It will certainly be interesting

Regardless of your political leaning - even if you don't have one - this is going to be an entertaining fall.

And a confirmation of just how old I am. For the first time there will be a president or vice-president that is younger than me. 

I remember when I first started seeing pro athletes younger than me. That wasn't so bad because there were still a LOT of them older than me, which naturally meant that if I applied myself a bit I could be playing along with them. 

But before I knew it, it became hard to find a pro athlete older than me. And now, outside of some niche sports and that golf tour for old people, there are none.

And now there will be someone running this country who is younger than me. And that's not all - there will be someone who is not an old white guy. For sure, there will still be an old white guy as part of the team, but at least we are guaranteed to have a bit of variety. Finally. 

This has been a long time coming. Hopefully it will lead to a lot more variety and choices in the future.

Like maybe some team hiring a 50+ retired ball player.

That's it - move along...

More about the midlife crisis

We picked up the car on Thursday and I drove it home that afternoon. It was very hot outside so I left the top up. After dinner and Obama's coming out party, Mrs Notthat and I let the top down, fired 'er up, turned on the headlights, and then fired 'er back down. One of the headlights was out. (And Mrs Notthat was a bit chilled, but we could have turned the heater on.)

I'm the ideal guy you want to show up to buy your car. I'll look at it, drive it a bit, and if nothing is making me suspicious (like a curious puddle growing under it) and I like the thing, I'll buy it. I do not do a 110 point inspection or demand a Carfax report or worry about small scratches or dents. I rely probably way too much on instinct and the nature of the seller's aura. (I've actually had one really bad experience buying a used car - it was my first time and it was, ironically, a small convertible that I had decided I wanted, pretty much no matter what. The crook who sold it to me saw me coming and my suspicious-radar was non-existent. Funny how experience tends to hone that thing.)

In any case, my lack of thoroughness meant I did not know the Miata had a headlight out.

Sigh...

Friday Mrs got the car registered and was the first of us to drive it with the top down. She liked it. A lot.

Today The Boy and I fixed the headlight and verified all the other lights worked (it had a mystery switch that turned out to be for the fog lights!). And then we headed to a large empty parking lot for him to try out using a clutch.

This car has a pretty touchy clutch, so it will take a bit for him to feel comfortable with it.

But I'm not so sure I want him to get too comfortable. I keep telling him about the horrors of starting on a hill, and could use any other horrors that you all know of.

That's it - move along... 

Midlife Crisis! Wahoo!

Wednesday was a busy day.

The grandkids and Mrs Notthat came to my work to look at a really nifty Miata. We have been having car conflicts at home now that The Boy is back to school and (drum roll please) may start a job soon. I can come up with dozens of well thought out reasons but you are all wise and will shake your heads and mutter "midlife crisis" and wonder when the pony tail is going to show up. (Hint: my hair grows pretty slow, so it will be a few months.)


We pick up the car today - we bought it from a retiring school marm who only drove it on Sundays. Or something like that. This will be an interesting car and is a big break from my normal demands for maximum practicality. But it should be fun.

After deals were made and hands were shook we headed over to my work to wait for The Boy to meet us for lunch. His very first job interview ever was in Santa Clara. His very first drug test ever will be today.


This picture shows the grandkids chillin' on the office bean bag chairs. Once The Boy showed up we ate lunch at Wahoo's Fish Tacos - an interesting place that has pretty good food and a surfer decor that kept the grandkids entertained for about five minutes.

Afterwards we visited the wet lion thing out front.


Weirdly, the grandkids found this much more entertaining than trying to sit still in a restaurant. ("Don't they have a play area grampa?") Note that The Boy is wearing long pants. This does not happen often, but he wanted to dress to impress (a bit). Unfortunately this was also a stunningly hot day (notice that you can actually see Mrs Notthat's arms!) and he was itching to get home and into some shorts.

A midlife crisis averted, a drug test scheduled, some fish tacos eaten, and some beanbag chairs that will never be the same - a productive day.

That's it - move along...

A Test!

I picked up a new pair of glasses today. I had my previous pair for six years! Many of these years had rambunctious grandkids involved.

Your test is to pick out the new pair from these photographs.

Hint: I like my new glasses.

That's it - move along...

Grandkids, hula hoops, and resilient plants

WHM and NCN (mom and dad of the grandkids) wanted one last fling before WHM's classes start up next week, so Mrs Notthat volunteered for us to keep the kids overnight last night. NCN (Needs Cool Name, the dad) just picked the kids up, and I'm greatly enjoying the quiet (and golf on TV).

The kids are fun (mostly - they also can throw the most bizarre fits) but they never stop. It is a massive challenge to try to keep up with them.


We "watched" Alvin and the Chipmunks (the new movie) last night. You can see how entranced the grandkids were with it - they did everything BUT watch it.

This morning we made blueberry pancakes and donut eggs and got out every toy in the house - all by 8 AM. (Riley woke up twice in the night - both fixed by Mrs Notthat - and they both got up at 6 AM. Heavy sigh...)

And then we hit the garden.


Riley helped by dealing with some weeds.


And then we picked LOTS of cherry tomatoes. Riley is better for quantity, although his quality is a bit dubious - he probably has the same color blindness issues that The Boy has, which leads him to not be too choosy about picking only red tomatoes, plus he is not exactly gentle with what he picks. Darci is better for quality, but a lot of tomatoes never make it as far as the bowl.

Now for two completely unrelated things. We had this cactus that was not exactly attractive. It ended up getting temporarily moved to an out of the way location, where it was left for a year or so. A couple of weeks ago I was cleaning up that area and saw it. It looked awful and my first thought was to toss it. But I have a hard time doing that to any plant, so I instead gave it some water for the first time since the winter rains stopped. When I looked at it today I found that it has not only perked up - it now has a beautiful bloom on it. (See the tiny bloom within a bloom action going on? Nifty!)

The second example of the resiliency of plants (and why you should be patient with them, even when all seems lost) is this plumeria tree.


The picture on the left is from a post I did on June 14 when Darci shoved a dead tree branch in the container with the apparently dead tree. The picture on the right is what it looks like today - it's been transplanted to a smaller pot to make it easier to bring in over the winter and it seems to be happier than ever.

So the lesson is to never give up on a plant. And to maybe not rely on me to watch your plants since I seem to have a knack for bringing them to their knees.

That's it - move along...

Two quick things...

First - I have watched probably 30 to 45 minutes total of the Olympics so far, and most of that was the other night when the grandkids and their parents were over. WHM and NCN are both following the stuff and seem to be really interested. They are not what I would consider "normal" sports fans in that they don't follow football, basketball, or have much of an idea who Barry Zito is. Obviously, they are the people NBC is after, and it appears to work. This means I should stop whining.

But that's not really my point here (actually I've wandered quite a ways away from my point) - at last night's fitness class, the instructor talked about something she saw on a Olympics show. One of their in-depth pieces about local culture. This one was about acupuncture and the practice of shoving a needle in a random body part then waving a burning herb over it that smells distinctly of a Jefferson Airplane concert, if you get my drift. Her point was that that may explain the herbal smell that comes from an acupuncture clinic we walk by when breaking into an elementary school's playground (it's a longish story). The weird part was that, in my minimal partaking of Olympic entertainment, I had actually seen this segment. 

Note: I have all eight hours of the opening ceremony on TiVo in HD. I intend to scan through it at some point to catch the high points. There were high points, right?

Second - The Boy is taking an auto mechanics class at Skyline College. He comes home and starts answering our various questions (How many students in the class? What books do you need? Do they work on minivans?) when he used the word "she" while referring to his instructor. "Your auto mechanics teacher is a woman?" we both asked. "Ummmm, yeah. So?" he replied.

This is so cool - both that his instructor is a woman and that The Boy didn't see anything special about that.

He never did answer about the minivan thing though.

That's it - move along... 

This is just wrong

I love sports. I used to love the Olympics, but Big Network Television stole that from me about 20 years ago when they stopped covering the wide variety of events available and started covering only those events that appealed to casual sports fans and flag waving slobs who only want to see the good old USA in the winner's circle.

But that's OK. I know if I had cable I would be able to see a lot more of what's going on, so my complaining is at least partially my own fault.

But still.

When bored in the evening, I sometimes switch over to NBC to see what they are showing. It is either diving (synchronized diving? where did that come from) or beach volleyball. Or some stupid LONG piece that tries to show how wacky those Chinese are and that they will eat/wear/poke themselves with.

First let me say that all of the the athletes, no matter what the sport (and I'm including the ribbon dancing thing), are very good and all are impressive. It takes an amazing amount of hard work and dedication to get to be among the best in the world, especially in obscure sports like discus throwing or frog wrangling where you know you will never get rich from the sport.

But I am frustrated by women's beach volleyball. Not the play or athletic abilities, but those stupid bikinis. Why do they dress like that? Does it give them a competitive advantage? I doubt it otherwise we would see the men's team in speedos. Or maybe the gymnastics team in bikinis. 

There may be a good reason they dress like this, and maybe the players like it, but I doubt it. This smells like something that was done strictly to enhance male viewership. Like something NBC asked for in exchange for the massive amount of money they spent to televise (sort of) these games. 

Beach volleyball is on every night. This is probably mostly due to the US having a good chance at a medal or two. But I suspect it is also largely due to guys watching this while explaining to their wives how it is an important Olympic event so get off my back and why is my beer empty?

The women's softball team is no doubt going to get the gold medal. They have been so dominating that the sport is going to be removed from future Olympics. I would bet money that less than an inning of their games has been shown in prime time. 

I would also bet money that that would not be true if the team started wearing bikinis.

That's it - move along...

A slag-filled weekend

Want to feel powerful? Grab an oxyacetylene torch and whack a chunk off of a piece of half-inch steel using nothing but fire. It's stunning - it's hard to believe that you are slicing a thick metal plate as easy as warm butter. Well, actually extremely hot warm butter.

The Boy and I spent the weekend at The Crucible in Oakland, attending their Introduction to Welded Sculpture Family Fun Weekend class. We had tried to get in the class a few weeks ago but it was already full. Then on Thursday Mrs Notthat got a call because someone dropped out and she eagerly volunteered us to take their place. (I'm not sure how I should take it that she seemed to really enjoy us being out of the house for the weekend. Think of all the baseball, football, and golf she missed out on.)

This class covers the basics of arc welding, using an oxyacetylene torch to cut metal, and using a variety of frightening tools to finish off your sculpture. This was an unbelievably cool class. The Crucible has been mentioned a couple of times before in this blog - we first found out about them at the Maker Faire in May and then REALLY found out about them at their annual Fire Arts Festival in July.

This is a place that teaches normal people, in our case including kids as young as 12, to use extremely dangerous things. Here's the thing that astounds me - you are pretty much set free after a relatively short orientation where they explain an extremely dangerous thing, point out how to avoid hurting yourself and others, and send you on your way to practice and create. Our instructors, Yort and Yllehs (not their real names) were amazingly patient and calm. They'd see some kid pointng a power tool in exactly the wrong direction and calmly explain the problem to them while encouraging the kid and then letting them get on with their project. I would have been a cowering puddle in the corner.

We had 13 people in the class which was a mix of families and adults there on their own. There were almost as many women as men in the class, but the kids were all boys. In an amazing coincidence I heard someone call my name while waiting for class to start on Saturday morning - it was Ydnas and her daughter Yllom (not their real names). Ydnas is the editor charged with going through my latest manual and marking it up with a red pen. (The fact that she still talks to me says a lot more about her fortitude and much less about my writing skills.) They were there for a neon light class, but Yllom seemed extremely interested in our welding class. (The Crucible has these weekend classes in welding, blacksmithing, glass flameworking, jewelry, and neon lighting.)

Arc welding is very challenging. You have to wear these hoods that completely block out all light until you get an arc going, which is extremely bright. The hard part is getting the arc going. Another hard part is knowing when to stop the arc once you've got it going - it's fascinating to watch but it will melt whatever you are trying to weld very quickly if you are not careful. I was not careful a lot.


Using the cutting torch was a bit easier to do - you don't have to wear quite as dark of glasses - but harder to get nice results. Again, you could easily get lost while watching a thick chunk of metal turn to liquid, melting away much more of what you were working on than intended.

Here are the projects that The Boy ended up with after two days.


It's hard to appreciate how amazing it is that these things all started using scraps of metal. I really wish I had taken progress pictures of the Raiders shield and the name thing - there were times when I had little hope for them, and yet they both came out very nicely. He did very well and enjoyed this class a lot. (There was also this concept of "quenching" where you take a very hot piece of metal and stick it in water to cool it, resulting in a weirdly satisfying hiss. He enjoyed that a lot too.) He wants the blacksmithing class next.

Here is what I came home with:


I'm proud of this bug-like thing (which looks much better at a distance than up close). The peace sign sort of thing, not so much. (Thank you WHM for correctly guessing what it was. I broke this massive belt sander thing while trying to perfect this thing. Yort said "Oh that happens all the time. No big deal." Again, as an instructor I would be the quivering puddle in the corner.)

It was a great weekend. Thank you Mrs Nothat for arranging this and for putting up with all the stiffling quiet while we were gone. We will be taking other classes there - maybe even Mrs can be talked into a class.

In the meantime, I've got to some new tools to buy after I make some room in the garage for the welder. It might be easier to move though.

That's it - move along...

Technology - Simplifying your life!

The company I work for is always on the look out for ways to fight global warming. After all, Al Gore is on the board of directors.

It was decided to pick on lighting in this latest round of enhancements. Actually, not the lights so much as the light switches.

You see, this company may have noble goals with respect to the environment, but many of its employees are stupid, ignorant, clueless, lazy bums. You can set two containers - one for trash and one for recyclables right next to each other, and many people STILL won't take the time to put their empty soda can in the right container. They just cannot be bothered. I hate them.

Similarly, a lot of employees cannot be bothered to turn their lights off when they head home. So we now have enhanced lighting switches with motion detectors that can tell whether there is someone in the room or not.

Only the switches do not look even vaguely like light switches. Look at the picture - this is a typical conference room. The stuff on the left controls a variety of lights in the room. The stuff on the right controls the projector screen and the massage features of the chairs. (Kidding! Of course each chair has their own controls!)

If you want to use the projector, the first thing you have to do is spend several minutes pushing random buttons until finally the lights go off. 

In the offices things are also odd. Window offices (like mine) are programmed to leave the lights off whether I'm in the room or not. I can force them to be on, but the assumption is that I'm getting enough light through the windows to not need the overhead lights - which is correct.

If you do not have a window office however, the lights are programmed to come on whenever you enter the room, whether you want them on or not. Many people have other, less harsh lights that they use. They hate that the overhead lights come on all the time. You can call facilities and they can send someone over to reprogram your switch, or as a resourceful individual figured out, you can put a post-it note over the sensor - the equivalent of poking its eye out.

In any case, this is all probably for the best. But it is odd to walk down a hallway in the morning and be greeted by random offices and rooms lighting up as you pass. 

Technology indeed.

That's it - move along...

Marine World Wildness

Last Tuesday Mrs Notthat and The Boy headed up to Marine World Africa USA with Nwad and her two girls Ylime and Aynos (not their real names, but alert readers will remember this group from our recent camping trip). Today I finally got around to looking at the pictures on the camera and found a lot of great shots.


The Boy took this picture by getting much closer to this killing machine than I would ever dare. While many people think patriotic thoughts when they see a majestic eagle, I think of the Muppet Show. And smile.


Apparently there is a butterfly habitat there that is infested with butterflies. The Boy took some great shots using the camera's macro mode.


Here the three non-adults pretend to be the three wise monkeys. They have the monkey part down pat.


They then headed to the Aggressive Bird Habitat. The Boy was licked by this bird the whole time they were in there. He said it was because he was a bit sweaty but my guess is it had something to do with what he had for lunch.


Ylime was the only real bird-bite victim, although I don't know if this was the perp.


Aynos was a LOT more uncomfortable with this bird on her head than she looks here. It's not like birds wear diapers, if you get my drift.


And finally here is Nwad, completely at ease with with a pooping machine on her head.

Note: You did not see Mrs Notthat with one of these things on her head. She is smarter than that, although it probably had more to do with not wanting to mess up her hair.

And that's about it. There were a LOT of pictures of giraffes thanks to Aynos, some swimming tigers, and some sunset pictures. But, sadly, no pictures of food.

That's it - move along...

Pretty Flowers

A couple of days ago I came home to see these beautiful flowers in the gutter in front of our house. I was just sure that someone would be along soon looking for them and pick them up.

This morning while pulling crab grass along the front sidewalk I noticed that the flowers were still there. 

What a waste of such beauty.

I picked them up and found out that they were fake. And not very pretty after all.

Heavy sigh.

That's it - move along...

I I I I or Eye Eye Eye Eye?

 Ah what the heck - "Hey, you - four eyes!"

The Boy now has glasses. By his age I was on my second or third pair. Mrs Notthat was even more of a veteran of wearing glasses. I don't remember how old WHM was when she first got glasses, but I know she was a lot younger than The Boy is now.

Here's another odd thing - he did not have to get them. His eyes are mostly fine, but they could be improved a bit with glasses so the eye doctor gave him the option.

And The Boy went for it - anything that might help with distance viewing is worth it. Plus they are sort of cool looking.

I also went in for a checkup. My last checkup had been almost six years ago, but I was seeing pretty good with my glasses and they were holding up really well. 

The picture of me was intended to show my dilated eyes, but instead it makes me look like Marty Feldman's younger brother. (Any of you that were thinking I was his older brother, or dad, should just keep on walking. Also, any of you who don't know who Marty Feldman is needs to Google him and watch Young Frankenstein soon.)

In any case, my eyes had changed a little bit (an advantage of progressive bifocals is that you can adjust your head a little bit and compensate for changing eyes - up to a point).

So I'll be getting a new pair of glasses too. 

And I promise to stop making that face, although it might be kind of cool if it stuck that way.

That's it - move along...

Really? Bacon? Real Bacon?

When a guy shows up at home with a dozen roses for no apparent reason, it's hard not to be suspicious. Mrs Notthat would not necessarily be suspicious - her first question would probably be "So who's giving away free flowers?" Or maybe, "Been drinking?"

Which got me to thinking about what she could get me that would make me suspicious. 

And then it happened - I opened the fridge door and there was a package of bacon. Good bacon. Center cut designer bacon made with actual pork. My first thought was "So who's giving away free bacon?" Then "Have she been drinking?"

This is a monumentally great moment. In fact I have refused to believe it. You know how a person can look right at something but fail to have it register in their brain since they are pretty much convinced it can't be there? That was me for about a week with this bacon. 

Tonight I took it out and looked at it. It seems real. Two strips are only 75 calories (although a lot of those calories are somewhat saturated in fat). And I cooked half the package. 

It was real bacon (which made a real bacon mess while cooking - I had forgotten all about that issue). I ate 75 calories worth and put the rest away for breakfast. We have some zucchini patties that taste a lot like flat mini quiches - these are excellent when wrapped around a piece of bacon (I tried one with my 75 calories worth of bacon). 

I may not be able to sleep tonight.

That's it - move along...

Riley's Free and The Boy Gets Touched

Riley is out of the hospital and Darci is back with the family after staying in Scotts Valley with Grandma Betty during the hospital episode, and they all came over for BBQ last night. Riley's still dragging a bit and is not thrilled by all the new medications and breathing treatments he is now on, but it's better than being at Klub Kaiser. 

I got him to take one round of medication by promising to take him out on the deck to play pool, or "balls" as he calls it. You'll notice that pool cues are not involved - it turns out that two toddlers with pool cues is probably only slightly less dangerous than giving them running chain saws.

We had chicken and pork ribs, roasted potatoes (sweet and normal), mushrooms, green beans, and of course zucchini, and the star of the show - corn on the cob. Both of the grandkids love corn on the cob. Dessert was my famous zucchini cobbler (which Riley liked!).

The Boy received a congratulatory iPod Touch for passing his high school proficiency exam.We are in the process of determining his next step, but for now he'll be happy touching his music. (I don't know what that means either.)

So it was a good Sunday evening - even better, the Redskins won! But now it's Monday and the sun isn't shining and I'm off to work. Sigh.

That's it - move along...

Presents and Pizza

A great sight upon arriving at the hospital last night was Riley wandering around untethered to that vast array of medical things that had been holding him down earlier in the day. No more glowing toes.

Within seconds of me setting the pizza boxes down he was ready for a walk. We headed down the hall, past the nurses, to the elevator area where he can look down at freedom. And hit his head on the wooden rail. Several times.

But Riley didn't care too much since he could sense that he was closer to being released. I haven't heard anything yet this morning, but assuming everything went well last night, he should be a free toddler this morning.


A box containing presents for WHM, Riley, and Darci arrived yesterday from my parents. So we brought it to the hospital - presents never fail to cheer people up, and they didn't disappoint this time either. (It also helped a lot that Klub Kaiser gave Riley his very own huge room during the stay, which meant we could spread out and not worry about bothering anyone.)


Riley loved this clever little bus puzzle thing. Turn the bus on, set it on the puzzle, and it wanders around in a comical way. Place stop signs and those plastic things in pizza boxes that look like three legged tables in the bus's way and it knocks them over. Place the bus on the floor and it takes off on a wildly unpredictable ride.


And WHM loved this very clever quilt that my mother made based on drawings and plans made by Mrs Notthat's mother many years ago.

The rest of us were content with pizza and sodas.

And chasing that dang bus everywhere.

That's it - move along...

Honest - it wasn't the garden's fault...

...probably.

Thursday, after working in the garden, Riley quickly faded and went to bed early. He was fighting a cold - add to that the excitement of ten pound zucchinis and the kid was done for the day.

Friday he was a bit worse and was taken to the doctor's. Twice. The second time they were concerned enough that they had a doctor come over from the hospital to walk them from the clinic to the hospital. (This is all at the Kaiser facility here in Redwood City.)

The little guy has the same sort of issues as before - low oxygen in his blood - plus this time he has mild pneumonia. In any case, he spent Friday night in the hospital and they have decided to keep him tonight too. He seems to be hooked up to more wires and hoses than before, but seems to be putting up with it as well as a nearly two year old can.

How close to two? Tomorrow. A trip to the zoo and a large party had to be put on hold.

By the way, the glowing red big toe in the top picture is an oxygen sensor of some sort. The cutlery sticking out of his lunch in the other picture is art. 

So it's not a very perky weekend. Darci is staying with Grandma Betty in Scott's Valley this weekend so WHM and NCN (Riley's parents) can focus on keeping Riley entertained. We are planning to have a pizza party of sorts in Riley's room tonight. I'll pass along updates as they are invented.

That's it - move along...

Fun and Terror!

OK. This is going to be a bit long, but it will have lots of pictures.

First off, here is a warning of things to come.


Note the massive pupils. More to come next week. (No, this has nothing to do with the terror.)

Thursday evening the grandkids and WHM came over for dinner and terror.

The grandkids, who are much braver than you would think, were eager to go into the garden to pick a variety of veggies.

LOTS of cherry tomatoes were picked, although Riley had to be watched since he tended to not care so much what color they were. (Note to self - Google whether you can really fry green tomatoes.)

Darci had to be watched too, but for different reasons. You could hear her singing "One for the bowl, one for me CHOMP!" This was fine, but it soon became "One for the bowl, two for me CHOMP CHOMP!"

"Here Darci, hold this big zucchini." I say. "CHOMP!" says Darci as she takes a bite from it.


I know, she looks so innocent here.


And so does Riley.

After filling the bowl we went in and had a wonderful dinner that included a zucchini infested pasta baked dish, zucchini patties (which ended up sort of like quiche patties), and fake apple cobbler with zucchini in it.

There may be a theme here.

In any case, now for the terror part of the story.

When The Boy was little, we used to take turns cutting each other's hair. It's not as bad as it sounds - you take a pair of clippers, put a half inch guard on it, and assuming he didn't try to shove it in my eye, he couldn't really hurt anything. And it's only hair, after all.

The Boy is old now, and he and his big pupils no longer finds this amusing.

But Darci thought it sounded like grand fun. So I put on a brave face and let her go for it.


That was when she grabbed the clippers and fired them up. And I realized that she was a lot younger than The Boy when he first started doing this


And then it was time.


And it went fine. There were a few ear jabs and other uncomfortable moments, but it was worth it for how much fun she had.

I'm sure WHM probably does not need this warning, but she better keep their clippers under lock and key for a bit. Darci really seemed to enjoy doing this and who knows what brilliant ideas she might come up with in the next few days.

Oh, and sleep with one eye open.

That's it - move along...

UPDATE: WHM has a couple of videos showing the haircut thing here. I had forgotten Darci's line about "If you are good you can have a lollipop when we're done!"