This Pilgrim's Progress

Memorial Day Weekend

I had a great weekend. It started Friday, which was my alternate Friday off. 

Early in the morning, my son went with me to Home Depot to get some more crushed rock. Friday and Saturday, with some help from the kids, I got it finished!!! It took one more trip to HD. In total it took 48 bags of crushed rock, 3/4 of a cubic foot each, or a total of...36 cubic feet to fill the 90 foot trench of the French drain. I'm almost recovered, lifting that rock was heavy work, and filling the trenches was tiring too. My joints almost feel normal after three days of recovery. Now that it is finally done, we probably won't get any more rain for another 10 or 20 years. Actually we are due for a wet cycle, so I have a feeling that the drain will get a good test next winter.

Andrew had a swim meet this weekend, he did real well, although he was coming down with a cold.  I missed his swim because I was trying to finish up the French drains. I normally wouldn't want to do that, but I felt that I was so close to being done and I've been working on the thing since March.

Sunday after church we went over to my mother-in-law's beach condo for a barbecue. We took our puppy, Toby, with us and he did very well. It was beautiful down by the beach, but the surf looked pretty rough. Toby discovered the ocean and the beach sand. He also got to taste some ice-plant and seaweed (both dried and wet!!). We spotted some dolphins or some sort of small whales out in the surf too. Quite a picture-postcard day at the beach.

Monday we spent most of the day at Presidio Park at our church's annual Memorial Day picnic. We took Toby to that too. He had a great time and met a lot of people and other dogs. There were a lot of Labradors there, and Toby did very well. Of course he was the cutest dog there and the best looking Lab too!!

It's hard to believe summer is here already!! We are looking forward to it. We were confirmed for reservations on the Glen Aulin trail at Toulume Meadow, Yosemite. And Heidi and Debbie planned out the rest of our vacation with hikes. I'm looking forward to that.

Next week I'll be in Orlando, FL for a Microsoft Tech-Ed conference. I'm not looking forward to being away from the family for so long, but it will be profitable career-wise to get up-to-date info on MS Sql Server 2005 (Yukon). I'll be pretty busy so hopefully I won't have too much time to mope!  It will be a long airline flight to and fro, which is also something I don't really enjoy.

French Drain, Orchestra, Puppy

Another Monday.  The weekend was beautiful if a bit hot.

The family got up early Saturday morning and helped me work on the French Drains. We are very close to finishing!!! The kids worked like demons to tunnel under the sidewalk and put a section of 4 inch drain-pipe under it. And they did it on a rather hot day. I'm sure both of them would have rather spent the morning at the beach surfing, but they helped their old Dad out with this project. I'll finish up connecting the pipes during the week after work, and then maybe this weekend we can get the crushed rock in and cover up the trenches to finish up!!!

My daughter's orchestra finished up their last two concerts this weekend. They did very well, even in the hot weather. They played beautifully and sounded fantastic.

Toby, our new little black Lab, is also doing well. We are training him and he has proved to be a very smart little pup. He had puppy-class Sunday afternoon and he enjoyed seeing and playing with the other pups, some of them were his litter-mates.  I finally filled out the AKC papers to register him. His registered name is "Beshire's Tobias Cu Na Mara" (note: We later had to change it to "Cunamara", because the separated letters could be mistaken for an AKC title". Tobias is from the Hebrew meaning "God is good", and "Cu Na Mara"  (or "Mhara") is Gaelic for "dog of the sea".  Labs originated on Newfoundland as fisherman's companions and were referred to as "water-dogs", and that manifests itself with their affinity for the water and natural retrieving skills.  It's kind of a tradition in my family to name family dogs in Gaelic. It actually is quite appropriate for Labs, in that one of the most important breeders in their history was the Scottish lord, the 5th Duke of Buccleuch.

I started to learn how to use my GPS receiver and played with it a little. It's pretty easy to use, but I've still a bit of a learning curve to master it.

Well, back to the "salt-mine"!!

REI Sale

I almost forgot. We did a shopping run at REI Friday. It was one of their big sales, so it was pretty crowded, even on a week-day!!  We got a backpack for our son, and some other oddities. We had great help from a sales-clerk who was very knowledgable, so Andrew got a pack that fit very well. Turns out to be one of REI's newer models.  Everything was on sale, so I couldn't use the 20% off!! I tried to order something online that would qualify for the extra 20%, but was not successful.  I ordered an Foretrex 101 gps thingy and some other odds and ends. I'll probably need to take a second job to pay for it all!!!

We can't wait to go and use all this stuff. The kids packed up their packs early Saturday morning and went up Cowles mountain. They are pretty stoked about it all, so I hope I can find a fun overnighter in Yosemite this summer. We will be base-camped at Tuoleme meadows, and there are a number of good routes from there. Any recommendations from you all out there would be appreciated.

"Trench warfare and Tympani's"

Another busy 3 day weekend for me. With help from the family we made amazing progress on the French drains. I plan to post a detailed discussion with pictures of it later. It's so close to being finished I can almost taste it!!

My daughter's orchestra concerts were this weekend and next weekend. I volunteered to be the "Tympani-Sherpa" this weekend, so to add to my level of stress and confusion I was hauling around and loading/unloading the drums.  I was told I'm off the hook for next weekend, but we'll have to see.

The concerts went very well and they played some really popular and fun-to-listen-to pieces. Beethoven's Coriolan Overture, Clarinet concerto by Mozart, Finlandia by Sibelius, and a fun piece by Rimsky-the-K. An extra offering was an Albinoni piece in memory of Louis Campiglia the orchestra founder who passed away last year. 

Our Lab puppy Toby is doing real well and his is a delightful if sometimes-exhausting addition to our family. He is a very smart pooch, and picks up on things very fast. We are getting better at understanding his visual cues too, and so far accidents in the house have been very rare. He loved being outside with us Saturday while we worked on the French drains. 

Well, back to work.  Happy Monday to everyone out in the cyber-sphere.

"Empire of Liberty"

"It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can. A better system of education for the common people might preserve them long from such artificial inequalities as are prejudicial to society, by confounding the natural distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice." --John Adams

This was the " The Federalist Patriot Founders' Quote Daily" that came in my email today.  They have some great quotes, and some not-so-great. 

The thing that struck me about this statement from John Adams was that I bet he never envisioned how our "system of education" would eventually be hi-jacked by secular-humanists, and how the "natural distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice" would become "confounded" by a godless philosophy of relativism and pagan materialism.  We don't have any danger of our liberty being taken by kings or nobles, but we do have the danger of it being subverted by the attitudes of the cultural elite and the agendas of radical leftists.

But, I also believe in God's sovereignty, so I'm sure it is all part of his great plan, but meanwhile we have to put up with the contractors!!

Weekend Update

It was a busy weekend. 

Andrew had a good swim meet, making a JO time on the 200-fly!! He swam the 1500 and did pretty good, considering his goggles fogged up and he couldn't see the lap counter to figure out his stroke pace!! We're proud of him for doing so well.

I went to the orchestra parent meeting, and ended up being the tympani-schlepper again!! But its only the two smallest ones, so it should be a piece of cake.

Weed-whacked the yard Saturday afternoon and cleaned up the jungle in the back corner. Hopefully that got rid of most of the fox-tails so Toby won't end up with them in his little body!!  Had a fun but exhausting day on Toby-watch!! He's a great little pup, but you have to keep on eye on him. He loves to chew on small rocks and various vegetation. The vegetation is ok, we don't have anything around that'll poison him. But he could chip a tooth on the rocks!!  He likes wood chips, and tugging on the Yucca tree too. This morning we gave him a couple of ice cubes and he loved playing with them and crunching on them!!!

Sunday was great. It was a beautiful day down in the beach condo, and we had a great time. Everyone seemed to like the hot-dogs, chicken, and steak that I grilled and I haven't heard any complaints about food-poisoning!! The kids and their uncle's went board and body surfing. The surf was pretty strong, so they got worn out after about an hour. Debbie and Heidi took Toby to the puppy class. Toby liked playing with all the other pups, but didn't like riding in his crate. We'll have to work on that a little!!

Gutters, Puppies, and Moms

Well this coming weekend promises to be a busy one again.

Tonight Andrew swims the 1500 meter free,  and two events tomorrow.  The events tomorrow are spread out through the day, so Debbie and Andrew will be at the swim meet waiting most of the day.

I'm on puppy-watch this Saturday, which will be a lot of fun. I haven't had an opportunity to spend a lot of time with Toby this week, so we'll get some quantity and quality time in. I also have an orchestra parent's meeting to go to, but that'll only take an hour. Heidi's orchestra has their Spring concert series the next two weekends, so they are getting the parents together to coordinate getting everything set up. The rest of the day Saturday I'll spend cleaning out the back yard and getting rid of the overgrown sections and making everything Toby-safe. Then Toby and I will probably check out the French drains and figure out what else I need to get them attached and linked to our gutter downspouts (oh, that's right, we got our gutters installed this week too!!!).  I plan to take photos of the trenches so ten years from now we can figure our where they are if we need to.

Sunday will be a big day of course. We are honoring all the mom's in our extended family with a barbecue of steak and chicken at my mom-in-law's beach condo in IB. We'll take Toby and the crate with us, then Debbie and Toby will go off to puppy class later in the afternoon.

Well, I'd better get back to work and get some stuff done!  I wish all the Mom's out there a blessed Mother's day and a great weekend.

Puppy Update!!

Well we finally settled on a name for our new little (not for long) black Lab puppy. We ran the gamut in trying to find just the right name for him. Some failed candidates were Willy, Jake, and Max. Some not-so-serious candidates were: Cujo, Crusher, Bear, Brutus.  And for his food-consuming ability:  Hoover, Kirby, Dyson, Electrolux, etc. It's really amazing how this puppy makes food disappear!!! He really is a living vacuum cleaner. We've decided that all dogs are part goat, because they will eat almost anything. This is especially evident when they are puppies. They get more sneaky about it when they're older, so you don't notice as much.

Anyway's the Final and Forever Call-name for our new puppy is: Toby!! It is from the Hebrew and means "God is good" or "God is great".  And it's not a very common name so we have a very low chance of offending anyone by naming him thusly. It fits him pretty well, it's a great name for a little puppy, and as a big lovable Lab I think it will fit him then too!!

I remember the old Disney movie "Toby Tyler" based on the children's book of the same name. I remember Toby was a lovable but adventuresome little boy who was apt to get himself into trouble with his adventures.  I think in the movie he runs away to the circus (talk about a cultural cliche, I always threatened to run away to the circus when I was a kid!!!).

And our "little" Toby fits that description too. He is lovable, but very curious and loves to explore his new little world here at the Seifert estate!!

Hopefully I'll get some pictures up soon, but until then check these out that my daughter took.

A Wonderful Life!!

The last few days have been very busy for me. I haven't even been able to keep up with the latest "exploding frog" news!!!

Friday was the beginning of the weekend for me. Andrew and I went forth to Home Depot to acquire the piping we need for the French drains. Well, they didn't have the right stuff. No schedule 40 PVC sewer or drain pipe. Just the black stuff (ABC pipe??) that's too brittle for this job, and some real cheap flimsy stuff that was meant for surface perimeter drainage in light soil. I don't think we have that kind of soil anywhere in the county, so I'm wondering who they sell this stuff to and for what purpose!!!  That's one of the reasons I'm doing the job myself, I want it done right.  After conferring with my brother-in-law, who's in the midst of building his own house in the local mountains, we went to a contractors supply company and they had the right kind of pipe and they delivered!! And the company was just a couple of blocks from the Home Depot. I had asked a Home Depot guy where I could get the stuff and he had no clue. Really, I sometimes wonder why they even have clerks at HD for they are pretty much useless and you can never find one when you need them!!

Saturday we went to mom-in-law's beach condo in IB. It was a gorgeous day. My daughter had three friends over for a sleepover, and we invited their families over for dinner. I grilled dogs, burgers, and steak and we had fixins, green salad, and potato salad to go with it.  We saw a pod (a group?) of porpoises swimming by just at the surf line. They were playing in the waves, and doing all sorts of stuff and it was just simply awesome!! I hope to get the photos up in a couple of days.

Sunday afternoon one of our little nieces was having her 3rd birthday party. So we went over to drop off the loot and have a bite to eat. The had some "party hosts" there to make balloon animals, do face painting, etc. The teen-age gals did a pretty good job, and the little ones just loved the activities. One of them was dressed up as "Dora" with a huge head!! The gal wearing the costume was pretty tall too, so Dora was rather imposing to say the least. I guess Dora is some sort of cartoon character that's popular with the sandbox set these days. My niece was intimidated by Dora and didn't want to give her a good-bye hug, I was kind of frightened by Dora too!!!

I went to bed early Sunday night. I didn't even stay up for "Desperate Housewives"!!! I was pretty tired I guess from the day before.

Monday morning we found out we still had a chance to go see the puppies at a breeder's in North County. So, around noon we all trekked up there. Three hours later, we were the proud owners of a beautiful male black Lab, about 9 weeks old. We also saw the younger puppies of another litter. They were very cute and beautiful too. But we really loved the older puppy and decided to go with him. This morning we are almost set on "Willy" as his call name, but that might change by the time I get home. He had a real good night and slept soundly most of the night. He did get up a couple of times to go to the bathroom, but fell right asleep after we put him back in the crate. He's is a very sweet and gentle puppy, and just loves the attention we give him.

At work I heard the pipes were delivered right after I left for work, and the gutter guy called. He'll be doing our gutters Wednesday sometime. So...things are going on and life is very full and very blessed!!!