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March 28, 2015 10:38 AM I always loved the sound of rain on a roof.  I took this picture a while back with a story and/or caption in mind, but now I cannot remember what it was. I was in a Superstore, thinking about the nature of things when this image framed itself up for me. Row upon row of checkout lanes, each with their own set of impulse purchase items lined up all in rows. There's probably a Dr. Seuss poem in the making there somewhere, but I do not posess the creative intellect to compose one such thing right now.  As our children grow, one of the things I've tried to impress upon them is the importance of protecting your personal information. I go through a lot of hard drives, and before any of them are disposed, I always make sure to physically destroy the disks to help prevent someone from gleaning some personal data off them. This week I had a box of about 14 drives or so, and so the kids and I took them out into the back alley and pummeled them with hammers until the platters popped out. It is a lot of work to get the disks out of a hard drive with only a hammer!  While soldering some LEDs onto a prototype Venturii controller, I was startled to find a bug in my prototype. Not electronically or programattically, but literally! A small spider had slipped betwixt the wires, and as I turned the device over and over in my hands, I think he thought he might be better off getting out of the topsy turvy jumble of wires. I helped him out and he scurried off along the floor to another dark place of recluse.     A few weeks ago Grandpa came over and, with many hands of helpers, patched a hole in the bathroom wall made when the towel rack was used as a toddler's chin-up bar. Not fastened nearly securely enough for such a purpose, it popped a good chunk of drywall out of the wall, producing a significant hole. It makes me happy that my children have opportunities to observe a master craftsman perform his trade with precision and perfection. Grandpa had the littles help him mix up some plaster, and using some pieces of wood to help reinforce the towel rack support bracket, he rebuilt the wall and filled in the drywall as many eyes looked on.   Grandpa also brought over a little waterfall, which was a fascination to all. When running, a small water wheel turned in the miniature, portraying bears as workers in a small town mill in a time long past.  Of course, one of everyone's favorite parts of Grandpa coming over is hearing him tell stories, and this particular day was no exception. Although Irish in origin, I suspect my father may have some Italian in him as this picture depicts.   This picture I actually took in February of a dandilion leaf growing out of the wood chips on a particularly and unseasonably warm day. The warmth was short lived and I saw the leaf had withered a few days later, but it was surreal to see new plant growth, outside, in the middle of the coldest month of the year.  The kids and I have been spending more time in the garage, and on this particular day were all trying their hands at hammering nails into pieces of wood.  One particular day I went to the fridge to get some milk, and when I saw these two jugs I was struck by an overwhelming sense of thankfulness for my family.  My brother recently had a baby, a little girl who is just as cute as can be. Our whole clan went to meet her, and the subject of swaddling came up. We told our little ones about how they used to love to be swaddled, and so that night they both asked to be swaddled as I tucked them into bed. Both the blanket and its' contents were significantly bigger this time around, but I still remembered how to do it.    It is an awesome feeling when a plan comes together. BACK to Journal Index |