Things Fortnightly

Time once again for our biweekly thing festival. SO many things so little time. Let's get to them shall we.

Thing #1. Blog Insider - A look at the widgets, gadgets, and what nots of Home School Dad.

Tonight's Episode: Here but not here.

My family was visiting the Washington D.C. area last week. We had a wonderful time. I took plenty of pictures and even kept a trip journal. I will be sharing from both of these sources in the posts to come. While I let my face book friends know I was gone, I didn't want to announce on the blog my absence just to make sure that no unscrupulous types took advantage of our absence from our home. To that end, I used one of my favorite features of blogger and wrote and scheduled 4 posts that appeared the week I was gone.

If you click on the post options menu while writing your current post, you can schedule your posts in advance. This not only helps when you are warning to post date a post, it also helps if you start a post and save it and want to have a current date on it. If you save a post without changing the date and then come back and publish it later it will retain the original date and often get lost behind whatever you published in the interim. If you post date your work and save it, then you can change the date to the current date once you have made your revisions.

Thing #2 What's on my screen saver

Charlie is playing soccer for the first time in an organized league. He really enjoys it. His first game is Saturday. He is looking forward to it.

Thing # 3. Chock full of Chuck.

It wouldn't be Thursday if I weren't telling you about the awesomeness that is Chuck. As I have mentioned in the last few times here Chuck VS. the Beard was the Best Episode Ever. The 4 episodes that followed it and ended the current story arc all were very very good. I would have to say that Monday's episode Chuck vs. The Other Guy was the second best episode ever. No Spoiler alerts here, but many things transpired in this episode that would have been impossible to even fathom less than a season ago. But every plot point seemed to fall in place and seem very genuine and most of all immensely watchable. Chuck takes a 3 week hiatus until the end of April. This means that in the next things fortnightly, I'll have to fins something else to go on and on about.

Thing # 4, Something to count on.

Last year right around Thanksgiving time I applied for a temporary job with the Census Bureau. I worked with them in 1990 and was hoping to do so again this year. I got 98% on the test and was thinking I should have heard from them one way or another by now. They called and I got a job as an enumerator. I have 4 days of training in late April and then a number of weeks of collecting census data form the field. This is my first paying gig in 2 years and I am just excited that I'll get a W2 next year. Besides the training, I'll be able to work my schedule around the kids homeschooling. It is a real answer to prayer.

Well that's all the things I have for today. If you have some things you'd like to share please click on Mr. Linky below.

Next Time: DC Trip Day #1

As Another Begins

I posted earlier this week about the end of college basketball season. Major League Baseball was getting into full swing (pun intended) as the NCAA tournament winded down. The tournament , anation obsession, is giving way to basbeball, the national past time.

Hopefully it will be a good season for both sides of Chicago. The Sox have started 1-1 and the Cubs have faltered out of the gate so far at 0-2. That's 2 down and 160 to go. Much too early to draw too many conclusion. I will be posting my musings each week as the season progresses.

Remembering Keith

They say dead men tell no tales. It's been a year to the day since by brother died and his death had written a chapter in the story that may not have been written otherwise. My brother died a few minutes after midnight on April 7,2009. It was literally the longest day of my life. My dad woke me up about 3 a.m. with the news. His death still seems surreal to me, but at 3 a.m. the day of it was the most surreal.

I had seen Keith less than 72 hours before and at that point, it seemed like he was getting better. The phone call from my Dad, said otherwise. I was in a haze when I got off the phone and went back in the bedroom and told Amy. The death of a loved one is the ultimate alarm clock and once I told her we were both wide awake.

Amy took the day off work and later that morning we told the kids. We knew how the girls would take it, it would zoom over Lucy and send Emma into a fit of tears. Charlie was the wild card, we did not know exactly how he would react. It turns out he was much more upset than we expected him to be. He ran out of the room, very angry.

Time stood still for a while. Because Keith died the week before Easter, there was 1 week between his death and the funeral. After that the days slowly passed into weeks, the weeks turned into months, and before long it was Veteran's day and I was commemorating what would have been Keith's 39th birthday with a memorial here on the blog.

Now almost another 5 months have passed and we are at the 1 year marker. I still miss Keith fiercely. It also still feels like the whole thing was a gigantic hoax. I fully expect Ashton Kutcher to come out any minute with Keith by his side and tell me how I've been punked. Alas, that probably isn't going to happen. Keith never had the impulse control to keep a joke that long. As much as I'd love to have him here with me again, I know he's with the creator, and having the time of his life.

One Season comes to an end

Today signified the end of Men's college basketball season. What started as a field if 65 a few weeks ago was down to 2. When the tournament brackets were announced, My wife and I filled out our brackets as we do every year. We were pretty surprised to find out that her pick to win it all and mine were squaring off in the final game.

That's right, my wife picked Butler to win the NCAA tournament. She picked a 5 seed, whereas I went with perennial power house and #1 seed Duke.

What a game it was. If Butler would have made that desperation half court shot, they would have won. The shot was very close. It seems like every other year, I pick Duke to win it all, it just so happens that this year I was right.

Emma's Favorite Day of the Year

The day after Easter is one of Emma's favorite days. This is because it blends in one of her passions with one we are trying to instill in her. The day after any holiday is usually a great time to get bargains on that holiday's merchandise. Which means that the day after Easter is a bunny lover on a budget's dream come true.

Some years we hit store after store for bargains. This year we just went to Walgreens where all Easter merchandise was 50% off. She got a really nice Webkins bunny. Also, she got her own real bunny back today as Smoky was being bunny-sat all of last week. It also didn't hurt that her favorite baseball team (White Sox) won their season opener today with her favorite player (Mark Buehrle) getting the victory.

All in all a great day for our bunny girl.

Next Time: By the Way . . .

The lost art of exaggeration

My Six:

I love the words "Or So".

Steve Martin used to talk about two simple words: I Forgot.

At some point probably under his influence I came up with my own credo: If you're going to exaggerate don't forget to say "or so."

Over the years I've shared this credo with a million (or so) people. Okay about 17. But numbers are infinite. Lets take that million and compare it to a google (1 with 100 zeroes, not the search site). Comparatively speaking a million is much closer to 17 than it is to a google.

Well I have 117 or so things I need to do today. For more 6 or so words head over to show my face dot com.

Next Time: Emma's favorite day of the year

April Fool

Last time I shared some lyrics from one of my favorite lyricists, me. Now, I am a lyricist, a poet, I am no musician. One of my favorite musicians is Noel Paul Stookey. He is the Paul from Peter, Paul and Mary. I dig the singer, story teller types. When Amy and I got married my sisters performed his "The Wedding Song" as a processional.

One of his best songs to me will always be April Fool which he performed live on his 1982 album "Wait 'til you hear this!" with his band Body Works. It is one of those songs that is hard to misinterpret, It is obviously written to and about Jesus. Since April 1st falls on Holy Thursday this year I thought it would be a good time to share the lyrics for this song. You can down load the song at Amazon among other places

April Fool

Noel Stookey and Stu Davis
©1981 Neworld Media Music Publishers

April Fool
You wear your heart on your sleeve
And though they laugh when they leave
You call it Love and I believe (you)

April Fool
Why must you always play the clown?
You have the edge you laid it down
You give it up without a sound...

Oh April Fool
How can they say "love is cruel"?
They catch the ring but drop the jewel.
Like a teardrop in a pool...

April Fool
As the heart shows through the eyes
Before you were born you were recognized
And unto the losers comes their Prize.

Oh April Fool
Even as the hands were washed, you knew
We'd free the thief instead of you

April Fool
You said the Father was in You
You said we know not what we do
Forgive us...April Fool.

Next Time: 6 Words or so