I'm back baby!

Yes, I'm back. The crisis at work is over and I'm able to bring my laptop home again. No more fat fingers on tiny keys on Wifey's netbook. Oh the joy. I've got so much to catch up on I don't know where to start...

Probably too much for tonight, I'll get back in the swing of things tomorrow.

But it's good to be back.

A happy day to me!

The hammock is hung, Wifey is in the kitchen making a brunch to end all brunches for some fellow Dads and their kin coming over, and I'm sitting in the living room watching some Backyardigans with the 3 Amigos. Life is good.

Happy Father's Day to all!

Sometimes the best laid plans

It was all planned out. Wifey was going to kidnap Red for a girls day out down in DC with her friend and her daughter at the Natural History Museum. I was going to grab the boys and borrow the DaB's bike and trailer again and we were going to head up to BWI airport and ride around the perimeter trail there. We've done it a few times before, but it had been a while (2005) and I thought both JAM and Pudge would have fun with it. There's a nice little playground at the jumping off point and some 7-11's along the way for drinks. Lots of planes coming and going and some cool views of the airport from the north side. We packed a lunch, and I was taking JAM's bike out of the shed, and this happened...

Yup, the weather dude yesterday said no rain until the afternoon, then this is what we see in the morning. Nice huh? I hate weather people. 80's and blue sky? Maybe... or it could snow. They don't have any idea.

So after Wifey and Red were safely dropped off at the Metro us boys came back to the homestead and did what all red blooded American males will do when presented with hours of unplanned time...

We built Thomas train tracks of course!

JAM and I teamed up and built this great track for Pudge, who immediately ignored it. Oh well, at least we had fun building it!

**Update**

I was a little sad thinking that it wasn't going to keep raining and I had cancelled our bike trip needlessly. I thought that after looking at the radar image above. Notice that big blank area after the line of rain? I was worried that the rain had come and gone and we were going to be stuck in the house when we didn't have to be.

I was worried. Then this happened...

It was a good choice to stay home. JAM, Pudge, and I went out and sat on the front porch for a few minutes during the heavy downpour and they had fun sticking their hands out into the rain and spashing each other, themselves, me. If it's going to rain you might as well enjoy it right?

Happy rain day everyone! Wishing I lived in San Diego....

I feel like a giant

Even seen Night at the Museum? The scene where the little cowboy played by that crooked nosed pretty boy whatshisname calls Ben Stiller's character Gigantor? That's how I feel right now. I'm sitting on the couch trying to type on Wifey's teeny-tiny little netbook (remember this? I just realized I never followed up with the story that I did get her an Acer netbook - the Aspire one. Nifty little thing, and little is definitely the key word there.). Why am I reduced to using this bastard stepchild of a laptop you ask? Oh, only a little incident at work. NO! Not "my" incident thank you. I actually had nothing to do with this.

The result? The Lab has shut down all 'net access for almost a week, and we've been told not to take any equipment out of the Lab until its all been wiped and checked and given a proctology exam for all I know. What I do know is that I've got like a dozen blog posts swirling around in my nogggin and I can't do a damn thing about them because typing on these little keys are making me want to chuck this thing out the window.

And I thought I was doing a nice thing for Wifey when I picked this little jewel up at Costco. Man, even when I'm trying to be nice I turn out to be a douche bag.

I'll be back online once they give the all-clear, but until them consider me living in the 1980's.

Wonderful day

Another wonderful day in the house of Mooney, we're feeling very lucky nowadays. Not sure what it was like where you call home, but for us it was in the low 80's, crystal clear sky, no humidity - a remarkable day for suburban DC. We got off to an "early"departure (if you call just after 10 early) out to Brookside Gardens and Wheaton Regional Park. The plan was to go walk on the trails, see the butterflies at Brookside, walk back to the playground, have a picnic lunch, then home for nap. Yup, whirlwind tour and still on nap schedule. Did it get done???

Oh yeah baby! And a really good time was had by all.

Witness...

I also took a bunch of pictures to add to my Panoramio account. What's Panoramio you ask? I'm sure you've heard of Flickr, and other photo sharing sites. This is just another version, but with one cooler additive. When you geolocate your picture (you have the option of letting the site know where you took the picture) it gets synched up with Google Earth, and if its deemed worthy, your pic becomes a little blue dot in Earth for everyone to see. Like this...

The image above is a screen shot from Earth of my first picture accepted to be included. It is a pic of the trail that runs along the Youghiogheny River in Swallow Falls State Park, close to Deep Creak Lake where we had been visiting with our friends the DaB's. Back when I was teaching that one grad class I created an assignment for my students where I had them practice uploading an original pic, geolocate it, then they were eventually all posted into Earth. Pretty cool I thought. Anyhow, I've played more and more with this, and now I've gotten a bunch into Earth already and pretty much everywhere I go I take more to add. I like thinking that I'm adding to the world-wide knowledge base that floats around out there. Maybe it helps someone someday, who knows. A lot of my pics are pretty well viewed, so that's cool to see too. You can see my whole list, including a few I hadn't tagged for inclusion into Earth (they don't take pics where the primary subject is a person) at http://www.panoramio.com/user/1599791 if you're so inclined. Some pics from today, that I'm hoping to be added, are up already and more will be soon (what do you want from me - it's already 12:15am!).

After we left the butterfly exhibit (way too crowded for real enjoyment - even after shelling out some good money to get in), and while on our way back to the playground, JAM and Red had fun walking through the Labyrinth. I bought Red a new butterfly net earlier and she wouldn't let it out of her grasp for the rest of the walk - that is my attempt at explaining what you're about to see...

The kids had a blast on the huge climbing structure at the playground, and as usual, Wifey and I were there to capture some of the fun. And, as I've said before, and I'm likely to say again - we make some pretty good looking kids...

After nap, we were lucky enough to have the DaB's and BCJ join us for an impromptu cookout. D was home earning some cash so missed the festivities, but after a fantastic day with the fam we ended it with a great time with good friends. D was able to join me later to watch the Lakers close out the NBA finals, so it was great to be able to see him today too, even if it was a bit later than everyone else. :)

Yup, a wonderful day.

And you wonder why we're crazy

I took this video yesterday, and it is a bit long so I don't expect anyone to really watch it. Every once in a while, Red will start telling a story and it will never ever finish. Not only will it not finish, it rarely contains punctuation. Sentences can go on for minutes! I mostly took the vid to get a record of one of these huge diatribes to save for the future. But, I also liked it because it has glimpses into our typical post bath time routine and those are the things that you usually take for granted as activities that happen all the time but once the kids grow up you realize that they're not happening anymore and you miss them. So I took a video and captured some memories.

This takes place right after all the kids have been bathed, and the books are coming out for story time. But on this night, my sweet little Red decided she had a story to tell. And let me just preface it by saying that almost 100% of what she says is complete horse$%#@. What really happened yesterday? Wifey had the good fortune to have one of her online friends from her book club come into town for a visit and she and her family stopped over for a play date. Apparently they had a fantastic time, and aside from neither Red nor Pudge getting a nap (the friends were on west coast time so play time was right in the middle of our usual nap time), everything went really well.

With that said, I was a little surprised when Red came out with this story about how rather than playing outside nearly all day, she and Wifey had taken a trip down to my Dad's place to look for a book in their book basket. Seriously, she's absolutely nuts.

It is a nice vid though, in that it captures JAM being a great big brother to Pudge while reading and singing to him, and Pudge being a ham for the camera, and everyone just having a fun time. I love these crazy kids, and I love that time of night because everyone knows the routine and it is calm and peaceful and usually very loving. Except when Red throws a fit, then it's chaos, but that'll be a video for another time.

What the???

We spent the day at DBCJ's house last Monday - Memorial Day - for J's first birthday. It was a great party, lots of fun people, then a huge storm rolled through and we sat on their porch watching it rain and rain and rain while the kids played inside. Too much food, too much beer, too much fun, one of those days you don't want to end.

Got a photo through email tonight from B. Her message? "I finally downloaded pictures off my camera. Here are some of the best ones of the kids."

And this was the picture she sent...

Seriously? If that was one of the best ones, how bad were the rest?

I love those goofy kids!