon.... Ear Wax, Part Deux.

Riding the wind

I've heard about Texas wind and dust storms and all that stuff. I really don't think that Texas wind is any worse than the midwest. Until last night.

A cold front rushed in from the north at break-neck speed, moving 50 - 60 MPH. About 11:00 PM, just as I was getting into bed, the wind began to howl. A lot. This was made somewhat worse by the fact that our roof is in the process of being reshingled from the May baseball hail storm. A lot of stuff started blowing around, including my wife's plants. I decided to move the plants into the garage so they wouldn't tip over and get ruined. So, I opened the garage door and stepped outside to grab the plants, which are in pots about 5 feet from the door.

It felt like I was stepping into a sand blaster. Dust and stuff was blowing all over the place. I quickly grabbed the plants and let the wind blow me back into the garage. After closing the door my ear began to itch. I reached up to scratch it and realized that my left ear and canal where coated in dust and sand. I'd been outside for about 10 seconds.

The howling and blowing and fence creaking and stuff hitting the house kept me up until almost 2 AM. During this time, I had plenty of time to contemplate all sorts of things. I think I finally understand why Texans build predominantly brick and stone homes and often use heavy metal roofs.

This morning was fun too. Riding a motorcycle into 55 MPH winds is a bit like riding a bucking horse while someone else is trying to push you off from the front. What's interesting is that when you're going 70 MPH into a 55 MPH headwind the wind is so loud that you can't hear the roar of the engine beneath you. The bike wants to go everywhere except for where you want it to go, and the wind buffetting will make a man out of you. Yee haw!

NASCAR

If you are a Muslim, at some point in your life you must make a pilgrimage to Mecca, provided you have the financial means to do so. If you live in Texas, at some point, you must visit the Texas Motor Speedway. NASCAR is nearly a religion here.

There happens to be a race at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend, and our company sponsored NASCAR team was kind enough to bring a car to work today so we could all stare at it. I thought it was pretty neat to see. For some of my co-workers, it was nearly a religious experience.

The most interesting thing to me was how loud the car is. One of our safety engineers was outside measuring the noise level. At idle, it's 105 DB. When revving the engine, it's about 125 DB. It was loud enough that standing 15 ft from the car, you could feel the sound waves pulsing against your chest. To put that in perspective, the maximum volume of an iPOD is 115 DB. Each increase of 10DB represents a doubling of sound volume. So, 126 DB is a little more than TWICE the maximum volume that an iPOD can drive a set of earphones. Unreal.

After work I ran home and got Anna and the girls so they could see it too. Here's a picture of Hope with the car. Unfortunately, Tori refused to stop running around long enough to have her picture taken.

New Sam's Club Catalog

ahhh... Sam's club. The place where we go to buy sugar in 50lb sacks, pickles in 5 gallon jugs, he-man sized bottles of ketchup, and batteries by the hundreds. Buy in Bulk! Huzzah!

Generally speaking, the people I see shopping at Sam's are in the "buy in bulk" crowd. Ranchers buying a bunch of food, people toting around 5-8 kids pushing two or three shopping carts, and parents of toddlers buying crates of batteries. In case you're wondering, I fall into the last category.

Today I got a new Sam's club holiday catalog. I browsed through it looking for Christmas ideas for my wife, but alas, most of the fare offered was ostensibly out of my price range. For example, the first page advertises a Cessna Citation Mustang... yup.. a private Jet. A tad bit pricey at $2,734,600 - but if you have the means, I'd highly recommend it. In case you're actually ready to buy, you have to wire a $275,000 down payment by noon on November 9, 2006, prove that you have the means to purchase the plane, and then wait until around Q4 2007 for delivery. On the plus side, there's no extra charge for leather. Oh... I almost forgot, you have to be 18 to purchase this item.

If that't out of your price range, you might consider this walk-in wine vault. It's only $33,000. Still too much? How about some new Jewelry instead? You can get this lovely Pear Shaped Tanzanite for a scant $27,560.

But who really wants all that stuff anyway? I'd much rather spend money on having an experience. You could go to the super bowl. That package will only run you $71,000, but does include an invitation to Dan Marino's private party.

Not a sport's fan? How about Tony Bennett? See him in concert, meet him backstage, and get his autograph for only $44,000.




Sheesh... and I thought I was part of the middle class. Hello.

Golf

I'm way behind on my blogging. Sigh. I've been real busy lately.


While we were in Branson, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to improve my golf game. I played 117 holes while I was there. I played an 18 hole course 6 times and a 9 hole course once. By the time I left, I was really feeling a lot better about my game.

Here's a shot of me making a difficult putt:



And the result?

The Fly Swatter

So here we are getting ready for bed. I'm working on a presentation that I'm giving on Wednesday and talking to Anna. A noisy fly keeps buzzing around the room and driving us nuts.

"That thing is driving me crazy! Can you go kill it?"

So Anna sets down her tea, walks into the other room, and returns with the fly swatter in hand. She gracefully walks across the room and swings the fly swatter once, pegging the fly in mid-flight.

What a woman!

Ok, back to my presentation now.....

Cough Safe

It's the time of year again. Cold and Flu season are just around the corner. Now's probably a good time to brush up on your coughing and sneezing technique. If you have 5 minutes run over to http://www.coughsafe.com and watch their video tutorial on the proper technique for coughing. Informative and absolutely hilarious. This one really made my day. Thanks Deb!

Team Hoyt

The other day, one of my sisters sent me the following email. It was really good, so I thought I'd post it on my blog. When you're done reading it, check out the video on YouTube. Also, you can check out their website at http://www.teamhoyt.com

Strongest Dad in the World From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars—all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right? And what has Rick done for his father? Not much—except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. “He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life,” Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.” But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,” Dick says he was told. “There's nothing going on in his brain.”

"Tell him a joke,” Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? “Go Bruins!”

And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, “Dad, I want to do that.” Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described “porker” who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. “Then it was me who was handicapped,” Dick says. “I was sore for two weeks.” That day changed Rick's life. “Dad,” he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!'' And that sentence changed Dick's life.

He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon. “No way,” Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then; they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, “Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?” How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? “No way,” he says. Dick does it purely for “the awesome feeling” he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

“No question about it,” Rick types. “My dad is the Father of the Century.” And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. “If you hadn't been in such great shape,” one doctor told him, “you probably would've died 15 years ago.” So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland,Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day. That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. “The thing I'd most like,” Rick types, “is that my dad would sit in the chair and I would push him once.''

Here's the video....

Potty Training

It's official. Tori has been potty trained. Best $20 I've ever spent. Here's what we did: (Ok, OK... Anna did it.)

Tori is really into Dora the Explorer these days. So, Anna took her to WalMart and bought a bag of candy and four Dora play figurines. She told Tori that every time she would pee in her potty chair, she'd get a piece of candy, and every time she pooped in the toilet she'd get one of the toys. She then placed all the goods on the back of the toilet where Tori could see them all the time:



And it worked marvelously. Tori went #1 on the potty 6 or 8 times the first day. On the second day, she worked up the courage to poop in the potty and earned Dora. She ran around the house yelling, "I did it! Yeah!" (That's what Dora says on her show.) Then she proceeded to run to the bathroom, pull down her pants and began to grunt and push on her tummy. "I have to get Diego!" she exclaimed.

So, she's been potty trained for almost a month and hasn't had any relapses. However, we are still working on perfecting some of the finer points of her potty technique, namely wiping.

A few days ago, I got Hope up for school and started working on getting her breakfast while she went off to the bathroom. A few seconds later she came running back into the kitchen yelling, "Dad, there's something in the toilet!"

Here's what I saw:



Tori got up in the middle of the night to go potty (Yes, she really does get up and go all by herself) and dutifully went to wipe herself. At the time, she hadn't quite mastered the art of tearing toilet paper off the roll. So, apparently in an effort to not make a mess, she proceeded to unwind the entire roll of toilet paper into the toilet. Thank God she forgot to flush!

Horseback Riding

Google has a great new version of their Picasa photo software out. It includes a new feature called Web Albums that's remarkably similar to the photocasting feature of iPhoto. Here's my first Web Album of the Kid's going on pony rides while we were at Big Cedar in Branson a few weeks ago: (Click on the picture below to see the entire album.)

Horseback Riding

Sep 9, 2006 - 16 Photos

Brownwood Locomotion 5K Run

For the past 6-8 weeks I've been training for the Brownwood Reunion Locomotion 5K run. I haven't run as much as I'd like, but have put a fair bit of effort into it. I figured it was a good way to help me get into a little better shape and gave me a goal to work towards. When I started running, I couldn't make it through a mile and I was sore for about 4 days afterwards. Lately, I've been running at least 2 miles a few times a week and I try to take one day per week and run 3.2 miles (5 k). I no longer get sore and I'm really enjoying it.

Before the race today, my personal best time was just under 33 minutes. My goal was to complete the race in 30 minutes. I figured that would be a pretty respectable finish.

So, this morning I went on down to the newly constructed Historical Transportation Complex (in thriving downtown Brownwood) and met up with my other team mates from work. We agreed that our main objective would be to cross the finish line and have fun along the way. One of the guys mentioned that his goal was to beat his 29 minute best. I decided that I'd try to stick close to him.

I was really pleased with my performance. I was able to stick with my buddy about 2/3 of the way through the race until he started to pull away from me. I ended up finishing 10 minutes behind the leader with a chip time of 28:11. That beat my personal best and was enough to put me in 97th place overall and 8th place in my age group. You can see the race results online here.

It looks like I'll have to train harder for next year. One of the guys on my team from work completed the race in 23 minutes, and he's 48 years old.

Slappin' Grandma

The other night we were out and I tried someone's homemade salsa. It was really, really good. I said, "Man, this salsa is great!"

The guy sitting next to me replied, "Yup, it'll really make you want to slap your Grandma!"

"What?"

"You know. It's a saying. It means it's really good."

At this point, I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to fall off my chair. He looked at me with a puzzled-what-did-I-say-that-was-so-funny sort of expression on his face. "You guys don't have sayings like that up north? Like, that will make you want to kick your dog? Kick a can? "

"Uh... no."

They're for when I get Married

Hope came up to me tonight carrying her Strawberry Shortcake "jewelry box". She opened it and said, "Look at what Mom gave me Dad. She told me to keep them in here because they are for my wedding."



I'm starting to feel old......

Tonight's Grilling Masterpiece

Tonight's Grilling Masterpiece:



The journey continues. I'm working my way through Weber's Real Grilling and I've added two new items to my list of grilling accomplishments: Tequila Ham Steaks and Grill Roasted corn. Both were really good. The neat trick for the corn is to soften up half a stick of butter and rub it all over the corn before putting it directly on the grill (No husks, really) at about 350 degrees for 10 minutes, rotating it about every two minutes.

Anyway, I was going to have Anna take a picture of me holding the platter of buttered ears ready to put on the grill. However, as she went to take the picture, the corn started to fall off the platter.... I was able to catch the falling ears by shoving them forward with my chest. This did save the corn, but left a butter streak on my shirt. It was a cruel twist of irony that I was wearing the shirt that I was. Here's the picture of me saving dinner:



(Yup, the shirt really does say "Let me drop everything...." In spite of that, I still maintain that I didn't drop them; they fell from me.)

Hope Makes the Rules

Big sisters can be bossy, and Hope is no exception. This morning she took a piece of paper out and wrote down two rules:

1) Yes
2) No

She taped the paper to the wall. Every time Tori did something Hope didn't like, Hope would drag her over to the wall and point to the word "No" and say something like, "Tori, don't do that. See, the rule says "No" so we don't do that."

When she wanted Tori to do something, she'd drag her over to the wall and say, "See, you have to do it because the rules say "Yes", so you have to."

I love the logic of children. We tend to overcomplicate things. They keep things simple and straightforward. I asked Hope what gave her the authority to make the rules. Without batting an eye, Hope grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the wall and said, "See Dad. Hope makes the rules. It says so right here. See? It says "Yes". So I get to make the rules."

hehe. I think I could probably get her a job working for Kim Jong Il. She could teach the communists a few things about making rules.

Anyway, I couldn't let this little escapade go without a response. So, I grabbed a pen and wrote on the sheet: Dad makes the rules. I pointed it out to Hope and told her that Dad makes the rules and told her in no uncertain terms to stop picking on her little sister.

A few minutes later I came back and here's what I found: