Open House

We hosted an open house celebrating the marriage of Chris & Sunny. The neighbor boys enjoying themselves.

Their parents seem to be having a good time also.

Chris & Sunny showing off a quilt made by Aunt Ann.

Michael and Michael

Mary has a new pair of shoes!

Aunt Sunny meeting her nephew Michael.

Tommy receives a group hug from his in-laws.

Rainbows

Catherine wanted to wear her sunglasses on her head like grandma does. She was successful!

Mary tried to put hers on her head.

They kept falling off.

Success at last!

But she was mad about the whole thing!

The girls saw their first rainbow yesterday. They were very excited. The Cape doesn't get the thunderstorms that we get. Amber said she hasn't seen a rainbow the whole time that they've lived out there.

Michael slept through all the hoopla.

Sleeping

Uncle Tommy is on his way to our house today. When he arrives, this is what he'll find in his bed. I wonder where he's going to sleep?

Hiking Among the Stars

Due to unexpected travel, I recently bowed out of the much anticipated backpacking attack on the Buffalo River Trail in the Arkansas Ozarks. So, when Chris suggested a hike this weekend in California, I jumped at the chance.

The location was Malibu Canyon State Park. As you look at these pictures, remember that millions of people are located within a 10-mile radius, and the ocean is a couple of miles away.

This shot gives you an idea of the general terrain:

The park features the site for the outdoor shots for the M*A*S*H TV show. It seemed strangely familiar (the white string to the right marks the site of the "swamp", Hawkeye's tent):

There were plenty of swimming holes along the way:

The weather was terrific and it was a satisfying hike, particularly considering the post-hike meal of tacos along the Pacific Coast Highway!

Invasion

Since Steve and I don't usually play with toys anymore, I'm sure you can guess who's here! The east coast gang arrived on Thursday morning. They left the girls with me and took the baby with them to Tulsa. They are in town to attend a wedding (Mike is also performing the marriage ceremony).

On Friday, Great Grandma Rennier and I took the girls to the butterfly house. Catherine is doing her best model impression by the caterpillar.

The girls are carrying their new butterflys that Gigi bought them.

Aren't they cute?

Mothers Day

I had a great Mothers Day this year. I was with 2/3 of my kids! We started out going to church and then had lunch at In n Out Burger. A quick trip home to change clothes and then over to Fisherman's Village to pick up a rental boat. It wasn't a big one, maybe 17' and the wind didn't cooperate. They had a small craft warning and we weren't allowed out on the ocean, but we tooled around the marina instead.

Tommy was the captain and Chris was first mate/lifeguard (if one was needed).

Tommy and Jena with their apartment behind them.

After another quick trip home, they all went to see Iron Man 2. I didn't want to see it, so Lyla and I stayed home and watched some TV shows. Then it was off to Cold Stone Creamery for some delicious ice cream! What a great family! It was a 8.5 out of 10. Would have been a perfect 10 if my east coast kids had been here. Maybe next year!

San Francisco

A few weeks ago, we headed up to Stanford University for a track meet that Tommy needed to film for his new website. Since we were so close and Jena had never been to San Francisco we made a quick trip there on Saturday morning. We tried to cram in as much as possible in the little time that we had. So, first we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge.

Lyla needed her picture with the bridge, also.

We looked out at Alcatraz Island.

Next, we went to Fisherman's Wharf and ate chowder, then headed over to look at the seals.

High on Tommy's list was taking Jena to Ghiardelli's ice cream shop. We all enjoyed the Gold Rush. Vanilla ice cream, peanut butter, and hot fudge.

Later that afternoon we arrived at Stanford for the track meet. This press conference was held after the American record in the 10,000 meter was set. Tommy is the tall one in the back holding the camera over his head.

The girl that is in third place with the orange shoes is Barbra. She's a running friend of Tommy's. She has run in the Olympics. (She did not win this race!)

We also took a trip down the crooked street, walked around Pier 39 and spent a lot of time in traffic. Quick trip, but fun!

500 and Counting

This is the 500th post of Ramblings by Steve.

If you'd asked me at the beginning if there was enough material in our life to write five hundred short stories, I'd said NO WAY!

OK, some of the material was mundane: the number of airports visited, a roll call of the Starbucks frequented, and so on. But recall the original description of the blog: "a manifesto of the mundane".

I think it's lived up to that billing.

Are there another 500 posts in the future? Well, not unless the authors can sustain their focus on the mundane of everyday living. It's an endless source of interesting material.

But I think a brief hiatus may be in order ... see you in a few weeks.

El Birdos

The St. Louis Cardinals have the best record in the National League and a large lead in the comparatively weak Central Division.

Despite a strong lineup, it is the pitching staff which is fueling the success. Six pitchers have ERAs under 2.00. In fact, the ERA of the entire staff is a stunningly low 2.57.

Chris Carpenter is 4-0 (with twelve straight wins within the division), Adam Wainwright is 4-1, Brad Penny is 3-1, and the surprising Jaime Garcia is 3-1 with a 1.04 ERA.

On the offensive side of things, there have been solid contributions from some surprising corners. Nick Stavinoha is hitting .375, David Freese .355, and Colby Rasmus is among the lead leaders in several power categories.

The only thing which could stop the Redbird juggernaut this year would be injuries.

There's the longer term problem of Albert Pujols' contract, which will certainly exceed 6 years and $200 million. Can the Cardinals afford to remain this good?

(Stats are current through last Tuesday.)

Matched

If Kim and I had depended upon a dating service to pair us, we'd be strangers today. There is no way any self-respecting computer would have matched two people like us.

I'm 16" taller than her. She's 10x better-looking than me. My favorite subjects in school were her least favorite. We read different books and, for the most part, watch different movies and TV. She can dance, and I avoid it at all costs.

When I tell hilarously funny jokes, she looks at me like I'm a clueless moron. When I state a serious and insightful observation, she laughs. Go figure.

I'm an early-rising morning person, and she's a night owl. I think our mutual peak time must be an hour or two around lunch-time.

I'm a natural saver; she's prefers to plot how we can spend all of our money as quickly as possible.

Kim claims her "superior common sense" trumps my better performance in the schoolroom.

I can visualize things in my mind; she cannot. When comtemplating room rearrangements (constantly), she forces me to heave couches from one end of the room to another, reposition pianos, and even temporarily move wall hangings so she can see what it will look like. You would thanks such efforts would end with "thank you", but they invariably conclude with "no, I don't like that ... put it all back".

We're two first-borns who should be incompatible due to our competing control issues.

But I've been enthralled with Kim since I first laid eyes on her. And, since she's still around not laughing at my jokes 35 years later, one assumes she's OK with me, too.

Take that, eHarmony!

God

Happy Moments, Praise God

Difficult Moments, Seek God

Quiet Moments, Worship God

Painful Moments, Trust God

Every Moment, Thank God

Crisis

Working in I.T. these many years has exposed me to the "daily crisis". When you think of how business depends on computers these days, how company management understands so little about them, and how error-prone these systems can be, it's easy to see how things can get hot at times.

The concept of self-aware machines as envisioned in movies such as Terminator and 2001 Space Odyssey seems absurd to me, given how these things seem to always break at the wrong times. Millions of lines of human-crafted code, operator-error, electrical components, dependencies on air-conditioning and power supplies, unexpected volumes, unexpected data patterns, floods, networks, viruses, failing system-to-system interfaces, rushed or incomplete testing, and faulty third-party components are a few of the problems which could be encountered, sometimes in unpredictable combinations.

I've had issues in which we lost three years of accounting data, customer service systems simply stopped working in the middle of the day, a new release for 25000 employees was inoperable, and so on ... so many I can't remember them.

And that's the point ...

Over the years I learned that every crisis is eventually resolved if one remains calm, confident, and committed to the solution. I also learned that the crisis which so dominated life for a few days can barely be fetched from memory a year later. If remembered, it's sometimes with fondness: "remember that time we all worked three straight days ...".

That knowledge of past crisises faced and solved gives one the ability to deal with the next one.