-->

Monday, January 26, 2009

January to date

Patrick is taking snowboarding lessons. He started two weeks ago, and is enjoying it. The instructor is the guy who sits next to me at work. After the first lesson he walked around for two days saying 'Ow', 'ow'. Apparently he fell on his butt quite a bit. The next session went much better, although April was not happy because on one run he 'caught air'. I didn't take him up last Sunday because of the rain and snow.

 

I usually run into people I know from the kids' school. Most of them ask where Rachel is. She had some skiing lessons a couple of years ago, but feels embarrassed that she isn't as good as her friends. A friend's of April daughter offered to teach her away from all her classmates, and she jumped at it. I hope she can gain some confidence.

 

It's been a busy month. Patrick is on the basketball team, and they have games and practice twice a week. April is not happy with the coach. Patrick has had about a minute of playing time in the three games played so far. He's not as good as the 'fab five', as April called them, but she thinks he should have some playing time each game. He doesn't care, but she feels it's not worth our time to get him to practices and games only to watch him sit there.

 

The schedule for the week this month has been: Monday April goes to class, and I run Thomas to soccer practice and then Patrick to basketball practice. Tuesday April runs Patrick to a basketball game, and then I pick him up, get him something to eat (Sizzler has been the choice), and then go to scouts while April goes to class. Wednesday April does homework and I take Thomas to scouts. Rachel has managed to upset him on at least two Wednesdays so that he hides in his room and we miss it. Thursday April takes Patrick to his basketball game, and then goes to class. Friday has been a down evening, although this coming Friday is Thomas's Pinewood Derby. Saturday is spent at the 12th street indoor soccer with games for Patrick and Thomas. Sunday I run Patrick to Snowbasin for snowboard lessons. And repeat.

 

This last Saturday Patrick had a game at 8:30 AM playing a girls team. Both this team and his are at the top of the league. It was a close match, but the girls won 5-3. The coach was upset about playing a girls team. The girls knocked the boys around (include Patrick getting pushed over twice), but none of the girls were even pushed aside. It's a double standard, but at least the boys had a competitive game and they did make some mistakes.

 

Thomas's game was at 10 AM. His team lost again, but did score three. I see the same sort of mistakes in his team as in Patrick's. No girls on the other team, though.

 

Patrick had his Pinewood Derby after Thomas's game. He drew the design on the wood, and I cut it, polished the axles and wheels, lined them up, glued more weight on, put the graphite on, and he swiped the sandpaper over the car a few times. He thought about painting it Saturday morning. He was pretty pleased when it came in first or second every race. After the race he went to a neighbors birthday party.

 

Rachel went with April to the hospital to work on her science project. She was pretty happy by the response, and seems to be having some fun with it. It was not what April wanted, but she is the one doing it, so I think it's good.

 

We got the van back last week. The insurance company agreed the transmission problem was due to their repairs, but the transmission place was surprised that most of the issues have gone away. They say they will pay for further repairs if we have problems in the future. I'd like that in writing, though.

 

End of Entry

Friday, January 16, 2009

Legend of Bill

David Reddick did a comic called 'The Trek Life' for Startrek.com, and does several others including working on Garfield. He has guests do comics for him on Thursdays, and Kevin Hancock had his put up this week.
http://www.legendofbill.com/

Congrats, Kevin.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Keyboard

Warriors have no use for USB!
http://tinyurl.com/6wzzff

Friday, January 09, 2009

Since U Been Gone

The last post was one month ago. The Christmas break was also a break in the kids activities, so it was good for April and me as well.

On December 13th, while driving to the airport to pick up April, a lady in the middle lane tried to break for a slow traffic around an accident on I-15 in Clearfield, spins her car around to the right lane and directly in front of me. The collision was low speed, so fortunately no one was hurt. She had insurance, so no worries there. The left fender of the van was smashed, and the yellow-green liquid pooling under the van told me the radiator was broken. I called April, and she got the toll free number for our insurance company, and I filed the claim. The lady on the phone told me where the van needed to go, and assured me the a case manager would talk to me on Monday. Not so. I called the autobody place, and they had already talked to our insurance company. They would need to subcontract the engine work, but the body work would be done by Friday at the latest. By Wednesday, April called the local office of the insurance company because we had not heard from them. She was reamed because we had taken the van to a shop, and told the adjuster should have been out to see the van before anything was done. She told them we followed what their company rep told us to do that day. One good peice of advice April got was to call the other lady's insurance company and make sure she filed a claim. April did, and yes, they did know about it, it appeared to be thier claimants fault, and they would be happy to reimburse us for a car rental, towing, and other expenses. The receipts where faxed to them, but I haven't seen anything yet.

The van was ready on Friday. April and I picked it up after the shop closed, and I noticed the transmission was not right. We called the adjuster, who called back and told us to take it to whereever we liked to have it looked at. We went to our regular service place, and he told us the transmission fluid did not look good, but he didn't have the tools to do much else. He recommended a place in West Haven. I dropped the van off, and told them it had been in an accident but didn't give any details. The guy told us it would be a day or so before he could get to it. On Wednesday, he called me to asked if I know the radiator had been replaced. Yes. Well, the transmission fluid was almost gone from the van, and there is a hose that would have to have been disconnected for the radiator to be replaced. He thinks the fluild drained out, and was not replaced. He's going to talk to the adjusted about it.

On Monday as well, I was almost finished shoveling the driveway that night and slipped on a patch of ice at the end of the driveway. I landed on the point of my right elbow, and wrenched my shoulder. I am able to raise my arm all the way up once, but not twice. Rachel slipped on the ice at school and cut her leg up. Patrick also slipped on the ice at school and has a big bruise on his left knee. Topping that off, he lost one lens in his glasses. The winter is not going well.

On the bright side, Rachel got her top braces off, and her teeth look great.

End of Entry