(no subject)
Went ice skating at Arabella's birthday party. I am very tentative on roller skates and ice skating was a little harder for me, but I managed to get around without falling. Of course I had to go verrrry slowly to help my daughters along as they clutched at the wall, but that's ok. I am not convinced that a sport involving sharp razors strapped to your feet has any place in my life however. Roller skating seems like a lot less work to me.
Later that night the kids went to a "drive in" at the preschool where they sat in cardboard box cars. One kid had the most amazing cardboard box car ever. It was fully decked out inside and out with very car-like accessories; dashboard, speedo, steering wheel, license plate, rearview mirror... we had a box with some paint on it. Parents of the year, right here.
It's been El Nino-ing here and I noticed water dripping down the chimney (on the brick exposed to the living room) so we called our roofer who applied a temporary fix just in time for a heavy storm the next day. A more permanent repair is required. We also discovered leakage where there shouldn't be leakage in the garage, so some foundation specialists are coming to re-grade the little area behind the garage and hopefully water won't pool in the corner anymore.
The weekend after that the kids and Holly played roles in a Peanut music video where the kids got to throw cake at each other. I instead bought a Carvin CX630 powered mixer from a pawn shop and a pair of Carvin 805 speakers from Craigslist for a total of $180, a massive bargain. Well, I had to buy $50 of speaker cables too, so $230. (A comparable brand new system would cost roughly $600-700.) Unfortunately one of the speakers did not work so I got a recommendation from Jan and hauled the speaker and my old dysfunctional Marshall 8040 guitar combo to Advanced Musical Electronics on Venice. As Jan promised the owner Kurt was kind of a grumpy guy but in a way I liked. He said 'So what's wrong with your Valvestate other than it's a Valvestate?" And he said 'have you ever been a customer before' and I said 'nope, got referred' and Kurt looked at me in surprise and said "Most people try to figure out what I mean by that question -- do I get a discount if I'm a repeat customer" but you answered right away, no hesitation'. And he and a long-time customer were hassling each other, cracking me up. I hope he's as good at repair as he is at being snarky. I really love that combo and I hope he can resurrect it.
We used the one working speaker at a Lowbrau rehearsal and it really cleared up our feedback problems. Of course that just meant we could crank the vocals louder, and the bass/guitar amps got louder too...
Went dancing at Atomic for the first time in months and it was really great. Sarah showed up, and Sara was also there, and Michelle went, and in general it was pretty darn fun. I am ridiculously out of shape after having had three or four consecutive colds and the associated cough continuously since November.
Yesterday we took Journey and Avalon to see gymnastics at UCLA as part of a Girl Scout day. The Bruins were competing against Oklahoma, but got destroyed; Oklahoma was really really good. I asked Journey if watching gymnastics was inspirational and she said grumpily "I don't want to WATCH gymnastics I want to DO it". So I guess inspiration wasn't really needed.
One of the Girl Scouts in the row behind me managed to dump 2 or 3 full sodas onto me, my backpack, and my wife's purse. They should award a patch for gracefulness to avoid doing that.
Later that night the kids went to a "drive in" at the preschool where they sat in cardboard box cars. One kid had the most amazing cardboard box car ever. It was fully decked out inside and out with very car-like accessories; dashboard, speedo, steering wheel, license plate, rearview mirror... we had a box with some paint on it. Parents of the year, right here.
It's been El Nino-ing here and I noticed water dripping down the chimney (on the brick exposed to the living room) so we called our roofer who applied a temporary fix just in time for a heavy storm the next day. A more permanent repair is required. We also discovered leakage where there shouldn't be leakage in the garage, so some foundation specialists are coming to re-grade the little area behind the garage and hopefully water won't pool in the corner anymore.
The weekend after that the kids and Holly played roles in a Peanut music video where the kids got to throw cake at each other. I instead bought a Carvin CX630 powered mixer from a pawn shop and a pair of Carvin 805 speakers from Craigslist for a total of $180, a massive bargain. Well, I had to buy $50 of speaker cables too, so $230. (A comparable brand new system would cost roughly $600-700.) Unfortunately one of the speakers did not work so I got a recommendation from Jan and hauled the speaker and my old dysfunctional Marshall 8040 guitar combo to Advanced Musical Electronics on Venice. As Jan promised the owner Kurt was kind of a grumpy guy but in a way I liked. He said 'So what's wrong with your Valvestate other than it's a Valvestate?" And he said 'have you ever been a customer before' and I said 'nope, got referred' and Kurt looked at me in surprise and said "Most people try to figure out what I mean by that question -- do I get a discount if I'm a repeat customer" but you answered right away, no hesitation'. And he and a long-time customer were hassling each other, cracking me up. I hope he's as good at repair as he is at being snarky. I really love that combo and I hope he can resurrect it.
We used the one working speaker at a Lowbrau rehearsal and it really cleared up our feedback problems. Of course that just meant we could crank the vocals louder, and the bass/guitar amps got louder too...
Went dancing at Atomic for the first time in months and it was really great. Sarah showed up, and Sara was also there, and Michelle went, and in general it was pretty darn fun. I am ridiculously out of shape after having had three or four consecutive colds and the associated cough continuously since November.
Yesterday we took Journey and Avalon to see gymnastics at UCLA as part of a Girl Scout day. The Bruins were competing against Oklahoma, but got destroyed; Oklahoma was really really good. I asked Journey if watching gymnastics was inspirational and she said grumpily "I don't want to WATCH gymnastics I want to DO it". So I guess inspiration wasn't really needed.
One of the Girl Scouts in the row behind me managed to dump 2 or 3 full sodas onto me, my backpack, and my wife's purse. They should award a patch for gracefulness to avoid doing that.