Mark Park

Dorene's Retirement Party

Decorah Trip

I took Anders down to Decorah to see his grandma last weekend. The highlight for Anders was getting to play with his friend Carlton at Phelps Park. Carlton and Anders complement each other well. Carlton encourages Anders to push himself on the playground and Anders compelled Carlton to be more verbal.

Carlton is slightly shorter than Anders, but weighs about 5 lbs more than Anders. Carlton learned from the son of one of Scott's other friend to chest bump. So, he chest bumped Anders, which confused Anders and propelled him to the ground. Carlton then stood over Anders like a member of the 1994 NY Knicks. It was really funny, and no harm was meant by it.

Anders remains the instigator, however. After eating and playing on the playground for a bit Scott and I talked about what to do next at Phelps Park, which led to this exchange:

Scott (to me): "I don't know, what do you think about the fountain?"

Anders (before I can answer): "Wah wah! Wah wah!"

Carlton hearing Anders then precedes to run toward the fountain, at which point Anders follows.

Like all babies, Carlton has a few quirks, one of which is that he doesn't like water on his face. Anders, not knowing this, proceeded to splash himself and Carlton all over including in the face. A fun time was had by all. Anders, Carlton, and I were soaking by the time we left.

I also should mention for Lucas's sake what a great zone defense Scott, his wife Marissa (a former Luther basketball player), and I played on our sons. It was a seamless 2-3. One person on the ground, one person on one side of the play equipment, one on the other side. Our Zelda principles would have made Chuck Etzen proud (massive inside joke that only Lucas and Brad will understand or Scott too, but he doesn't read this blog).

We also visited the Whippy Dip. Anders was all over, visiting everyone. I saw my former classmate Chewy and his young family. Anders took control of the ice cream cone and fed me rather than the other way around.

Yesterday in Princeton, MN we took him to the Mark Park Splash Park. Anders was initially wary of all that water, but found his groove plugging the smaller water fountain holes.

Anders seems allergic to something. Anna seems allergic plus. She might actually have something. It was such a late spring up here that there might actually still be stuff blooming.

My Baby Takes the Morning Train (relevant to last picture)

Funny Hats at Mandy's Office

A and C, cont., Emma Kaul and A, A and me

Carlton Nordschow and Anders at Phelps Park (Decorah, IA)

3118 Timber View Drive

Get them while still up, pictures of our new place in Sugar Land: http://search.har.com/engine/3118-Timber-View-Dr-Sugar%20Land-TX-77479_HAR78928326.htm

SE TX Three Act

Act One: "This is your time!"

Act Two: "Houston, We Have a Problem."

Act Three: "Sugar Shack"

I've probably said it before, but I'm a "summer" and Anna is a "winter." Anders is a combo, but likely a bit more like Anna. He loves sun, but prefers cooler days. The weather has been gloomy and cool since I've been in MN, which Anna loves.

On Monday things changed as we flew to Houston. Anna kept saying "this is your time!" Anna was excited for me because the trip encompassed so many things I love: travel, warm weather, time zones, airports, light rail, the Sun Belt, among other things. I was reaganing, hitting everything right on cue. Anna said, "You're right" on Monday more than she says that in half a year. For example, despite a tight connection, I guided us precisely to a Dunkin Donuts in another concourse. We hit the rental car shuttle at Houston Hobby right in stride. After that our (my) luck changed on a dime.

I anticipated an upgrade, but we got the standard Chevy Aveo. Then I got hopelessly lost as I tried to get from Hobby to I-45. According to Houstonians, this was a very difficult accomplishment. I wandered into an area where people were staring at me from their cars. We then drove to my deferred Father's Day supper at a solid Greek restaurant that was featured on the Food Network show with that annoying guy from the TGI Fridays commercials who Bobby Moynihan impersonates on Saturday Night Live. It was good. Anna threatened to leave me for her gyro. I had a heckuva time getting there as I almost missed my exit, which I would have done had I not stopped in my lane, flashed the blinker until someone let me in. I heard about that move, but I was worried that I would be lost in the Houston Vortex.

Houston streets were brought to you by the people who made Hennepin Ave. in Minneapolis and named streets in England. If you've tried to navigate in England or Houston, you know that most streets have at least two names, sometimes three names and they change name without warning. Also, people do not seem to be acquainted with the alternate name of their street, which only adds to the confusion. Conversely, there are some streets that go on in a straight line forever, such as the main street of St. John's, Westheimer, which by most accounts urban explorers are still attempting to find its terminus in the western Houston exurbs. So, it ends up being like Wichita and Salisbury, England had a child who grew up to be the Houston street pattern.

After dinner, Mapquest took me to our motel, which should have been just off the freeway. Instead the street ended abruptly, I got out of the car and wandered through a road construction site to search for the HoJo. No luck. Anna called home, we got the number of the HoJo, and we found the street a couple of blocks over. Anna was incredulous that HoJos still existed. After our stay, I wish they didn't.

Despite its location, the room itself was nicer than expected. The bed would become my torture chamber over the next three nights. Neither of us slept the first night, and I can sleep anywhere from the nastiest Econolodge to a rundown, dirty Warsaw hostel. I could not sleep here. The bed was soft in the middle and hard on the edges. It was like a donut or the state of Ohio. Anna notice two small holes in the curtains that were spaced like eyes, one of which was blinking or "winking" at us. The second night I pretended to be sleeping on a water bed, that coupled with exhaustion allowed me to sleep. I, however, awakened Wednesday with the most severe high back pain I can remember.

Tuesday morning we met our realtor, Mary, whose daughter teaches at St. John's and whose grandchildren attend the school. You might ask why we would need a realtor for a rental, well, read on. She showed us about 20 places in Houston based on price and location parameters. We were trying to stay within a reasonable distance from school. By the end of the day, we had narrowed it down to a couple of choices. Mary suggested we go back and look at the areas around our picks to see where we might go grocery shopping or the parks to which we might take Anders.

This trip to southwest Houston was illuminating. Most of the places around our top choices had check cashing and payday loan locations in multiple languages along with the odd "Cash for Gold" stores. Even if the houses were fine, these would not be neighborhoods where Anna would feel safe taking Anders out on walks. I would have likely still done so since I'm oblivious and stubborn.

The stress of being away from Anders on no sleep in 104 degree heat on a day where we looked all day but found no place where we'd be comfortable finally got to Anna. She shut it down for the day. I worked with my department head--Wendall, the HR director--Audrey, and Mary to fix the situation over dinner with Wendall. Have you ever had an avocado stuffed with cheese and chicken? If not, I highly recommend it. We decided the answer to our housing problem was to look in the same direction, but just past Houston in the SW suburbs, particularly Sugar Land.

Sugar Land remains the head quarters of Imperial Sugar. I can imagine the flat fields as a sugar plantation before they turned into suburban developments. Sugar Land had some of the first planned developments in the Houston area. As haphazard as Houston was, Sugar Land was meticulous. Houston is a city that prides itself on a lack of zoning laws. This notion blew Anna's orderly Minnesota mind. We we looked in Houston we could not find a proper grocery store beyond a corner Salvadorian market. There were no movie theater, no Target, you get the idea.

Sugar Land has all of that including a mall, a Whole Foods, a Pot Belly Sandwich Works, and Kroger Signature, which is a step of from the already super-nice Athens Kroger. Sugar Land is also the home of "The Hammer," convicted Former House Majority leader and pest exterminator Tom Delay, a man so awful W couldn't stand him! Sugar Land also does not have the standard corporate colors of the box retailers, no red Target bull's eye, no orange Home Depot sign, no yellow and blue Best Buy sign. The stores are brick and the signs are all a kind of bronze color.

We looked at about ten places out there on Wednesday. There were no scary neighborhoods and most of the places we saw were at least acceptable. Anna and I both found favorites. Fortunately, her favorite was my second choice and my favorite was her second choice. We decided that her favorite would be our first choice.

We learned a lot about renting a house in post-2008 crash America. It is a cut throat, competitive game. We would not have a place if not for Mary. Going into this world without a realtor would be akin to entering a knife fight with a toothpick. We found out Wednesday night that our first choice, which had been on the market for a few days had 18 showing and 6 offers, of which we were 3rd or 4th best. We subsequently created a long list of places where we could live and ranked them according to preference. A couple of those were gobbled up yesterday. Our second choice had another offer with which we were competing.

Once we decided to go all out for our second choice (my 1st choice), we had to move fast. We were at Mary's house until 10:30 pm Wednesday night procuring and filling out paperwork including credit reports and credit scores. Mary has a lovely house just west of Rice.

Yesterday was a travel day for us. We woke up at 3:30 am. I found the airport without much incident. We departed at 6:30. In Atlanta at 9:30 EDT, I was calling St. John's and Mary trying to get my contract faxed to her and work on other elements of this particular rental application. Anna drafted a letter on the tarmac to our potential land lady that would make our case as good tenants. We arrived in blustery Minneapolis at 1 pm CDT and trained to Mandy's house where Anna typed the letter and emailed to Mary and her dad. We then drove to North Memorial Hospital where Greg works to fax the amended contract to Mary and edit our land lady letter. He sent the letter, but Greg could not send a long distance fax from work. We left NW Minneapolis and drove out to Maple Grove to find a Kinkos. The self serve fax machine was broken. I called my friend Ben Rudolf in an attempt to find a functioning fax machine. Ben is a great emergency contact because he is always near a computer and he usually answers his phone, which is rare in this day and age. Kinkos took the fax to the back and got it faxed.

Then last night, we sweetened the pot by adding a second year to the lease and upping our pet deposit. We were pulling out all the stops. This morning, I drove down to Elk River early to send another fax adding the second year to our contract. I got a call from Mary an hour ago saying that we have locked down the place we wanted. Whew!

Mary said this level of competition and the amount of documentation needed to rent has amped up in the past six months. Mary's last rental six months ago was not like this. Mary deals primarily in buying and selling houses and I'm guessing her experience is with more upscale places. She really went to bat for us and worked diligently and competently for us at all hours. We are grateful for her. It was easier to buy our house in Athens in 2006 than to rent a house now in Sugar Land.

We are in a great neighborhood, just a half a block for our community pool and tennis courts, to which we will have a key. There are sidewalks everywhere. You can't sneeze without hitting a school out there. It's relatively lush out there. There are tree lined boulevards everywhere.

The food down there is amazing. We had an amazing meal of Texas seafood on Wednesday night to celebrate. We had a Tex-Mex shrimp cocktail that was remarkable and mesquite grilled fresh seafood.

Anders is up, gotta go. It's off to Sugar Land next month!

Love Letter to the Central Time Zone

I am happy that Anders will grow up in the Central Time Zone. We have lived in the Eastern Time Zone for the past eight years. Anyone who knows me realizes that TV has been a big part of my life. Television is a cruel mistress in the Eastern Time Zone. I appreciate the evening news at 6:30 pm, but the 7-8 pm hour of infotainment is worthless. Football games starting at 1 pm on Sunday is just too late. Games of all sort end near or after midnight.

Then end of prime time is also my cue to go to bed, which in Ohio is 11 pm rather than 10 pm.

Living in the Central Time Zone gives Anders at least a fighting chance of finishing a Sunday or Monday Night Football Game, but probably still not a World Series game, if he is inclined toward sports.

I also like watching "Hardball" and "PTI" during the four o'clock hour.

The Eastern Time Zone was even annoying on the radio. I often ran errands with Anders during the eight o'clock hour since "The Dan Patrick Show" didn't come on the radio until 9 am. That problem would be avoided in Central Time.

Is there too much of a good thing e.g. earlier in the day sports viewing? No. As I've said before, all things being equal, I'd live in Southern California. Watching sports is a reason for this preference, along with perfect weather, constant sunshine and a scenic landscape.

I would like the Mountain Time Zone as well, but they always get forgotten. When I was a kid, shows were promoted this way, "The Dukes of Hazard, tonight at eight, seven Central and Mountain." At some point in the 90s, TV executives decided to drop the "and Mountain" from the promos. I read a stat recently that only about 4% of Americans live in the Mountain Time Zone. That seemed too small until I thought about it. Only a few states are primarily in the Mountain Time Zone: ID, MT, WY, UT, CO, NM, and AZ--and AZ is only in Mountain Time for part of the year since they refuse to save daylight. So technically, it is always Mountain Standard Time in Phoenix, but in practice for eight months a year it is the same time in Tucson as LA not Denver.

These are the things I think about. I get excited talking about such things. I'm sure Anders can't wait to join the conversation about time zones. Two months from now, when Anna reads this, she will say, "Time zones?! You did a post on time zones?! What does that have to do with Anders?" I hope that I have answered that question tangentially.

What this means for you, Dear Reader, is that you will not have to wait much longer for my discussion of my favorite sports radio shows during my two years at home with Anders.

Anders of America

We took Anders to the Mall of America today. He got a lot more out of it this year than last summer.

He delighted at the water wall next to the sushi restaurant on the second level. He made some funny faces as he worked up the courage to touch the water.

Anders loved Camp Snoopy. He enjoyed just taking in the whole atmosphere of the kids and the rides. He did not ride any rides since the swing is still too much for him. We didn't have to pay to get him into a proper theme park, but he enjoyed it more than he would have enjoyed a trip to Valley Fair, especially since it rained today.

He has a good bit of his grandma Dorene in him as he was picking up trash at Camp Snoopy. He also tried to make sure that Anna and I held him equally to make things fair.

He ran around waving his hands and yelling with excitement at times. It was a sensory overload, but he loved it. It'll be fun to take him back there again when he gets a bit older or even just next week.

Back in Bear Country

I found out last night that there are bears in these here woods. I'm not offering a Threat Down, but I was a bit startled to learn about the bears upon my return to Zimmerman. It truly is the start of what Minnesotans call "Up North" around here.

My mom visited yesterday and today. We went to Assonance Park, I mean, Mark Park in Princeton with Anders (a little 10th Grade English humor there).

Watching Anders on playground equipment is a unique experience. The swings kinda terrify him, but he's also kinda intrigued by them. He'll do a few reps in the swing, usually no more than three and then he wants out. Yet, he always points out the swings and walks toward them. He also likes to point out the slide, but usually does not want to go down the slide. What he likes to do is climb the steps up to the top of the slide or the general playground equipment high ground and walk around up high. Then he walks to a point 2-4 feet off the ground and attempts to walk off that point, thinking it's just another small step, which is why I'm usually one step behind him on the equipment.

It must be a funny scene on a crowded Sunday at a place like Mark Park to see a bunch of kids aged 3-11 climbing and running around on playground equipment and then there's this 22 month old and his 6'4'' 235 lb father trying to squeeze through plastic tubes meant for four-year-olds so that Anders doesn't step off the edge.

I fell off a slide at Lake Kanopolis when I was about 2 1/2. I don't remember it hurting, but I remember the fuss that everyone made and I remember that I had just had eaten a hot dog with mustard. I remember the taste of mustard in my mouth and I did not eat mustard again for years afterward because it reminded me of that fall. It's a funny thing about memory because I believe I remember this incident, but it has been recounted so many times over the years by my mom and my uncle Fred that I don't truly recall what I remember and what's just a memory because they told me, but the mustard part of the story is real. They didn't know that.

I spent Saturday night on my long sojourn home with the Seeley Family in Sun Prairie, WI. Dan and I talked many afternoons while he was driving home from work and I while I was driving to work in the fall and spring. I correctly predicted, with the help of the Chinese Lunar Calendar, they'd have a son and the date on which he'd be born 9-9-10, with the help of Brett Favre. We'd talked a lot about our sons on those calls. Reid was described to me as a spirited and willful child who also terrorized his dad just a bit. He appeared cute, curious and harmless to me, but there was one point when he was not getting fed quickly enough when he let out some warning noises that gave me an idea of what Dan was talking about.

I was a good luck charm on the sleeping front as well. Reid has had some trouble sleeping through the night. Well, on my visit, he slept for his second longest stretch yet. Ambient noise helps. They tried tracks like "The Beach," and "Jungle Sounds," but the one that works is Track 5 "Hairdryer." He was a cute baby and joy to meet.

When I arrived back here, I expected to see 9 month old Anders. I was instead greeted by a little boy. He hopped down off the couch and toddled over to see me. He's a lot handier with his words and letters than when I left almost two weeks before. Anders is also more confident in his strides.

So after Mom and I took him to the park, we went to Dairy Queen. Anders was not interested in his baby cone or us. Rather, he joined a family of six where the Mom was handing out dilly bars. The kids eyed Anders warily as he tried to climb up on the padded bench on one side, then on the other. Anders wasn't interested in the ice cream. He wanted to hang out. He did the same thing last summer at the Rain Forrest Cafe. Anders is a man of the people. I hope I'm around for his political career.

Homeward Bound

I'm giving up my lunch break in Possibility City to get this typed before all the AP detrius clouds my memories of leaving Athens.
Well, we made it out. Anders enjoyed the ride, but not so much for Trudy.
We received good help from Todd, Pete, and Paul in moving the big stuff, but a surprising amount of the small stuff was unpacked. A closet here, a vanity there, a half bathroom there...it all adds up in a hurry.
Anna stopped sleeping on Wednesday. She couldn't get to sleep. Then she didn't sleep much on Thursday and no one slept on Friday.
We felt that it was time to leave Athens more than ever on Friday as we had no one who could watch Anders as we packed. It goes really slowly when one person is trying to pack the house. We strung together some help from a couple of neighbors, but we didn't make much of a dent in the packing until Anders went to bed. Anders awakened just before we left the house at 1:35 am EDT on Saturday, May 28. 96 minutes after we legally agreed to leave our house. When Anna got him up she told him, "Anders, it's time to go, go, go."
Anders replied, "Go?! Go!"
I packed up his pack 'n play, while Anna put him in his carseat. Once in his carseat, he started saying, "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"
Trudy was not as happy. Anna tried not to laugh too loudly as I wrangled Trudy with the help of colorful metaphors by dragging her across the wooden floors.
Trudy had all sorts of stuff piled on her cage and Anna had baskets of stuff on her lap. On our way out of town, we dropped off the keys at the new owners' place on 1st Street and the ascended out of the SEO. Trudy was meowing and welping and making new crazy cat sounds the whole way out, which led Anders to laugh hysterically. You are not likely to meet three people laughing as hard was we were at 2 am in Nelsonville on a Friday night, that is without chemical assistance.
So Anders taunted Trudy on our trip up to Columbus. In true "Dad" fashion, I had made a non-refundable motel booking on the west side of Columbus. Plus, I didn't want to wake up to the voice of Chris Riddle on WOUB one more time. The Econolodge was a dump. I'm never booking there again. In April, I stayed at one in Charlottesville where my neighbor was a pimp. A few years ago, Paul and I staying at one in Columbia where there was blood in the bathroom. This place smelled like a cigarette factory and was less than clean.
But Trudy got her revenge. On Saturday as we drove up to Chicago, Trudy turned to Anders as he was about to drift off to sleep and started meowing loudly to keep him awake. There were constant shenanigans like that from the Back Row during out three day oddysey.
We stayed with Brad and Martha in Chicago. Lucas brought his lovely fiance Sarah over so that we could meet her. Anna was really excited to meet Sarah, but in putting Anders to bed she crashed. I guess not really sleeping for three days will do that.
Sunday was not so bad, aside from the severe weather in Northern Illinois. At the Madison Panera, I encountered some bathroom grafiti. It looked like a faded swatiska, then I looked closer and it said, "Hi!" That more than anything encapsulated where we were and where we were going. I also always love reacclaimating to friendly service employees versus surly service employees. Despite being nominally in the South, Louisville is full of the latter.
We arrived in Zimmerman about 7 pm CDT on Sunday.
That's probably it for me for a while, since I haven't see Anders since Tuesday and I will not see him again until a week from Sunday.
"End of Stretch Break..." (A bit of AP US history grading humor for the one or two people who get it).

road trip

I am typing on a computer that barely works. I will write more later. Anders This keyboard doesn't wo. I will ave to find a funtioning keybard.