Wednesday, October 3, 2007

I'm back!!

Holy Smoke has it been a busy summer!

My last post was about my favorite month....July, as it is Tour de France Month. Good times. My pick won. Contrador from the soon to be defunct Team Discovery. (lance's old team)

Since then Andrea and I took the kids to Hampton Beach for a week, spent tons of time doing fun things with them. Trips to lakes for over nights, hiking, mtn biking, museums, movies, 6 Flags amusement parks....you name it. Summer is for kids and having fun. Sure, I made Alex mow the lawn every week but he was shrewed enough to negotiate a suitable rate for the work. Guess the days were parents could say " 'Cuz I said so!" may be gone.

Now it's September...Ooops! October!! My word time does rush on by.

Kids are back in school. Alex is enjoying having joined the local YMCA swim team. 3 nights a week he goes in for a terrific beating at the hands of unmerciful swim coaches. He loves it! He must get that sicko gene from his dad. But it is a fine line between getting enough rest, homework done, downtime as well as swimming. My very wise brother said once, and I'll never forget it, "You can't push your kids, it's got to be fun or they won't want to do it later in life." I really WANT to be the dad that Alex, or Audrey, wants to go to Moabe mtn biking or compete in a team triathlon with.....so I will never push. Someday I may get rewarded that they love it as much as I do and ask me to be a part of it.

Audrey is becoming a budding artist by taking formal painting classes and she is getting back into horse riding again. She Mtn bikes fire roads now but someday I hope to bring her on some easy trails. Heck, she's only 7! ;-)

Andrea literally JUST drove away to Valley Forge PA for a conference for Interior Design and Window Treatment stuff. So I'm a single Dad this weekend. Andrea said she knows I will more 'fully appreciate' my penis by the time she gets back. I looked at her like...What!? But she clarified and said you will be SO Glad you are not a Mom when this is over. Come On...How hard can this stuff be dealing with kids all day? (tongue and cheek for sure)

She/We had the weekend from hell this weekend. She had a huge job that was needing to be installed by Tuesday afternoon with her leaving today, Wednesday. It hadn't been started by Thursday. Yikes! Add to this when certain panels were made Friday it was discovered that the hems and linings were never uniform. Anyone that knows Andrea..."if it ain't perfect, it Ain't going up on someones wall". Saturday I did a 108 mile ride with our cycling group with 11200 vertical feet of climbing. Andrea did the 50 mile ride, so Saturday was shot for production and repair. Sunday she and I altered hems and linings until 9 PM from a start time of 11 am. Monday, she her sister and mother stayed working until 1 AM Tuesday morning and got the whole job done for install at 1 pm Tuesday! Trust me when I say THAT was one intense and slamming work room. Customer loved it and now Andrea and company will head to the conference for a well deserved rest and relax time amongst their peers.

I am taking the kids to the White Mtns for some great camping this weekend. I have another adult coming who is a buddy of mine and maybe my Niece, Erin will show. Should be great and a real mellow trip. Little cooking, little camp fie nights, (with a big fire) a few beers, and some hiking and it will be things to talk about later. The kids love it up there.

Other news. John Robison's book is a smashing success! He has gone into his 4th printing of Look Me In The Eye and it's only been on sale 1 week!! PLEASE check out his amazing blog and story at http://jerobison.blogspot.com/ Buy this book. If you know or have someone with Autism or Asbergers syndrome this will give you hope. If not, it is just a great, funny read about a truly amazing, gifted and diverse human being. To my family: DO NOT BUY this book as I have 11 copies for John to sign and this gets me out of Xmas presents early and easy. ;-)

Lots of stuff happening at the office but that will be another post. Suffice to say that I'm an intense person, I have my own theories that are anti-establishment (but will prove to be correct..trust me on that) and some in the Dietetic/medical community seem to be threatened by that. You know what I say...Screw 'em! Fight on to the last man! ;-)

Till next time