Month: May 2009

Deep Questions

/ chollaball / Leave a comment

I asked the following in a recent post:

  • if you like your job, are you funemployed?
  • if you are funemployed, can you take a staycation?
  • can you take a staycation if you work from home?

The first question hinges on an ambiguity concerning funemployment.   I believe it to mean either a) enjoying your unemployment time, or b) to work just as much as you need to to support a hobby.     See this or that or one of these for definition a, see all those cool folks you know who ride their bikes around bartending jobs and snowboard around smoke-jumper jobs for definition b.   Though it is tempting as a wage slave who mostly likes his job to co-opt such a cool word to feel better about one’s soul-killing fate.

By either legitimate definition,   a staycation is impossible if you are funemployed.

A staycation is possible if you work from home, as long as you don’t check your crackberry.

Many people I have posed this question to have attempted to say a ride while working from home can be a staycation.   This is incorrect.     First, a ride is not a staycation, since you are moving. A ride could take place on a vacation, a ride could take place on a staycation, you could have a riding vacation, or a riding staycation if you started close to home. You could be funemployed and ride. You could not take a ride on a staycation while funemployed.   But semantics of riding vs. staying aside, a ride during work hours is not a staycation. It is a lunchbreak, a meeting when working at home, a doctor’s appointment, or a nooner.   Though really a nooner is when you get laid during lunch. I like nooners very much, even better than i like riding. I would give up a nooner ride to have a nooner.

I wonder how whatsername has been…

/ beckie / 1 Comment

For some reason, Jason and I seem incapable of using our children’s given names.     It just seems like we are completely incapable of sticking to the names on the birth certificate.   Sooooo boring.

A selection of the names and a brief history:

Genevieve:

1) G: This is the original.   Genevieve is, of course, a long name, hard for a little girl to pronounce, and harder for a pissed off, scared, or tired parent to say 10 times quickly when trying to keep a little girl from eating dirt/sticking her hands in the dog’s mouth/pulling down a display in the store/running out in front of a car/blah blah blah.   So out of necessity and/or laziness, Genevieve became G.   This was my attempt to keep her from becoming Jen or Jenny or something girly that she will have to live with waaay past when it’s cute.     I thought we would stop calling her G pretty quickly as she grew up, but that appears totally wrong….she may end up saddled with G as a name….oh well, at least it’s not Jenny.

2) T.Human: Arrived on the scene at approximately the same time as G.   Jason’s name for Genevieve, very appropriate for little helpless baby that (we were assured) would eventually grow into full-sized human.   We weren’t so sure, but used the name anyway.   Phased out at approximately the same time as we adopted #3.

3)   Monster: Arrived on the scene at approximately 1 year, when she had earned it for obvious reasons (if you know her) .   At the time, was cute as she was tiny and cute so monster had some ironic cuteness to it.   As she grows into it, however, it becomes more eerily appropriate and not-so-cute.

Despite the relative briefness of our association with her, we have developed even more names for Alana.

1)   Meatpod: Resulting from Jason’s observation that she seems to do very little other than lie there, eat, sleep, poop, and gain weight.   In truth, she does somewhat resemble what one might think a meatpod would look like.   Shortens nicely to “pod”

2) Snort:   My name for Alana, thanks to her somewhat unsettling style of breathing.   She is quite loud in her inhalations and exhalations, particularly when excited.

3)   Monster Jr.:   She hasn’t really earned this one yet, but we have already trotted it out.

4)   Trucker Jr., or “Trucker”: Second kids really get no love.   See explanation here. Thunk.

Thanks to her relatively short name, we have avoided butchering Alana’s given name (so far).   So no, we are not calling her “A”.

And of course, we don’t stop there:

Kila, aka “Rocket”, Jo was mostly “Jo”, sometimes “Evil Jo”.   Other pets avoided the curse:   Tsaina was always just “Tsaina”,   and Turtle is “Turtle”.   Our other many various and assorted miscellaneous cats never earned nicknames beyond Slim (also “Evil Slim”).

For some reason, we don’t have nicknames for each other (that I know about…).

Despersate Housewife: a week with Trucker Jr.

/ chollaball / 4 Comments

With my vacation balance almost maxed out, and months of non-stop pressure creating a painful need to relax, a week off doing daddy-daycare would be a welcome change.   Or so I thought.   An opportunity to spend time with my new daughter, around the house, and not drive.

Some questions:

  • if you like your job, are you funemployed?
  • if you are funemployed, can you take a staycation?
  • can you take a staycation if you work from home?

I worked really hard to not check email too much. I could not help myself, but by Wednesday had pretty much forgotten about work.   The fact is I spend a ton of time on the internet anyway.   My days don’t feel much   different from work, except I don’t much have anything specific to accomplish, read a lot of football news, downloaded lots of music, post a bunch, and sit for hours on end with Pod in my lap.   This does lead to avoiding most chores or much of anything else if you let it.   Beckie commented during her maternity leave that she could see herself becoming an alcoholic if she was a stay-at-home mom.   Yeah I totally get that – you just keep sitting with the baby not doing much of anything but sitting with the baby and drinking half a case of light beer and sitting with the baby and then the day is done and you’ve done almost nothing.     I got to know Alana a lot better sititng with her at the keyboard.   I’d go crazy doing this everyday, but for a week its not so bad when you can go baby-pace.   I like her very much, when i have nowhere better to be.

this view went on and on and on
pod_bottle

and finally she is becoming interesting, responding to stimuli and the like.   She cries sometimes when you put her down, cries sometimes when she gets scared being alone.   It is not much, but finally something to believe that there are wheels turning in that giant flopping brick on top of her shoulders. She hears better than she sees. Not like G, who knows and sees all. It takes Alana a long time to see me, but she hears me and reacts quickly.   “Quickly” is, however, a relative term.   The process of reacting begins, which means she works herself slowly up to a peak, builds to a full-on cry, over about 5-10 minutes.   It gives me time to get away, to plan, to respond, to get some coffee cause I’m about to be stuck feeding her for 20 minutes, to save my work cause I’m about to go dive into a swelling pants-crisis. Sometimes she is crying and i stick a bottle in her mouth, and it takes a few seconds til she realizes its there then suddenly stops crying.

She is finally aware enough for Baby Einstein to do its magic

the wheezing noise is Alana – she is the snortingest baby I’ve ever known.   We were kinda worried by the doctor said its nothing.   Some days she breathes more quietly than others.

there’s a lot of crap in there
snort

but I’m still calling her Trucker Jr.. She is. We are. Why not?
Bill Hicks – The Sanctity of Life

I am challenging myself to have new adventures with her. Today we walked G in the stroller and Alana in the bjorn and Kila leashed 1.7 miles to G’s school. We were all kinda glad when I dropped G off in time for lunch; it is a heavy, complicated load.   And walking is very very slow.   We made it in 40 minutes, then up the road a mile to Indigo Joe’s. All the remaining riders got their drink on.

trucker1

trucker2

trucker3

and then pod slept.   on and off.   in that way she has of just continuously eating, keeping me bound to the computer and typing 1-handed. *thunk*.   A growth spurt is coming – 4 bottles a day for 2 days.

To All You EstrogenBags: STFU!!

/ chollaball / 2 Comments

Women develop an uncharacteristic boldness in offering unsolicited advice about a baby.   The quietest most-mousey woman loses all sense-of-place in an overflow of i-know-better-than-you.   Women are crazy, crazy about kids.   Mix that with their horrible tendency towards passive-aggression, and you get   alpha-dog bossiness prefaced with a pointless “excuse me, but…”   It might as well be a fist pushing you against a wall.

Others insist on touching the baby.   In any other situation the same woman would call similar contact sexual molestation.   They actually get offended when I ask them to keep their hands off.   My feeling is simple: you aint lettin’ me grab your tits, keep your tentacles off of Pod — you might have Swine Flu.

The loud-talkers are worse.   Someone standing next to you blathers, to no one in particular:   “oh I wish I was so comfortable\sleepy\getting a free ride.”   Then they think I’m obligated to say something stupid like “thank you for noticing my baby,” but I usually say something like “do you want to babysit for a while, I could really use the help?”

Most everyone else can’t just tune out the baby and go about their business.   I walk with the bjorn and freeweights, run with Alana in the stroller, yet some do-gooder slows down and stops and thinks they’re doing me a favor by   holding the door for me.   The thought is nice, but its not about my suffering child or weary back or the fact that I would not have her with me if I thought I needed help, its about these people and their need for feeling good about themselves or loneliness or need to go volunteer with Big Brothers.

Mostly its about how my privacy has now vanished.   If I was leering at a chick in the gym or making comments like “dayum you look hot!” I’d get arrested.   Getting into and out of anything is an endeavor with Alana, i don’t need the complications or the challenge to make conversation.   Leave me alone.

This is definitely the male way.   I don’t think its insensitive, its just efficient.   Kids are everywhere, everywhere!   They are not special, and women need men around to keep that thought in mind, and to keep them from drowning the world in maternalism.     Our neighbor the other day hugged her daughter throwing a tantrum for like 20 min straight pleading with her to stop.   WTF!?!?!   G doesn’t throw tantrums around me, at least, not for long.   Alana has been up almost nonstop for 7 hrs now, and is beginning to throw a fit.   She just refused a bottle, got her pants refreshed, and sat in my lap for the past hour – off to the crib she goes.

She will be asleep probably before I proofread this.

No Gnar Without a Car

/ chollaball / 4 Comments

How lonely the Heckler was getting, stranded in the garage! Fortunately Bob took up my offer for a fun Hawes tour with some suburban freeriding, a Sunday pace with beer and sessioning. Bob is awesome to ride with cause he loves riding just about anything, and he always rides strong. Some discussion over what bikes to take led to a new motif for Hawes:  

big bike all-mountain Sunday-pace shredfest.   The route was up the Las Sendas road, climb Tower Trail the hard way, then a long play-filled descent down to the river, down TRW to my little jump pit below Red Mtn Park. The vast majority of the climbing would be on the road, and make great warm-up and warm-down, with enough calories burned to justify a trip to EBF Mesa.

tada!

We both attacked the steep Las Sendas line. Bob pushing for air, and me dropping in from the right down the nasty face.

I hoped to get the camera to catch Bob hitting the staircase, but he was too fast right behind me. Stupid capable riding partners! The Las Sendas staircase remains off the internet. Then we tried Alex’s rock, tentatively named The Beetle since it looks like a VW to me, going down this time. Up Upper Mudflaps enough to get a 10-second jump filled run-in, but it still remains uncleaned going down. No pics were taken.

Down, down, down, down, down to the bottom of Las Sendas and my little play pit. Actually showing it to someone is cool, you put into words the runs and trials that only existed as ideas in your mind:

  • the climb up the center of the mound
  • harder climb up the wash side
  • hardest climb up the substation side
  • run down the spine
  • impossible run up the spine
  • point-and-plunge with jumps down the substation side
  • 1-3 foot jumps and climb out of the wash down the wash side

Quite a lot of fun for a 100 yd area.   I had the jump into and climb out of the wash clocked as a 45 second sprint!   We had some beers and then Bob upped the stakes attempting to clean the mesa, which I have never tried.   I once 5 years ago saw a guy jump a big bike off this and fly 30 feet.   Beckie and I were walking Kila after riding Tour De Farm and feeling like pretty little XC\roadies.   I’ve since never had the inclination to try.   It looks like the jump into Holbert Pit but maybe steeper, and was hysterical watching Bob throw his bike up it to climb it.

a little film I call Bob’s Angst

My laughing was really nervous laughing he might just kill himself. And sympathy laughing.   I know how Bob felt pissed that he worked so hard to get up there but just wasn’t ready to try it. His first line down was his stepping stone, still rather impressive to ride that when you’ve never seen it done, and get a feel for the slope and for landing pointing down. That inspired me to go up and hit the little line. It was not that hard if you did all the skills right – jump smooth, point downhill and stay dead center on the fall line, and abandon any inclination of using the brakes until easing into the bottom. Abandonment is a weird feeling, and it crosses over from skiing, the intellectual part of it. Having confidence for it on your bike is still hard for me, but this was a good step. For Bob, it was a great step. He hit the big line right after.   It wasn’t the prettiest, but he got it done.   Unfortunately i did not have the camera ready.  

On the way out we stopped by the new drop I found. I needed to step up, and after watching Bob jump it, I decided it was my turn. It was just like Bob’s vid, I approached and found something I didn’t like, approached and got my panties bunched, etc,   in a series of babysteps. But I did hit it on the 3rd try, flying about 5 feet further than needed and nearly getting thrown off the back on the landing.   It was good – it told me that jump is easier and I don’t need to pump the takeoff so hard.   No pics were taken.

Then back to the house via the church steps…more playing and coolness etc…no pics were taken.

We concluded that this route must be offered soon as a party or bbq or something that will hopefully include hooliganistic trespassing on the Red Mtn Ranch Golf Course (leaving no trace, of course). And we absolutely have to bring guys like Sam and Tim who like to video  

AntiParent-of-the-Year Almost Infanticides

/ chollaball / 3 Comments

It happened so fast.   I got up from my desk to go to the kitchen,   and had Alana in my left arm.   This is unusual, since I don’t hold her much.   Normally my attitude is if she is clean and warm and fed, the rest is up to her.   But here I was trying to be a good dad and calm her when she was upset.   The irony…

Something spilled on our smooth horribly-chosen kitchen tiles, and my legs slipped out…fast.   Crashing many times has made me discover nascent cat-in-the-air skills, and turn them into finely tuned cat-like reflexes, or at least try to save my shit in the instants during a crash instead of just wasting the time staring in befuddlement. Off-center by 10 lbs of Meatpod and turning left hard had me going down on top of her.   I braced my arm to take the fall and keep her skull from cracking the floor, and counterweighted everything else.   My forearm, elbow, hip, butt, quad and knee all kinda hurt, but none too bad – quite well played actually if I got that much square footage involved. I saw my arm with Alana in it hit the floor first, then my chest start to come down almost on her leg.

I had time to realize the following during the next 5 seconds:

  • i did not break my arm
  • Alana did not smash her head
  • how little weight does it take to tear a baby’s ACL?
  • her face is not normally that scrunchy and red

Her face just got redder and redder and smaller and smaller until finally it EXPLODED!!!!!! I got a little scared about the head and the acl, but after about 2 howls she quieted right down.

I’m a little like well that wasn’t such a chores, then I had bad flashbacks to dropping G on her head in Home Depot.   But other than the shock of disorientation, she seemed just fine.

So for the last few days I’ve been overthinking this whole thing trying to figure out what went wrong, how I’ve only fallen in our kitchen twice in like 9 years, and once was during New Years Eve when I was sloppy drunk.   Alana is not as fragile as she seems.   G should not have juice-boxes without lids.   I should wear shoes.   I should be more careful. Blah blah blah.

Take nothing for granted.

especially when they finally start to get interesting
happypod

Go Rocket!

/ chollaball / Leave a comment

An attempt at vigorous clutter-cleaning led me to conclude it was time to throw these out.

dog_gps

11-5-02 — we called this “The Touchdown Play”
touchdown3

aww…Kila in her rambunctious days. If you just looked at photos, you wouldn’t much know the difference. Other than the good judgment. She is in every photo with G at the park or the beach.   wary.   watching.   ready to tear your throat out if you come near her.   good dog. good good dog.

dogblog2

Today we had a sprightly 17 minute jog, followed by some politely passive tiedown-time outside Ace Hardware, then some walking and nubby-nosing for another hour. Miles travelled – ~5. She is doing well for 68.