Friday, 04 May 2012
Since today is Star Wars Day, my University was planning a few events. The email I received about it said the events would go from 1:00-5:00, so I figured I could pick up Owen from school at 4:00, then cruise over to Hamline and partake in some activities.
Now, in the past, they’ve had similar activities. I’ve occassionally shown up at these, usually right at the tail end and, invariably, they’re over. Like one time, they were having free pizza from noon to 4:00. I showed up at 3:45 and…no pizza. Not even anyone sitting around to tell me they were out of pizza. Just…nothing.
Not wanting to take any chances with Owen involved, I emailed the appropriate coordinators and asked if, indeed, they really meant 5:00, and not 4:00 or something earlier like that. No response.
Oh well.
I prepped Owen by telling him that if nothing was happening, we wouldn’t get upset, we’d just go do our own thing.
When I got to Owen’s school, he ran to meet me, and then we ran to the car with him saying how excited he was. He was looking forward to the Star Wars pinata and to light-saber dueling with others.
We arrived at 4:20 and (brace yourself) the events were pretty much over. There were two people sitting around on a couch, and there was a Star Wars X-box game on auto-play. I asked if my son could play the video game, and the lady sitting on the couch said sure.
There was a bunch of candy sitting around, and the guy said we could have a bunch. He shared his pretzels with us, too. Oh – and they let Owen have the remnants of the pinata.
Here’s Owen playing X-box and wearing the pinata:
Then we went upstairs to help ourselves to some tacos, but most of the ingredients were gone and the ones that were left (re-fried beans, lettuce) looked unappetizing. We walked over to the grill where a guy told us there would be patties and hot dogs available at that table (he pointed to a table) over there. Owen and I poured ourselves some lemonade and waited for the burgers and dogs. After fifteen minutes, I noticed that students were walking up and just taking stuff directly from the grill, so Owen and I got up to stand by the grill. This kid who was grilling – and he grilled as if he was afraid of the grill, honestly, he was like, the worst griller I’ve ever seen – told us that he’d bring the food over to that table. I said, “Yeah, we were waiting over there for, like, 15 minutes and never saw anything, so we figured we’d stand right here.” The kid just laughed like he didn’t know what to say. He must not be an English major.
Typical Hamline.
Saturday, 05 May 2012
Today was a very full day.
We ventured to the Living Green Expo this morning. We took the bus there and back, which cost us all of $0.00. Woo-hoo! I bought a book, Jennifer cought some spoons, we got a radon test kit, and Owen made some crafts in a kids’ area. On noticing how long and hard Owen worked at a craft, one lady volunteering at the kids’ area said, “He’s a very persistent child.” Yep…he is. He takes after his parents.
We caught the bus ride back during a rain storm. Which, though cold and wet, was kind of adventurous.
I began work installing a new garage door opener this evening. I installed an opener on the other garage door some months back and, at the insistence of our renter, finally broke down and installed one for the other door. Work proceeded quicker than last time, primarily because I vaguely recall installing the last one. This helped minimize my errors and head-scratching.
Some people came over to inspect the California Closets-style closets that we’re selling. They said they have to go home and take some more measurements, and then they’ll get back to us. I hope they buy them. The money would be nice, to be sure, but I’d like to clear out that room so that we can start getting it ready for Isla. I want her to have her own bedroom by the time she’s 13.
06 May 2012
I finished installing the garage door opener this afternoon. I meant to go outside at about 9:00 and get working on it, but when I went downstairs to use the basement bathroom this morning, I was greeted with standing water. So, we had to mop and clean that up.
The up side to this is that it forced us to clean up our basement a little bit. We moved the furniture to better spots, I removed all the old Sheetrock that had been in a big pile since I tore it off the ceiling months ago, and we threw away lots of boxes and papers and other crap that we don’t need.
Anyway, I was outside working on the garage door opener by about 10:30. At around noon, we walked to Subway for lunch (incidentally, the Subway by our house employs the most incompetant people at any Subway ever – seriously, come visit my place one day and we can walk over there for laughs). By 12:45, I was back in the garage and had the whole thing wrapped up – including testing the door tension – by 2:55. I’m so proud of me. If anyone out there needs to install a garage door opener, it wouldn’t kill you to ask for my help. In fact, you should, because then you’ll owe me and I can get you to do stuff for me.
This evening, I completed editing and rendering this short video of our kids. It’s on Jennifer’s YouTube page. Enjoy:
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Glad you made it to LGE. This was the first year of many that I did not work it. I needed a break. Sounds like you enjoyed it!
Yeah, I was wondering if you were going to be there. I even said something to my wife. Something like, “Hey, I wonder if Mike is here.” It was fun to go this year, being new home-owners. We have a stack of info on our kitchen counter now that we need to comb through.
I was a little disappointed though because it seemed scaled back. I seem to remember more booths in years past.