Regular Life

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. – Robert Frost

Browsing Posts in Firsts

Strawberry Deathcake

It wasn’t as rough as I expected. I don’t think anybody bled a single drop, and only a few times did anyone slam to the floor.

I attended a roller derby for the first time on Saturday night, and it happened to be championship night for the Dallas Derby Devils league. In this league the rink is flat, which was much different from the sloped tracks I had seen in movies.

Jammer Coming Up

I found out about it through a co-worker who is an amateur filmmaker. When he isn’t shooting weddings or documentaries or women on skates hip-checking one another, he helps run the website BigBadSportsDaddy.com. He’s the one whose movie set I visited to do still shots for the media release.

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My wife went through a large stack of papers and projects our son brought home at the end of first grade and found these poems he wrote.

Heart
Pump Pump Pump
Mimry (memory?) in my heart
Love love love
I love my heart

Mrs. Kenely (his 1st grade teacher)
I like her
I like her a lot
Oe (oh) yes I do
Mrs. Kenely
I rember (remember) her evry (every) day
Now I am at home
I miss you
bye Mrs. Kenely bye

Noah (his best buddy)
nice, playful
Laughing, bouncing, sleeping
He is my buddy
Friend

Butterflise (Butterflies)
Btterflise here Butterflise there
Butterflise on my bushis (bushes)
Sucing (sucking) necter (nectar) in the flowers

Huge Chest
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This was once the largest chest of drawers in the world. Built in 1920, it stands 38 feet tall in High Point, North Carolina. Now the tallest stands at another end of town, at 80 feet. As of this writing, I haven’t seen that one yet.

The alligator’s nostrils and eyes poked up through the water’s surface as the beast lay in wait for its next meal. Just 20 feet from us, it was as still as the glassy water.

“I’m going to get a picture just to show J there are alligators here,” J said.

“Sure. Me, too,” I said and lifted my camera to my face.

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Four metal fence posts — the kind farmers and ranchers use to put up barbed wire fences — formed four corners of a square around a low mound of loose sand. A woman wrapped bright yellow tape around the posts to cordon off the area. She wore khaki shorts and a dark green shirt, topped off with a blue denim ball cap. Another woman, dressed similarly, walked to a small white pickup truck and climbed in through the open driver’s door.

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(Previously: No Zombies)

Little did I know we would be doing all the cooking, and Simon’s wife would be doing most of the flirting with Lisa.

Lisa was our server, and from the start we all liked her. While educating us about the fondue experience, she flashed a sweet but sincere smile and said that the cook pot is very hot and we needed to be careful.

“If something happens, don’t worry, I’m also a nurse,” she said.

“When do you do that?” I said.

“Days. I left my shift and came straight here.”

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(Previously: Edmon’10, We Have Ignition)

I sit near a fire fueled by random bits of kindling and firewood, slowly turning my marshmallow dangerously close to the flames. It’s 10 p.m., but it isn’t dark yet. To my left sits Moksha, and to my right are Amy and Simon, our Canadian hosts.

It’s June and it’s cool enough that any part of me not facing the fire is cold. Smoke rises into a sky still dimly lit by a sun I barely recognize.

In a great and unexpected finish to our first day, we’re in their suburban back yard, huddled around a fire pit that would make any state park camping spot proud.

The trio has begun the last leg of the trifecta. Three “Generation X” men — husbands as well as fathers of small children — became acquainted on the internet a few years ago after discovering one another in an online serial novelist’s comments area. Starting in 2008, we have held annual meetings for fun and camaraderie, using a different household as the headquarters each time.

I sit recalling details of their son’s soccer game, our delicious dinner, and the leisurely stroll home. Oops, my marshmallow’s on fire. Time to concentrate.

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Bubble Boys
Flower Children

New Buddies
Soccer Boy

(Next in the series: Capacious in Canada)

(Note: Written on 6/17, this is the first in a series about my annual visit to two guys I first met thanks to the Internet)

I sit in one of the largest, busiest airports in the world, located in a metro area relatively unaffected by the economic downturn that has ravaged so many other cities and countries. Big oil has held a presence here for decades, but more recently several major technology companies — Cisco, Microsoft, McAfee, etc. — have located large campuses here.

Despite all of that, I may not be able to post this before boarding my plane because there is no free wi-fi in the Dallas Fort-Worth International Airport. Is it a right to have Internet access? No. But, one would think that with all the tech-savvy people in this area the airport could get a competitive rate on implementation and management of an airport-wide wi-fi system. Other airports with far less volume (literally and figuratively) have done it.

Is that the problem? The sheer number of people who move through here each day? I wish I could find someone with the answer.

I suspect it is the same as it is in most cases — somebody can make a buck, so somebody is going to make a buck. T-mobile’s internet access points pop up as available no matter where I go in the building. They’ll gladly allow you to access the Internet — for a fee.

Sure, I could join the ranks of those who pay for wireless internet access. There are a few travellers sitting in this Samsung Mobile Travel Lounge happily browsing the web, checking work e-mail, and the like.

Stripped bare, my comments could be made to look like those of one looking for a handout. I normally don’t expect something for nothing, but with all the time to kill in this new era of arriving an hour or two before departure, this basic thing seems like a small request.

I would argue that this would benefit folks across the socio-economic spectrum, but I suppose that’s ridiculous when I’m sitting next to a Starbuck’s in a lovely air-conditioned space, iPod pumping music to my ears while I wait to fly to Canada. For fun. The most difficult task I have between here and my destination thousands of miles away is finding the cheapest place to eat in Denver’s airport.

But I bet it will have free wi-fi.
——-
I didn’t have time to test the free wi-fi hypothesis in Denver. I got off the plane at about 11:00 a.m. and had to eat before catching my next flight at 11:38.

Now I sit aboard the final stretch to Canada, the snow-capped Rocky Mountains out the window to the left, flat plains to the right.

“So, will we know when we cross the border?” I ask the flight attendant as the can of bloody Mary mix chuffs open and she hands it to the man across the narrow aisle.

She leans down next to me and points out the window, “You mean you don’t think you’ll see the big line down there?”

A few minutes later she hands me a Declaration Card. On it I divulge whether or not I am bringing to Canada any firearms, excessive amounts of alcohol or tobacco, meat, dairy products, etc., and whether or not I am not a farmer headed toward a farm. I felt rather boring when I checked “No” on all of the above. A friendly passenger informed me that I must give this to a Customs officer shortly after debarking.

So far it’s been a pleasant, uneventful welcome to the United States’ northern neighbor.

(Next in the series: Fireside Chat)

(Those of you reading “Shootings” will need to wait a little longer for the next chapter.)

My six year-old son brings a roll of toilet paper to me and it’s damp. All the way through.

My mind immediately traces that toilet paper back to its origin — under the guest bath sink. Fortunate to be seated on the world’s most renowned thinking chair, I Sherlock Holmes the case for about five seconds and realize that there must be a leak.

All because I just had to Tim Allen it and change out the faucet and drain plug assembly all by myself.

I lay a lot of the blame at my wife’s feet, of course, because she’s the one who proudly presented three brand new faucets to me. I have installed two of them, and now our double vanity is mismatched quite badly. Her side features the stock, chrome-colored plastic fixtures, while mine boldly states its presence with sophisticated metal that purports to be not black but looks a lot like it to me and the wife.

But back to the leak.

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Don’t you love it when the unexpected outshines the planned?

Our son spent Saturday night with my local in-laws while my wife and I had a date, and snow began falling. It piled up to 9 inches by the time I woke at 7:30 a.m. — and still was coming down hard.

I wandered around alone a while with my camera, then picked up Benjamin, who wanted to go “back to the forest where you went this morning, Daddy.”

(video clip after the jump)

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