First Day Of School

Who are those people in the doorway?

Another Baby Weekend Thought

I was hoping to spend some time with my book tonight once I got everything taken care of today and everyone in bed. Unfortunately, by the time I'm finally ready for that, I'm sleepy and ready for bed myself!

Back to Work and Baby Weekend

Last night was the start of high school football season. Like last year, I'll be working at the TV station, entering high school football scores into the system so that hundreds of scores will rotate on the bottom of the screen,

• To annoy viewers that don't care (but if they don't care, they shouldn't watch).
  
• To get people to wait and wait and wait to see their school's score, even though it might never be there.
• To allow people to have something to complain about if we get the score wrong. Of course, that never happens. If it's on television, it must be true.

Of course, we do our best to get every score right, and despite stories of past years at other televison stations, we don't make up schools or scores. (If I made up a school, I'd want to call it "Roosevelt-Franklin.")

Last night was pretty cool and uneventful from my point of view. For the people more directly involved with the 30-minute football wrapup TV show, well, there is room for improvement, and I'm sure it will improve. There were a few times where things didn't go as planned, but that doesn't mean that there were many problems that the home viewer would notice.

Also, this weekend the wife and big kids are away, leaving me at home with the little tykes. Last night I had to get a baby sitter to watch the remaining kids, while I worked. While experienced and responsible for the job, she doesn't have as much experience with crying babies as do parents, and the babies probably cried more for her than they would for their parents. So, I'm sure having crying babies was more stressful for the sitter than would be, for example, popping a video in for bigger kids on other (hypothetical) baby sitting jobs. Because of this, I was directed to pay well. What is "well" for this day and age? I didn't really know, but I gave $30. Am I overly generous or a cheapskate? I was gone about 5 hours, but then the kids were sleeping for a lot of that time (except when they were crying, of course).

I also got a taste of what child care expenses must be like for people who need it. It's probably not 75% of income for most people, but I'll get paid $40 for the night. Subtract the $30, and then another $1.40 for a snack and pop, and I'm left with $8.60 before gas and taxes. Hey, can I deduct the $30 for income tax purposes. I probably can! I'll have to look into that.

Finally, as I mentioned, this weekend I'm alone with the babies. I don't anticipate any major problems, as long as I stop them from chewing on banana peels they get from the trash and things like that, but I see that we're already off schedule. I was left with a detailed schedule of daily activities, but we're way off. Lunch was supposed to be at 11:00am. But, as I type this, it's 1:17pm, and they're probably about ready to get up from their pre-lunch nap.

If the weather holds up, we'll go to a park or for a walk or something.

August Photos

I guess I can't get another month go by without posting some new photos of everyone, so here you go!


The dog in the next one is named "Penny Peepot" until she is house trained. When that happens, her name will become "Penny Teapot".

I Hold The Key

Now where's the lock?

Today, someone noticed that there was a key on the roof of our house. Never passing on a trip to get out on the roof, I went and retrieved it. I have no idea how it got there, how long it's been on the roof, or what it unlocks. From the looks of things, it's been outside for a while, but I'm sure it hasn't been there for a real long time, or we would have noticed it. So, maybe some passing kid wanted to be cruel to his companion and tossed his key on someone's roof. Or, maybe it's left over from the construction of the house, and somehow worked its way to that location. Or maybe something else entirely.

It's a mystery. What do you think?

Route 256, Kapitel Drei: The Final Chapter

Today, I noticed that it has been changed to a State Route 256 sign. Thanks a lot, Mr Ward: your people do good work!

Holmes County Courthouse, Millersburg

Here's the Holmes County Courthouse in Millersburg on 14 August 2005. I cut off the top. Drats. (But there's not much of it; it's kind of rounded at the top.)

Just a Little Glass -- Still in First Place

Despite a slow start, my fantasy baseball team, Just a Little Glass, team has been in first place for maybe two or three weeks now. Since there is no way to go back and look at league standings for any one day in the season, I thought I'd save a copy of the standings board for posterity's sake. (I may never be in first place again!) At the end of the season, maybe I'll post again, and we can see if I've been able to hold onto my lead.

Why have I done so well? I don't know. Getting Andruw Jones in the 6th round looks like a steal. Plus, Danys Baez and his 24 (so far) saves, seems like a good deal for a 14th round pick. At the end of the year, I'll post complete team stats.

In the list below, djl is Hudler Junta, and dfv is Preston Tramriders.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

(amazon.com link)

It's been over 6 months since I posted a book review, but here is one.

I received The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini as a birthday present last year. Due to being much slower with reading since last Fall, I didn't pick it up until recently, and it was with a bit of trepidation that I began this book. The blurb on the cover says that it is a "Moving portrait of modern Afghanistan". While one can assume that any such portrait would include some of the horrors of today's Afghanistan, I was not looking forward to a page-after-page assault on the senses. In that regard, the book was a success. There were certainly enough gut-wrenching scenes, but that wasn't the main point of the book, and I was able to get through it without too much difficulty.

The book is the story of Amir, who was born into a wealthy family in Afghanistan in 1963. It was a small wealthy family, as he had no siblings and his mother died in childbirth, leaving him, his father Baba, his father's servant Ali, and Ali's son Hassan. (Is Baba his father's name, or just his language's word for father? That wasn't clear to me.) For the first 100 or so pages, it's the story of Amir's childhood, focusing primarily on his relationship with his father and also with Hassan.

In Afghanistan, Amir's relationship with his father is always strained, as he is more a person of letters and thought, while his bear-wrestling father is a man of action. It is obvious that Amir's father is looking for someone like himself in a son, while Amir is not that person.

With Hassan, Amir's relationship starts out almost brotherly and eventually becomes quite strained. I thought the relationship was somewhat hokey at times, as narrator Amir played the "evil twin" to Hassan's picture of purity and goodness. I guess Hassan seemed too "perfect", but then that contrast is what the narrator was trying to portray.

Suddenly, on page 110 (of 372), Ali and Hassan are gone, and with the Soviets in control, Amir and Baba are emigrating to America. For a while, the story is on the improving father-son relationship. Eventually Amir gets married, time passes without too much interesting happening, and suddenly it's 2001. I felt that this middle section wasn't all that interesting. It almost seemed like a half-hearted effort, but you could say that the author/narrator was making a point about how uninteresting his adult life was, compared to his childhood.

This, of course, is all a setup for Amir's journey back to Afghanistan as a 38-year old in 2001, when the country (at least Kabul) was still ruled by the Taliban. While there, he confronts old demons, long hidden but not forgotten, and tries to see if, as a friend suggested, there is indeed a way to be good again. While in Kabul, there are a few coincidences, including one that I would consider a deus ex machina. (See if you can spot it.)

All-in-all, though, I think it works. I can spot what the author is doing at times, but that doesn't make it any less intriguing of a story. If I gave fractional stars, I would probably give this one three and a half. But I don't, so I'll give it four stars out of five.

All that and I didn't even tell you what a kite runner is.

Route 256, Part Deux

Yesterday, I posted about a incorrectly signed local route, and mentioned that I sent a mail asking about it to the local roads superintendent. Today, I got the following e-mail:

Someone previously brought this to our attention.
I intend to have the sign changed.
We have been extremely busy and short of help.

We should have it changed by the end of the month.

A date commitment, oooh. Now I'll have to check up on it and post whether or not it is met! And if you're looking for work, and like working outside, let me know. I know of someone who might be looking for help... :-)

Getting My Kicks on Route 256

Below is a sign noting an upcoming junction with Route 256. It may appear to be an ordinary highway sign, but can you spot the problem with it? It's a marker for US Federal Highway 256 (which has never existed) when it should be a marker for State Route 256.

I'm sure that many people wouldn't notice or care about such a mistake. I'm not one of those, as at least I noticed it. I took a photo of it to send to a friend whom I know also notices such things. But since I had a photo, I thought I'd post it here -- the blog has been quiet long enough.

As I've said before, I have respect for the people who make and install highway signs. Everyone makes mistakes, and it's not like most of these positions require an advanced university degree. But, on the other hand, it's their job to know the difference between a State and a Federal route.

Rather than simply sound like I'm complaining about the situation, I did write a note to the city Street Department superintendent, mentioning the mix-up and requesting that it be corrected. If the response or resolution is interesting, I may blog about it here.