Fighting uphill this morning for some reason

Stupid brain appears to be up to it’s annoying tricks today. For no discernible reason, just have to breath, try to relax, keep my head down and make it past this. It was a good weekend, uneventful for the most part. With some fun and some relaxation mixed in.

Friday night there was a Scout swim party. I didn’t swim but pretty much everyone else in the family did. It was a good time. A chance to catch up with some of the Scout families, although that is experiencing a transition as our kids get older, and many of the families that we are more connected with have moved on. I also got to take some fun pictures.

Sunflowers & cloudy skies

Leap into water

Saturday morning I got up early and went for a swim. I did okay, I focused on just a regular, slow pace. And I did alright with that. I was definitely tired at the end. And when I got home I did some cleaning, trying to restore the main rooms to some semblance of order. And also got a little start on the gradual process of returning the basement to order, and set up for gaming and hobbies. I did notice one thing. This was the first time I did an early morning exercise without caffeine, and I did notice it, taking a short nap in the afternoon. Something to be mindful of in the future. And I just relaxed the rest of the day on Saturday.

Sunday was our game in Denver. Which went pretty well. I was a little out of it for some reason, I had fun, and it was great when we finally defeated the big bads. And it was cool when one of the players got a chance to really shine. And James had a good time, even if he did get a little on some folks nerves with repeating requests for things that had already been shot down. And it was a bit of a late night for us getting home.

All in all a good weekend, some exercise, some fun, and some productivity. Really nothing to complain about. The only real problem was that due to the late night Sunday night, I could not get myself up this morning for a swim when I wanted to. And it could just be that, plus a restless nights sleep that is getting to me today. Either way, I know it is something that will pass, and I just need to stay focused on the now, and not let the past or future drag me down.

Done, bad air out, bringing good air in

Yeah, yesterday was pretty awful. And I gave in to the temptation and let my liberal flag fly high and proud with rants, FB posts and even the odd argument. But that is it, time to move on, I will still read on the subject, hit ‘like’ on worthy posts, but overall I will refrain from actually posting and getting into arguments over things I cannot truly control. The bad air is out, time to focus on bringing in some positive air.

Our pictures from our family photography session were made available yesterday, and they were great! I want to thank Lisa for a great job. We had fun doing the pictures, they turned out great, and I am looking forward to getting some of them printed out. In particular I liked these 2.

The whole family

Kim and I

As I am the one who takes most of the pictures we don’t get a lot of pictures of the 2 of us. So I am really happy to have one of 2 of us, it is a real treat. And again, I want to thank Lisa for making the picture taking fun, and productive, and giving us some wonderful pictures to treasure. Here is her web site and I strongly recommend her:

Lisa Work Design

All that being said, it is Father’s Day weekend. Tomorrow I will be doing the finishing touches on the house and yard to prepare for Sunday. And Sunday we will host our usual big family gathering for such things. I am gearing myself up mentally for it and should be ready to handle the crowd.

But, tonight I am hosting our D&D game for the boys. And I am excited about this one. It will be the second session of Pathfinder and I think I and them are better prepared for this one. I have a better handle on what I can throw at them and I think it should be fun.

Like I said, life goes on. I have learned that I cannot spend my time focused on the negatives I cannot control. I need to remain focused on the positives, and the things I can control. And most importantly on all the good things, like a beautiful, wonderful family, and great friends!

A very satisfying weekend

I got a lot of things done, got in some good alone time, and had some fun. It was a good weekend. I made some very good initial progress on the basement. I enjoyed some painting time. I had a good game in Denver. It was a very satisfying weekend.

The finished bookshelf

That was my first priority for the weekend. I needed to do something constructive. And I really got a lot done. There is still some organizing to do, but even where I am it is a very good start. I started with a premise, it was time to let go. I was raised in a house of books, by book lovers. And I became a book hoarder as a result. And also hoped to raise my children the same way. But there were 2 very major things I had to just accept, and both stem from accepting the times. First, in this era of the Cloud, and electronic publishing, I can get pretty much any book I want from the cloud and/or library. There really isn’t any reason to own a book unless it has some sentimental attachment. Second, my kids are simply not the readers that I am. For a variety of reasons, and that is not a value judgement, it just is. So keeping books around on the off chance they might pick them up and read doesn’t make much sense. And a last point, if I want to use the main room for my hobby stuff I need room.

So I enacted a serious purge. The only books that got kept were those that either had a serious emotional attachment. Or represented something. I was ruthless. It wasn’t easy, but I am very pleased with the end results. I think that when we get some of the other stuff out, and the carpet dries out, I should end up having a nice area for my hobbies.

Viper and Fang

I did some painting this weekend. I had picked up that snake figure a week ago for my Pathfinder game. And this weekend I was able to sit down and get this one done. I wan pleased with the results. And it was mentally relaxing to take some time to work on that.

That was part of how I had some fun this weekend. It wasn’t all work. I did get plenty of me time and relaxation. I painted, I gamed, I watched some shows, I played with some pictures. It was a good time. And I did get out and walk some.

Gorgeous Colorado

I am done with the Spring rains. The flooding and water damage, the chill air, it is getting old. But when I went for a walk in Red Rock Canyon on Saturday morning and saw this I had to admit 2 things. First, wow did we get a lot of rain last week! It wasn’t just a fluke that the basement got so much water. There is so much water in the canyon now, where a couple of years ago this pond was nearly dried out. It is pretty staggering. Second, while the flooding and damage is a pain in the neck, when it results in views like this it is all worth while! Just some stunning shots and scenes out there.

But that does lead to a sour note. I hate my feet, specifically my toes. They need to be recalled. When I was in Middle school I fought an infected, ingrown toenail for a year and a half, making it even harder for me to overcome my natural tendency for lethargy. Now, just when I was really overcoming a life time of slug like approaches to exercise and eating, running half marathons, my toes betrayed me. Both of my big toes are arthritic, and even doing what small amount of walking I am doing now, with good shoes, I end up in serious pain.

There are other forms of exercise out there, but I really like walking and running. And those sadly are the ones that cause the most pain. I am not sure what or where to go next with this. I will talk to the doctor in a few weeks, maybe there are some things I can do, because the pain is beginning to take a toll.

But all told, foot pain aside, it was a good weekend. And I am looking forward to more, getting things done and still enjoying myself.

A great sigh of relief and ready for the stretch run

All 3 kids will be at school today, and that should be the case the rest of the year. Another holiday down, and my choices remain the correct one. Now we can regain our breath a little, and maybe resume a little more regular life and schedule. The kids had a good couple of days with the various events and gatherings, and were even more or less cooperative with all the cleaning we requested.

We got the call Friday afternoon from the Doctor office that Jimmy had Mono, but it was gone and he was in recovery stage. And he was acting that way over the weekend, we had to restrain him from too much physical activity, even though he was feeling better. So that was a great sigh of relief, that he was sick, but is back to normal and gradually returning to full strength. That was a huge mental weight lifted on all of us. And it explained a lot of what was going on with him the week leading up to Spring Break and since.

Danny got the last of his Birthday activities done. It was funny, I wrote that piece about him being a ‘mini me’ on Friday. So on Saturday when I was at Dads I went and looked for an older picture of me, and found one (of poor blurry quality.) And when I showed it to Emily she said that was Daniel. Aside from the weight stuff (I was heavier than him) we really do bear quite a resemblance to each other. And today we have the annual ILP meeting with the school for him. I am beginning to mentally scratch together some plans for working with him a little more on some things.

My cold completed it’s regular 7 day stretch, with Sunday being the terrible day of free flowing nose. But after a sinus rinse Sunday morning it was basically okay the rest of the day and today I am feeling pretty much back to normal. So I should resume physical activities this week myself, which will be nice, as the weather promises to cooperate with that plan.

In short, everything is looking good, family health returning, mental health improving. And we have 7 weeks left in the school year, just a decent stretch run left. It is kind of amazing how the improvement in weather can facilitate a mental improvement.

Easter activities

I did take some pictures over the weekend of Easter activities. We did the one egg hunt on Sunday morning for the kids, and went to Dad’s for a special one on Saturday. And otherwise I was able to treat the day like just another family gathering.

Balance in all things is the key

Tuesday I had what might be my last session with the therapist for this go around. And the main point I came away with is that I need to remain balanced. That when I let things get out of balance is when I get into trouble.

That means balance in my interests, remain the FreeRangeGeek. Loving lot’s of different things, but never focused on one to the exclusion of others. That means spending time with D&D, coming up with adventures for the kids and running those games. That means getting out and taking pictures and playing with Photoshop. It also means taking the time to watch my various shows and movies, and reading about them. It means continuing to read, and read lots of different books and genres. Also getting out and playing some Bloodbowl when the league returns. And yes, it does mean paying attention to sports, watching some level of NFL games, college games and other sports. These are all things I love to do, and as long as doing them provides me joy I need to keep doing them. And so long as I don’t let my focus on one take all of my time and focus I will be good.

It also means balance in health. Finding time to get out and run or walk. Trying my best to balance nutrition (not my strong suit but I can try.) Making sure that I get my sleep and rest as well. Not skip sleep to run as I was doing previously. That doesn’t mean I use sleep as an excuse to not run, it means that I plan things so that I am in bed the nights before I run at a reasonable hour.

Last I need to remain balanced with the family and social time. I’m not talking about balancing my time between the 3 kids and Kim. I mean also taking time for myself, even if it just a couple of hours on the weekends. Realizing that if I have a big family gathering coming up that I need to carve out time before or after to recover. This has been one of the hardest things to do, in part because the kids were younger and needed more face time with a parent. But it is also because family is really important to me, and as such I have to fight the feeling of guilt I get when I carve out that time.

If I had to point out the things where my life was most out of balance last year it was in family time and ‘hobby’ time. I let family take up a lot of my time, and I was not doing as good a job of keeping my interests spread out. But the biggest was health, specifically sleep and exercise. Part of that was the foot trouble, but a lot of that was the sleep, I was letting myself get sucked into the trap of shorting sleep so I could exercise. Which on the face of it seems good (I mean I was exercising right?) but was in the end taking a bigger toll than I realized.

That is my plan, and goal. I think I can do it. And use this blog as a form of measuring stick. If I write a post about my weekend and it is all family activity that is a negative sign. If I write an entire post devoted to just one interest, that could be a bad sign (depending on what the post is about, sometimes a single event can generate a post, like a set of picture.)

Quite an enjoyable and productive weekend, and learning to take care of myself

I had a very enjoyable weekend. Mixed in some fun, some playing, some work, and some hiking. The sleepover and Dungeons and Dragons game went very well. We got a lot of work done in the yard. And I got some quiet time to myself to work on some pictures and watch some more Arrow. And I am (slowly) realizing that I may have to re-evaluate some things for fitness and health sake.

Jimmy’s sleepover was a success. The kids spent plenty of time before we played running around, and that helped them calm down a little. I gave them a little speech about cooperation and consequences. And then had to enforce that cooperation lesson with some consequences. But overall it was a good time. I am definitely enjoying it, and am actually thinking of developing this as a regular event after the Winter holidays. As requested I did take a couple of pictures.

Here are the boys being silly, making faces.

And here are a couple of boys just trying to figure out what to do.

On Saturday I got the house picked up before family showed and before the guests arrived. Did some laundry as well. Sunday morning, after serving the teenagers breakfast we did some heavy cleaning in the back yard. Cleared a bunch of stuff out of the shed to take to Goodwill. We were then able to move the camping stuff from the porch into the shed in a far more organized fashion. Last, we cleaned up a bunch of the trash and toys in the backyard with (reluctant) help from the little ones. So the back yard is looking much better before the next big birthday event this weekend.

Saturday afternoon we went on the Scout hike in Red Rock open space. We took a different route than the normal. And we took the smaller dog along with us. It was a nice hike, and helped offset my not being able to run in the morning. I took a couple of nice pictures

Danny walking Chiu to start the hike

The awesome reflecting pool at the end of the hike in the late afternoon.

I did get some time to myself over the weekend. Friday night I was able to relax and just watch some episodes of the Arrow (I am almost done with Season 2, which means I am close to being fully caught up.) Sunday Kim took the little ones out to a movie and some shopping so I was able to get some time to work on pictures, back up the computer, and watch a little football. And then of course Sunday night we skipped the Walking Dead in order to watch the Broncos dominate the 49ers in convincing fashion.

In thinking about this past weekend, and in light of how I didn’t run this morning I am forced to re-think some things. I want to keep running, but I also need to get some sleep. As I get older (sigh) I find myself needing that sleep more and more, and really notice when I don’t get as much sleep as I might like. When things are more normal it is easier to just get to bed early before my running days. But with this string of crazy weekends (birthday parties, sleepovers etc.) that isn’t as easy as I might like. I don’t have a ready made answer yet, just commenting on this, and noting that I have been placing sleep over running during this string, which is different from previous practice. But it makes sense in light of how the current craziness involves a lot more more time around people, which means I need rest more than running.

Like I said, it was a good, active weekend. Did plenty of good things. Had some fun. Got some much needed projects done. It was a good, refreshing time.

A change of pace (and topic, sort of)

Gonna talk about my pictures today. First, I know that this is all amateur stuff, and it is just a hobby. But an interesting conversation with a friend inspired me to learn something I didn’t really know before. And now I have a much better understanding of what is happening with my pictures.

It all started with my going through my iCloud Photostream, clearing out pictures. Ever since I started taking more pictures (and learned that I have the ability to take more shots by just holding the button down) my photo cache has gotten quite full, often with shots I am just throwing away. Well I was seeing some of the shots Kim took with her phone on the camp trip with Danny last weekend. And I thought, gee I really hope that both of us upgrade to the new phones this fall, so that she will have a much better camera available when she takes pictures.

Well I mentioned this to my friend and proceeded to get an eyeful (we were chatting online) about how even a point and shoot camera is better than a camera phone. After some back and forth he mentioned something that I had sort of wondered about, but never actually took the time to learn about: the difference between optical and digital zoom. I found this nice explanation online. 

What digital zoom does is take a central portion of the image and enlarging it, thus ‘simulating’ optical zoom. In other words, the camera crops a portion of the image and then enlarges it back to size. In so doing, you lose image quality.

See I never really knew that before. And to be honest I hesitate to use the zoom in my camera because the effects in my phone camera are always so odd. But now I will try to make more use of the actual zoom with my camera, knowing it is still trying to take a good picture.

This is all really an exploration, finding out how to use aperture and speed settings, when to use zoom and what it does. So far I really like a lot of my pictures, but as I learn more I think I will learn to like what I take more. And that really is the goal.

More from our trip: Disney characters

There are a lot of reasons to take a vacation to Disneyland (or World.) The rides, the shows, the weather, the shopping. But one thing we made sure to participate in was to see the characters, and get pictures with them. I did my best to get good pictures with them all. I have created a public Flickr album of just the pictures:

Disney Characters

But here are a couple of special ones that need some background or have stories.

Thor!

It is important to remember that Disney is no longer just Mickey Mouse and Princesses. Disney owns the rights to certain Marvel characters, and has made several excellent movies as a result. So when I saw there was a chance to see Thor, by golly I made sure we got in to see him. The odd thing was how the kids all grouped with him and I was there but on one side, which made it easy to just crop me out of it.

Tinkerbell

We got this picture early on the first day at the park. And that led to some rather constant harassment of Jimmy about Tinkerbell. Yep, nothing like harassing the tween boy about whether he likes a girl, particularly when that harassment comes from younger siblings. I myself remember being on the dishing out part of that sort of thing with my older brothers. By the end of the trip Jimmy was pretty tired of it and I had to put an end to it, but we will always have this picture.

Frozen

Ah yes, lines. In many cases you have to wait in line to get your picture taken with these characters. The more popular the character the longer the line. Kim and Emily held their place in line to see Anna and Elsa for 2 and half hours! Over 2 hours just for this picture! Hope it was worth it sweetheart.

Goofygirl

For many years now, I have used the term ‘goofy girl’ as my nickname for Kim. Not entirely certain now where it came from or why it stuck for me. But when I had a chance to get a shot of my goofy girl with Goofy, well I had to take it!

Spending 3 days in the mountains, reminds me of what is important

Still processing all of the different thoughts from the Cub Scout family camp out and long weekend. The kids all enjoyed their time camping in their own way. We survived being unprepared and learned from it. I enjoyed taking numerous picture taking opportunities. There was a lot of nostalgic remembrance for me.

The trip

We left Friday afternoon and drove a short distance up into the mountains to a family campground in the National Forest. The campground was very nice, no creek or running water, but otherwise everything you could ask for. Plenty of space for both community events and private areas.

We stayed 2 nights and returned Sunday late morning. Among the events there was some hiking, campfires, community cookouts, learning events for the scouts.

We all got real dirty. We ate well on a wide variety of foods. We survived the cold (it got down to 32 degrees both nights.) And we all had fun.

Jimmy spent most of his time with a school friend who was also there with his little brother. They did a lot of carving of sticks into walking sticks, swords, knives and bows. Danny wandered around with different kids depending on his mood. He enjoyed himself engaging in all manner of activities. Emily had one little girl to play with, and when that wasn’t an option she either followed the boys around, or spent some time helping out her parents.

We nearly froze the first night because I forgot a fundamental fact: that bare ground (or what amounts to bare ground when all you have is a tarp and tent bottom) gets cold at night, and it doesn’t matter how good you sleeping bag is. We were able to remedy that the second night and we all slept much better. And we can count that as a lesson learned: buy some sleeping pads for the next camp trip.

Pictures

I took a lot of pictures, nearly 200 total. I have created a public Flickr set for everyone to view them here:

Family Scout Camp 2013

I especially liked the shots of Pike Peak, they turned out very well I think. And the shots I took of the Red Rock formation that we hiked to. And some of the campfire shots were pretty cool as well.

I tried something a little different, not trying to zoom as much, just take in the whole shot, and then crop later as desired. I think that makes for better shots, at least until I can get a decent tripod to eliminate the shaking hands.

Memories & learning

Camping in the mountains always brings back memories for me. My family did a lot of camping, and then I did a fair amount in Middle and High School as well. And camping out always brings a lot of those memories to the surface. One thing that really struck me, when talking to the other Dads was that for them much of their youthful camping experience involved the Scouts. Which I did not do.

But, in comparing experiences, I think that my experiences were pretty much the same, especially from a learning perspective. So, while I wasn’t a Scout, I do feel I enjoyed a very similar background when it comes to camping.

In total, the trip was a great success. The kids had a lot of fun. And we gained some valuable experience. And I was able to bring back some excellent pictures to fall back on to help remember the experience. And I gained some valuable perspective on my own background.

Memorial Day weekend photos

Memorial Day Public, a set on Flickr.

Pictures from the weekend, mostly taken at the family cookout.

(Bear with me while I figure out the best way to share photos. Also, only one post this week due to vacations and trips, I should be back to my regular posting schedule next week.)

We had a fun weekend, very relaxing really. Caught up on some movies (Star Trek and Ironman 3). I got in my runs. We got the house picked up and many chores caught up. And we had a fun, very relaxed impromptu family cookout.

My whole approach to this weekend was to relax and not try to do too much. And by golly I accomplished that. Really recharged my mental batteries. Saturday was especially low key. I mostly just laid around and watched TV, until we decided to just go and see Ironman 3. Sunday we had the cookout. And Monday was also super low key, with my main focus on catching up on household chores etc.

I had a couple good runs, making sure to vary my route so I stayed away from Old Colorado City and Territory Days. In fact tried one slightly different route as a result and really liked it as an alternative that I can use in the future.

We organized an impromptu cookout on Sunday. We kept it very informal and low key. I mainly just cooked things we already had around the house. I worked on a different technique with the chicken legs and they turned out really well.

Really the only negative for the week was the fact that the kids all had some late nights, which meant Emily just crashed on Monday afternoon. The only other thing was that Spotty pulled some muscle or something last week so she was more mellow as a result and laid around more in order to recover. Which led to that last shot in the set.

A side note on Star Trek, here is what I wrote on Tumblr about the movie:

Just saw Star Trek & it rocked! I give it a \\ //

Saw the new Star Trek movie last night and I loved it! It had everything I could have asked for. Action, humor, a good story, and some great nods to the original stories.

To me this was just about the perfect science fiction interpretation of an alternate universe/timeline. Practically every character that appeared in this new movie existed in the original timeline as well (no spoilers.) But they did a great job of making it their own story, with their own variations.

Which is what makes it great to the hard core, long time fans. Those of us who love Kirk, Spock, McCoy etc. as characters will love this movie and the first re-boot. Because, while the philosophy and ideas are a central core of Star Trek and one of the things that make it great, in the end to me it is the characters that kept me coming back and watching. And here we get to return to those beloved characters.

As a Star Trek fan and a science fiction fan this movie did both just right. You have the beloved characters and setting. And you have a well written and thought out science fiction background and interpretation of the universe. So, if you love Star Trek and science fiction these movies are definitely for you!