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Today was a nice leisurely day. We pulled into Pueblo around 8a after driving through the night (for 800 miles). Isaac and I went to a “junior ranger” presentation at the state park while the ladies kept sleeping. Then we dawdled around town for a while,

It was a dreary day, overcast and sprinkling on and off, but pleasant enough for the kind of day we wanted. As we started getting ready for bed it started raining a bit more, and was coming down at a steady pace. Lying in a tent listening to the sound of rain is extremely soothing. The lightning and thunder was less so, for the kids, but eventually we all nodded off.

Fast forward an hour and a half, as Cassandra and I both wake up at the same time with the same look, wondering if we had remembered to reserve an ark with the campground. The charming patter of rain we fell asleep had been replaced by a gale of wind threatening to shread our rain tarp. As we contemplated our options I put my hand down into the puddle of water that had collected on the tent. We were on mattresses but the still sleeping kids were on a thin blanket sure to soak through any minute.

Fortunately we have a newer tent, all of which seem to have more doors than walls. We were able to swiftly unzip the door right where they were, grab them sleeping bag and all, and toss them in the car. Isaac woke up long enough to mutter “Hey, I’m getting wet.” Jane asked me to put her back in the car, as I was halfway to the car. Both of them were asleep 5 seconds later.

At this point the normal course of action would be for the parents to get in the car and crash with the kids. Instead …

Me: “Here’s what I’m thinking. I’m not falling asleep anytime soon, and we could be making a lot of headway to our next stop. Let’s take all the wet stuff and throw it in the carrier and head out.”
Her: “Okay”

Torrential downpour? No problem. Darkness? Feh. Lack of weather gear? Well I *thought* my jacket was waterproof. It took over an hour to strike the camp. A ranger came by near the end letting us know some of the roads were flooded and would probably be impassable soon.

A few highlights:

• I was recreating the world’s strongest man keg tossing event, trying to get the full carrier onto the roof. I finally caved and asked for help, and we quickly got it in place. Cassandra then broke into song, “It Takes Two”, from Into the Woods.
• The kids have yet to ask why the woke up in the car nowhere near a campsite. Good to know their life is so surreal it seemed perfectly normal to them.
• Changing into dry clothes in the camp bathroom. Sometimes a series of events can be expressed with a single idea, and this was it for me. You know you’re having a bad day when it’s the middle of the night and you’re naked and freezing in an outhouse.

Deming, NM

Partially inspired by servergirl, let me vent for a second about our server tonight.

What’s the most annoing thing a server can do? When the network interface resets from full duplex to auto negotiate. Wait, different server.

If you bring me the wrong thing, do not thumb through all your tickets while still at the table to determine who screwed up, or even worse to convince me I ordered the wrong thing. And then, when you finally get me the right thing, don’t try charging me for the wrong one!

Then to top all that off I got to argue over whether we got regular milk or kids milk.

I didn’t get the appeal of the videio iPod. It seemed like a natural evolutionary step for the line, but nothing very revolutionary. And why could anyone watch a movie on it?

But my mini died and I jumped into a 30gb ipod, the most obvious choice for any storage at all. I watched “road to perdition” on it fairly soon after I got it, mostly because I could. Also to test the process of ripping a dvd to the ipod, a process that takes a lot of cpu and wall clock time, but not much intervention.

Apart from the cool factor, it wasn’t too impressive. Even less impressive was the fact that the battery died with 15 ninutes left. add in the general discomfort of trying to watch, and I was underwhelmed.

Then for our last road trip I digitized a few more movies, mostly to listen to on the road. And I noticed how small they came out, filesize wise. And now I’m on a 5200 mile road trip, including a 12 hour train ride, and I’m sold! It’s darn handy having some entertainment quite that handy. Yeah, I could have a portable dvd player for the same thing (and do, for the kids), but this is so much more convenient.

So here are the movies I decided to bring. They are (obviously) not the greatest movies ever, or what I would consider desert island movies. They’re simply a mix of movies I haven’t seen yet, or think I’ll enjoy in the next few weeks.

About a Boy
Badasssssssss
Battlestar Galacatica miniseries
Frequency
Game 6
Garden State
Just Like Heaven
I Heart Huckabees
A League of their Own
O Brother, Where Art Thou
Office Space
Pirates of the Carribbean
Strange Brew

What videos would make your ipod for a 3 week vacation?

Petty crap

I think dealer service is a racket. You pay a premium for a shuttle (the only useful perk), a huge tv, and a big moccachino latte machine. But I don’t trust any of them, hate the atmosphere, and don’t think the markup is worth it.

But, it’s our first oil change so I gave ‘em a shot. And they blew it over $3.

According to their own sign, an oil change is $22 and their 20 point inspection is free. So I asked for that, which is their “gold” package, which is $25. “No, it’s $22″ I said. We went back and forth half a dozen times before she called in her manager who gave me the price.

And they don’t rotate tires for free which pisses me off. I had grown pretty used to that, since we usually got our oil changed at the same place where we bought our tires. And this *is* the same place we bought our tires, damnit.

Now, if I brought in a thermos and really loaded up on the mochachino, it might be worth it…

I just had to resort to using a telephone to reserve our camping spots in Colorado. The website wasn’t descriptive enough on what type of sites they were. I feel so dirty…

It’s time for another family road trip! 5200 miles in 21 days. At least one railroad museum, a national monument, 3 birthday parties, 2 anniversaries, a science museum, a childrens museum, a little camping. and a train ride. 4 wonderful friends or families will be clearing some space for us on the way, and we expect to have a wonderful time.

For the last few months I’ve been getting the word out at work that I’m taking July off. “When in July?” is usually the response. “July”, I reply. It’s been fun. At our last staff meeting I said, “I want to reiterate that I’m taking July off. I know everyone knows that already, but I just like to say it.” Some people wish they could do that, are are generally unimpressed with my Zen-like response of “So do it”.

I’m extremely fortunate to have the job I do. I get oodles of vacation and sick time. There are relatively few times I “need” to be at work. And it’s extra nice to have a boss that trusts you. My vacation request went something like this, “I’m thinking of taking July off.” “Have you told your customers?” It probably helps that he knows I’ll never go more than 24 hours without checking my email. :)

2006_0618_163914AA

Originally uploaded by bbendick.

I had a fantastic father’s day, doing mostly nothing. I woke up to this absoultely fantastic gift my family. Had some tasty breakfast. Read for a while, did some puzzles, played some Lego Star Wars, and finished off Nothing Like It in the World, by Stephen Ambrose. If the subject matter interests you in the last I certainly recommend it.

It would have been nice if the Diamondbacks could pitch to save their lives, other than that it was a damn fine day.

Sick Child: <whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine>I don’t want eyedrops</whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine>
Frustrated Parent: Then you shouldn’t have gotten pink eye, now get over here!

Mid May and early June have been melancholy times for me, ever since my mom passed away. Mother’s Day, Her Birthday, and My Birthday are all grouped in that clump. She was always the first one to call me on my birthday, usually waking me up with a phone call and a fairly horrible rendition of happy birthday.

I got to Cars really early to get good seats, with the family trailing behind. I brought the iPod to catch up on podcasts and was treated to a <a href=”http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail775.html”>fantastic talk</a> by Davy Rothbart of <a href=”http://www.foundmagazine.com/”>Found Magazine</a>. It was very interesting, talking about the found stuff (love letters, birthday cards, to-do lists, etc) that people find and send him. It’s mostly pretty funny stuff, but ocassionally extremely touching. There was a bit about a note a woman found at a cemetary, and it really hit me. As a result I teared up a lot at during anything remotely touching during Cars, but also for the Flicka preview, and probably even the stupid rat one. :)

<a href=”http://www.itconversations.com/index.html”>IT Conversations</a> has a nifty service that lets me link to a portion of a podcast, so I’ve done that for this part. It’s only 2 minutes, <a href=”http://www.itconversations.com/clip.php/?showid=775&start=15:22&stop=17:16
“>give it a listen</a>.

I’m pretty tired. All for good causes though:

Thursday: Leave at 7a for Los Angeles to see a game in Dodger Stadium that night.
Friday: Disneyland! After a full day at Disneyland, drive to Vegas.
Saturday: Vegasy stuff.
Sunday: Drive back to Tucson. Got started a little too late, got home around midnight.
Monday: Help Earl move. Started plenty early, 7a. Underestimated volume to move, finished at 2:30a. That’s a lot of moving.

1167 miles in 4 days for our last big road trip in a while. Kind of pitiful by our standards, but we are getting older. :)