Category Archives: Family

Surpassed

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One of my favorite things about being a parent is those sterling moments when I suddenly realize that one of the kids has gone beyond me and done something of their own accord that I didn’t prompt or of which I’m not even capable.

Emily’s artwork has been one of those things for me for a number of years. She does terrific work, and will often get an idea in her head, disappear into her room for six hours, and emerge with a finished piece. Her skills long ago surpassed Kathy’s and mine, and it has been a pleasure to watch her mature as an artist and to have the chance to learn from her and to enjoy her accomplishments.

Abigail has become quite a reading buff, and I’ve delighted in swapping books with her and getting to enjoy some good stuff that I otherwise would never have stumbled across. Her French Horn playing has also been improving steadily as a fairly direct result of her discipline in practice (something I’ve never been as diligent about as I should be), earning her second chair in her school band. And while Maggie at age 8 is still coming into her own abilities and interests, her impish and playful personality is already very apparent, and promises a lot of hilarity and joy as she matures.

Recently, it was especially delightful to me that, when Kathy and I returned from our day-long date to celebrate her birthday on the 16th, Liam slipped into our room and handed Kathy two sets of earrings from his school teacher (who makes them) which he had purchased without any help or prompting from me — the first time I’ve seen him take that kind of initiative with gift-giving. I was extraordinarily proud of the maturity and selflessness he showed by doing so.

It is a pleasure and a privilege to see all of these children turning into very interesting, utterly distinct people. I’m tremendously blessed by the opportunity to be a part of that process.

2008 Christmas Lists

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It’s that time of year again! I finally pinned the kiddos down and got them all to create Christmas lists for the benefit of anyone who might care to get them something at this joyous (and slightly avaricious) time of year. Here they are, in descending order of age:

Emily's Christmas List

Emily

 

Abigail's Christmas List

Abigail

Liam's Christmas List

Liam

Maggie's Christmas List

Maggie

And if, by some chance, you’re still feeling a gift-giving urge after plowing through all of that, I have an additional list. It was ostensibly authored by Abigail’s cat, though I have my doubts:

 

Dizzy's Christmas List

Dizzy

Oh, and here’s my list on Amazon, for any interested.

Random Shiny Things

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Jason Young mocked me recently for not having updated for a while, which, of course, hurt my feelings deeply. (Oh, wait, that’s right — I’m a guy, and therefore don’t have feelings. Sweet!) I’ve not been in a writing frame of mind lately, but do want to keep up with our family happenings. Some recent items of note:

Against all odds and sanity, our zillion-year old Ford Escort, which had 169,000 miles on it when the odometer stopped working a year and a half ago, actually passed its state inspection. To celebrate, Kathy gave it a spiffy new hood decal, and I’m planning to reward it with an oil change.

 

Death Defying Escort

Death Defying Escort

 

Emily has four canvases in an art exhibit at Piece You Up, a local urbanwear/gift/art shop at 243 N. LBJ. There was a reception on Sunday where visitors had a chance to meet the artists and where her work was well-received She’s already making far-reaching plans for her earnings.

   

Maker Faire follow up: here’s a bit of the video that I took at the Faire, including the entirety of the grandest Diet Coke/Mentos demonstration I’ve ever seen:

 

Million-Dollar Idea follow up: Here’s a sample Old West sonogram I did for one of my friends:

Hernandez Sono

Hernandez Sono

I just picked up Fallout 3 and, being a big fan of both the earlier games in the series and of Oblivion (which used the same engine), have been enjoying it a great deal. (If you don’t know what Fallout 3 is already, and don’t want to think me an even bigger nerd than you already do, don’t bother following that link.)

A couple of weeks back, the library where I work had a fire. Fortunately, it was fairly contained in our break room and the storage room adjacent, but we got to evacuate the building for several hours and admire the firemen in all their gear. There were no injuries and fairly minimal property damage, though the break room still has a pretty distinct stink to it.

I got to lay down some pennywhistle tracks for an album that some friends are putting together. It’s fun to get to do some of that in a semi-professional capacity, though I always forget how demanding recording can be, even in short bursts. (It’s probably easier if you’re not a sloppy player by nature!) Also continuing to join in for Irish Sessions at the local coffee shop, and play the occassional gig with The Patio Boys.

So, that’s what’s up with us. How are things with you? Work going OK? How’s the family? That outfit looks terrific on you, by the way. No, seriously! I don’t think it makes you look fat. Well, yeah, horizontal stripes and all, but you really carry it. Honestly!

Radio Silence

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Hey, Mouseketeers! Sorry for not writing more lately. While school’s in session, our weeks tend to be busy but homogeneous, and our weekends totally unpredictable, neither of which is much good for the discipline of getting things down on paper (or electrons). Here’s the latest:

  • After returning from the conference in Springfield (where I had a lovely time, thanks for asking), I took all the kids off to the Texas Renaissance Festival with my trusty brother, my cousin and her husband in tow. This worked out well, as Liam was feeling rather sick in the morning, and the other kids were able to run around with the adults while Liam and I sat quietly under trees and watched people in chain mail walk past. (“Holy cow, did you see that 10 foot tall dragon?” “Really? You dressed as the Joker to go to a RenFest?” “Please, ma’am, you’re not really equipped to be wearing that!”) About midway through the afternoon, Liam’s belly stabilized, so we were able to run around to see the Mud Show, the falconry, jousting and fireworks. Great fun! If you’d care to follow along in the photo storybook, you can do so here. The Festival runs for several more weeks, so if you’re in the area, I highly recommend a visit. Tell them Sean sent you! (They’ll act like they don’t know what you’re talking about, but don’t worry, that’s just part of the security.)
  • Last weekend was Maker Faire, which is kind of like a giant support group for people like Jason Young and me who like to build large, potentially lethal do-it-yourself projects. The three younger kids and I met up with Jason and Erin, his (far) better half, for a great day viewing art cars, making shrinky dinks out of recycled plastic, riding bicycle animals, watching robots fight to the death, learning to weave on a loom, meeting the Eepybird guys, dodging huge gouts of flame shooting from fire plugs, seeing rockets launched, crocheting handbags from used plastic grocery sacks, and more. Photos are here, and I’m editing down some of the video I got for a highlight reel, to be posted soon.
  • This morning I went and laid down some pennywhistle tracks for an album some friends are putting together. Fun to get to take that into the studio, though I always forget how exacting recording can be, even in short stints. John, the audio engineer, had 7 mics on the whistle, so I’m interested to see what sort of tone he manages to extract from that daunting array. Between that at the Thursday night Irish Sessions, I’ve been enjoying keeping a foot in the musical world even during The Patio Boys’ recent hiatus.

Other than that, it’s school, school, school! The kids report cards are trickling in for the first six weeks, and they all seem to be doing fine. Kathy’s been kicking butt and taking names at the University — the former figuratively, the latter literally, as she’s heading up a couple of student organizations for which she’s been assembling T-Shirt orders. And I’m still plowing away at the day job, leading a rag-tag fleet on a lonely quest across the galaxy to find Earth, our long-lost home planet.

Doggoneit. That’s not me.

Injuries, Reunions, and New Braunfels

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Hello all! It’s the start of the academic year, and our family has been crazy busy. There are currently seven people living under our roof, and I’m the only one who didn’t return to school this week. Kathy has been very excited to resume her University work, and the kids have been bidding summer farewell with varying degrees of enthusiasm and disappointment. I, of course, have been delighted to once again be able to say in my most loving and supportive voice, “You have homework and I don’t. Neener, neener!”

Saturday was the date for the First Annual McMains All-Family River Float. Becky, Chris, Ken and Mom McMains all came up from San Antonio to enjoy lunch together and a float down the San Marcos river. It was a nice afternoon for it, and a fitting way to ring out the summer. Chris and I particularly enjoyed going through the rapids sans tube, though the low water levels caused us to get a little more banged up than usual, and in my case, made people wonder how a whale got beached so far from the sea.

This past weekend was also my High School’s official 20th reunion. (Go Brahmas!) The combination of the high price and a noisy, crowded venue was enough to scare me off from the official festivities, but I did invite Alex, Serenity and her family, and William — a few friends who were in from out of town for the occassion — to come over on Sunday for a visit. It was a pleasure to see how much this cadre still got along and enjoyed each other; we had a great afternoon of food, conversation, music, and reminiscing.

Sean, Alex, Serenity and William together for the first time since High School

Sean, Alex, Serenity and William together for the first time since High School.

Liam chose to celebrate the return to school in an entirely appropriate way for a 9 year old boy: he broke his right arm. He was buzzing around the neighborhood on his new Heelies (sneakers with roller skates built in, for those of you not in the know), got a rock stuck in the wheel, took a fall, and earned himself the right to wear a cast for the first six weeks of third grade — a masterful move in the eternal homework-avoidance arms race.

In an attempt to foster some family togetherness, we have been doing a weekly Family Dinner followed by Forced Family Fun Time. (This was a designation that my brother and I coined when we were the unwilling recipients of “quality time”, rather than its perpetrators.) It’s hard work to pull off family time like that with all the homework, movies, video games, and other things that compete for our time, but has been a qualified success, and I’m glad we’re doing it. On Thursday, I set the challenge before the group to build the tallest tower possible using mini marshmallows and toothpicks. While we broke no new ground in engineering, it was a fun challenge that got everybody working together:

Kathy, Emily, and Abby won with this mighty contstruct

Kathy, Emily, and Abby won with this mighty contstruct. Frank Gehry stopped by later to take notes.

Since the kids started school on Monday, but Kathy didn’t begin until two days later, I decided to take her  for a day on the town. I’m normally a meticulous planner, but we decided to keep the day completely spontaneous and see how it went. We started out by watching Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf — not a terrifically auspicious way for a married couple to begin a day! (I did, however, get to do Richard Burton impressions all day. “Martha!”) We then started for the River House Tea Room for lunch, but were diverted by the inescapable lure of good Tex-Mex on the way and ended up at Adobe Verde instead. After enjoying a delicious meal, we wandered around Gruene for a bit, stopping in the various shops, taking photos, and enjoying the languor of the afternoon. It didn’t take much of that, however, before we were hot and sweaty, so we went to see if the Landa Park pool was open. No luck. Rats!

As we were leaving Landa Park, however, we saw several people tubing on the Comal river and decided to find a place to do the same. Landa Falls was the first place we stumbled across, and since it boasted the longest float on the river, we put our $13 on the barrel head, grabbed a tube, and jumped into the water. It had been years since I had been on the Comal, and it was fascinating to see how it had changed over the years: the erstwhile Stinky Falls is now owned by the city, and Camp Warnecke has been subsumed by Schlitterbahn and a condo development. (The latter were rampant along the river — apparently they breed like rabbits that have been fed Viagra kibble and who have access to Bugs Bunny’s sexy outfits.)

After tubing, we wandered around New Braunfels a little more, stopping in at Bryan Duckworth’s (former fiddle player for Robert Earl Keen) violin shop to have my cello bow rehaired (it was nearly as bald as I am) and at the Uptown Piano Bar, an intimate dimly lit cellar bar that Kathy especially liked in spite of the nekkid lady paintings on the walls. As we were walking around the square, we (nearly literally) bumped into our friend Kris Bolstad as he was riding his scooter past, and stopped to chat with him for several minutes. We rounded off the day with a quick trip to Target and then to watch Kung Fu Panda, which was great fun, at the cheap theater in San Marcos.

Schlitterbahn with Maggie

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Last Wednesday was Maggie’s day out on the town. After loading up my backpack with snacks from the grocery, we lit off for New Braunfels. Though we were there about 30 minutes before the official opening time, we were able to immediately get our wristbands and join the queue. Once the gates swung wide, we headed immediately for The Dragon’s Revenge, an update to the Dragon Blaster ride. Though the “multimedia extravaganze” turned out to be a bit overplayed, this turned out to be a smart move, as the line for the ride was crazy long for the rest of the day.

I especially enjoyed this trip, as Maggie is now enjoying some of the more exciting rides, including the excellent tube chutes that are, to my mind, the heart of Schlitterbahn. Though they’ve rerouted those chutes a bit since my teenage years, Raging River is still a particular favorite, largely due to the fact that it can take about 40 minutes to go through the whole thing. Maggie also really liked the Whitewater chute with all of its vertiginous drops.

Though Schlitterbahn is fairly expensive, you get good value for your money and aren’t hit with additional unexpected costs through the day. Parking is free, and you can bring in a cooler or backpack with food. Lockers are available, but we’ve never had any trouble just leaving on stuff on one of the numerous picnic tables or lounge chairs that are scattered liberally throughout the place. The park is well-maintained and well-staffed, and remains a great destination even as it has grown over the years.

After a full day of watery fun, we stopped at Freddy’s Frozen Custard for some chicken strips and their awesomely addictive french fries, and then headed on home, happily and completely tuckered out.

A Grand Day Out With Liam

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Yesterday was the second of the days this summer I took off to spend with one of our kids. Liam and I, after some deliberation, decided on a visit to San Antonio. (The other contender was to take Amtrak up to Austin and spend the day visiting Barton Springs, Peter Pan Mini Golf, and an Alamo Drafthouse theater, all of which are within walking distance of the station.) We started off at the Witte Museum, a fantastic, hands-on, kid-friendly place to which Liam has been keen to make a return visit. It featured an exhibit on Leonardo da Vinci with functioning models of many of his mechanical innovations which were great fun to pump, crank, and climb on. Those that particularly caught my eye were a bridge that could be assembled without any nails or other fasteners, an elaborate wood cutting apparatus, and an early military tank. We also bumped into and had a nice chat with Becky, my brother’s delightful bride, who has been volunteering there at the museum for a couple of months and enjoying it a great deal. The Science Treehouse portion of the museum is also a great favorite, as there are lots of cool things to fool with there, several of which, like the pneumatic rockets and air cannon, mirrored some of the things Jason Young and I have built together.

After a lunch at IHOP, we buzzed back up the highway a bit to Splashtown, a San Antonio water park that has been around since I was young. We flitted from one thing to another, enjoying the short lines brought on by a combination of an overcast, threatening sky and the fact that it was the middle of the week. Since nearly all the rides require you to climb to the tops of towers to launch yourself headlong down the chutes, I ended up climbing the equivalent of a 35 story building over the course of the day, and Liam did around 60. Unsurprisingly, I was terrifically sore the next day. (And the next. And the one after that.) Though he never worked up to the biggest slide at the park, an orange monstrosity we used to call “The Wedgie”, Liam grew increasingly bold over the course of the afternoon, finally settling in to some fairly significant tube chutes with lots of twists and turns (that dumped him out of his tube as often as not) as his favorite thing of the afternoon.

It was a fine day out and, as always, I was glad to seize some extra time with one of the kiddos.

Blasted Nonsense From The Past

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Back when dinosaurs roamed the Internet and you could get a cup of coffee and a shoeshine for a nickel, before the kids all had their newfangled “Mybook” and “Facespaces” and the blink tag still seemed a pretty nifty idea, there was Brain Sausage.

Brain Sausage was an early proto-weblog, created before such things actually existed. I wrote the software for it because I wanted to learn Perl, and enlisted the aid of Robert Leahey and Chris Morris to help populate it with interesting links and a liberal dose of snarkiness. Chris also wrote a super-cool little ticker for Windows that would alert interested parties when there were new posts.

While most of it has been lost to history at this point, I was amused/delighted/horrified to discover that the good folks at archive.org had actually preserved a few pages. The logo, sadly, appears to be lost, either by the vagaries of the program that collected the information or by the good judgement of a censor somewhere. But here are a few bits that historians, masochists, and the easily amused might enjoy having a look at:

A few other horrors I pulled from the archive:

Fiesta Texas, or How I Got Robbed By Porky Pig

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This summer, I’m taking each of the kids out individually for a day on the town. The first of these trips was with Emily. We went to Fiesta Texas, the San Antonio theme park, on (of course) the hottest day of the week.

Spending time with Emily was the best part of the trip. We talked about friends and the drama thereof, favorite places to eat, what’s required to become a licensed tattoo artist, the efficacy of motion-sickness pills, travel, siblings, and more. It was fun to see the shows and ride the rides, though I’m afraid I’m getting to the point in my life where the lavishly choreographed brass and percussion show has more appeal than the vertiginous fighter-jet coaster rides. I particularly enjoyed getting a photo with Pepé le Pew, my long-time favorite of the Looney Tunes gang. Unfortunately, Porky Pig kept trying to horn in on the picture, which prompted me to tell him I was going to Photoshop him out. Since characters in costume aren’t allowed to speak, his only recourse was to smack me, which he readily did.

Unfortunately, Fiesta Texas itself left a bad taste in my mouth, largely due to constant attempts to wring more money out of us. When I bought the tickets for $30/each, I thought it a reasonable price for a full day’s entertainment. But as soon as we arrived, we had to pay another $15 for parking. When we went to our very first ride, we were told we weren’t allowed to bring our backpacks on, but had to put them in a locker, which cost only $1, but which had prominent signs promising that our backpacks would be thrown away if we didn’t retrieve them within 120 minutes. (It’s a good thing lines were fairly short on Wednesdays!) Bringing food or drinks into the park was prohibited, leaving you with little choice but to buy food at their usurious prices: $6 for a slice of pizza was typical of the fare on offer. And even after shelling out all of this money beyond the ticket cost, we were still subjected to advertisements at every corner and on the in-line monitors that used to show cartoons.

While I understand that making money is what businesses exist for, this sort of bait and switch, nickel and dime approach is awfully short sighted. When people leave the park, you want them to be thinking “Wow, what a great time I had!” Instead, I was left with “Holy rhubarb, in spite of careful planning and self control, I was railroaded into spending $40 more than I expected!”

And given that sour note, I don’t think I’ll be going back.

Stupid Guy Trip VI

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I’m just back from the sixth Stupid Guy Trip, an annualish gathering of my brother, me, and a few of our oldest and dearest. This year Chris McMains, Daniel Priest, Mike Brack, Ben Mengden, Ross Richie, Jason Young, and Jonathan Hunter made up the roster. More than ever this year, it was an experience I can’t really do justice to in a weblog post. A few of the highlights, however, were these:

  • A visit to the Milwaukee Art Museum. Great collection housed in amazing architecture. Most notable was the giant, bird-wing shaped sunscreen that opened and closed over the solarium several times a day, but the rest of the space was fantastic as well.
  • Nearly getting into a fight with some people vying for a parking space near the mob scene that was RiverSplash. They noticed the license plates on the rental car, and shouted repeatedly at us “Go back to Idaho, you potato-*****,” which was a wholly novel epithet for us.
  • Touring the Lakefront Brewery. Our guide was funny and personable, the beer was good, and the company excellent.
  • The Safe House, a spy-themed bar. To gain entry, one has to know the password or perform an embarrassing act in front of the video cameras that pipe your image into the bar ahead of you. Once cleared, a bookcase swings aside and admits you to the establishment proper, which features all sorts of cold war/James Bond/spy memorabilia, as well as a “secret passage” that locks behind you as you go through it. (I ended up having to exit the bar altogether and lobby the doorkeeper for re-admittance.)
  • Seeing a Brewers game. Miller Park is beautifully constructed, and we had a great view of the ball field from our relatively-cheap seats. It was especially enjoyable to see how seriously fans there take their tailgating; we could see the smoke rising from all the grills from half a mile away, and actually getting in required dodging a number of thrown beanbags from an inexplicably popular game that was played throughout the parking lot. Plus, it’s the only ball park I’ve been to with a slide, though it was sadly not open to the public.
  • Trocadero, a European-style cafe where we enjoyed a fantastic brunch twice. The service was great and the food amazing. (I got to try ratatouille: yum!)
  • Playing full-contact whiffle ball in a park near Jonathan’s apartment. We attracted a fair number of spectators, a couple of injuries, and innumerable grass stains.
  • The biggest highlight for me, however, is always the company and conversations. I count many of these friendships in decades now, have been through a ton with these guys, and am very grateful indeed to be able to carve time out of our lives to nurture those relationships. (Though from the outside, it may be hard to distinguish “nurturing relationships” from “insulting each other’s mothers”.)

A special thanks to Jonathan for hosting our octet of malodorous males in his efficiency apartment.