I was driving Ailsa to school and heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Soon after that I was at the dentist and saw footage of the second attack (while I was in the dentist chair.) at one point the news coverage cut back to the live footage and I could only see one tower. Eventually they confirmed that it had collapsed. When I finally got to work we were fully in the throes of the day. It seemed to me that we should all go home, if only for the reason that we wouldn't be getting much work done and it would be easier to keep track of all of the news. Lenore and I stayed up quite late watching the coverage. I was astounding to consider the possible amount of lost lives (at sometimes estimated to be upwards of 30,000, as I recall.) Thank goodness it wasn't that high.
Each LDS ward was instructed to have a memorial type service. I believe ours was on Sunday 16 September, because that is the date I assigned to the file containing my remarks for the service.
They can be found here.
10 September 2011
07 September 2011
Labor Day
I had a funny thing happen at
Yesterday's Labor Day family pool party. I got in the pool and
climbed on an air mattress to relax. The mattress was a little
slipperier than normal and it took me a little while and some
concentration to get on and situated. I had my ear bud in so I could
listen to music. I had a previously opened bottle of soda that I had
put in the freezer to cool down and forgotten about. It had frozen
solid and was now partially re-thawed. I'm not sure but, I guess
freezing soda does something to the carbonation because when I tried
to open the drink, the gas in it wanted to expand a lot and wouldn't
stop. I tried a couple of abortive attempts to open the bottle and
let the steam off slowly, then I just pulled off the top and let it
do its thing. After all I was in a pool. It wasn't overflowing a lot.
But, I still didn't want to make a mess and lose half of the drink.
In all of this I guess I was moving around a little too much for my
precarious purchase on the mattress and I slipped off. I went all the
way under the water. But, I managed to save the drink, holding it dry
and aloft triumphantly with one hand. I was concerned about my
earphone which had now gone through a complete, albeit very brief,
submersion. I quickly turned it off and shook as much water off/out
of it as I could and left it just for a short while. Within a half
hour I checked it and turned it on and it was still working. For a
while the volume control seemed to be ineffective. But, it works just
fine now. Dodged a little bullet on that one.
03 September 2011
San Clemente 2011
We had a very lovely time for our annual trip to San Clemente in August again this year. We encountered very little traffic on the way down and the way back (thank goodness, we must have hit Las Vegas at the right times.) Driving the old Explorer with its old driver's seat for long distances is starting to get to my back. We stopped at grandma and grandpa's both coming and going and we always enjoy our stays with them. I didn't concern myself with any bike rides in Saint George this time.
We went to the beach as soon as we could after we arrived on Saturday afternoon and it was glorious. The whole two weeks we were there the water temperature fluctuated between 64 and 68 degrees. This is at the low end to the almost comfortable part of the spectrum for me. The weather was a little more iffy than normal. We had 2-3 days where the sun really didn't come out. I've found now that I rather prefer the days were there is a little cloud cover so the sun isn't simply blazing forth all the time.
The surf was probably more “up” than normal. And, there is a story or two to go with that. I was having fun with the body surfing (since I didn't do any last year, and I didn't bother to get the surfboards this year from Ed and Sean, just didn't have the gumption.) On the second Tuesday (16 Aug), the surf report was 4-6 feet and started with yellow flag conditions. I like the waves to be biggish. I have surfed and body surfed even in 10-15 foot waves. But, I am getting old
Anyway, I was out and the bigger waves were only coming one at a time. I caught a couple and then missed a couple because I wasn't in position to catch them. A lifeguard came out to tell some people that we were in a rip. He asked me if I was okay. I said sure. In the past they have left me alone because I was using fins. A couple minutes later I caught a big one and got a little pounded in exiting the wave. Years ago I developed the habit (perhaps bad) of exhaling through my nose when under water while body surfing to keep from getting water in my nose. (Maybe I should use a nose plug instead.) This may be fine on smallish waves. But in bigger surf sometimes you really need to hold your breath.
I came up from my wave sputtering a little. Right on its heels were 5-6 more huge ones. I was stuck in the impact zone, and drifting nearer to the pier. (The lifeguards don't like you to get too close to the pier. There is almost always a current that pulls swimmers north into the pier. This current is stronger when the waves are bigger. When I am waiting for waves and treading water, I am almost always swimming south just to stay in roughly the same spot.) I was getting worked by the pounding waves and breathing hard. At the lifeguard station on the pier they sounded a sort of siren/klaxson and I wondered if they were trying to warn me or everyone about the newly dangerous conditions. At this point I might not have minded a little assistance from the staff, preferring, of course, the girl lifeguard. The set of waves finally passed and I soon made my way in. Right after that they changed the flag warning to “RED, dangerous for all swimmers.” I really didn't do anymore body surfing after that, I think. Partly, because I tweaked my back again the next morning. But, overall I had a lot of fun and still can do well. I just don't have the stamina I used to.
The same day Alex wanted to go to the Wedge because of an exciting surf report from there. He and Britty and Ailsa went. I thoroughly coached Ailsa on how dangerous it could be and to stay out of the way of the serious surfers. Of course they all had to go in the water and Ailsa came back gushing about how fun and wild it was.
Still on that same Tuesday, the weather had finally been fairly sunny all day and we languished late on the beach. Around 4pm Lenore and I started a walk toward the south and the kids decided to join us. We just went at a leisurely pace. We thought we MIGHT walk down to the old Western White House, which I have never done yet. But, we went at such a relaxed pace that we were only probably at the most 2/3rds of the way there when we needed to turn back. Still, it was a wonderful walk together with the family. We searched for shells and rocks and skipped stones in the water. (I threw out my shoulder doing so. But, that's not hard to do.) The sun shone down. The water was nice. The beach, once we got past T-street, was almost deserted. It was pretty much an idyllic adventure as sort of the capstone for this year's vacation.
With the aging of the grandkids, we are at a point now where just about everyone is mature enough to get along well. The kids did lots of things together and often took walks in the evening down to the beach or into town. One evening while strolling the pier the kids saw that someone had reeled in a small sand shark and left it to die on the pier. So Ailsa picked it up by the tail and threw it back in. I think Kharma should guarantee her never to be bothered by any sea creatures for the rest of her life.
The pattern for many years has been to rent one apartment for the first week and then two for the second week. Our numbers have grown over the years and we are sometimes packed in cheek to jowl. While we sometimes do have fewer people at the start, they trickle in during the first week and by the end of that week our facilities are stressed. I hope in the future as we continue this tradition, we can convince people that one apartment is not enough for the first week and that it would be okay to take on some of the rental cost so that Poppa doesn't have to bear it all.
Poppa brought some Shirley Temple DVDs to watch in the evenings. I have often thought that the kids should watch these. However, the kids weren't that enthusiastic. I think they watched one or two of them and in reality they really didn't want to hang out with the adults at night. But, we introduced the clan to Doc Martin (quirky British sitcom) on Netflix and the adults were soon hooked. I think we got through two seasons or more while we were there.
Once again I took the tandem bicycle and my own road bike. It's gotten to where the kids (especially Ameer) won't let me go on rides by myself. I got in 8 rides and 6 were on the tandem. Ameer went on 3 of those. I also rode with Shazia, Jensen, and Sajid. Last year we started a thing where at some point on the ride we would sprint to see how fast we could go. Last year it was at the “landing strip” on the marine base. This year we started doing it on the downhill going northbound right near where you can see Lower Trestles. Ameer and I got up to 37.9 the first try. Every other try after that fell short. Ameer finally is starting to understand how consistently you have to exert yourself on a serious bike ride. He started to pay attention to our average speed and contribute more and more. On our last ride we averaged 17.97 mph, which isn't fantastic but respectable for an old guy and a kid who really doesn't know what he got himself into yet.
The girls took some shopping trips into town and we also went down to the Spectrum one day. They had spied a beautiful cat in an antique store up on Del Mar and I decided on the last morning I had to go visit her and get a picture.
I've been trying for a while to get together with Laura Bounds and her family at Old Man's. On the last Friday, while we terribly wanted to stay with the family and spend our last afternoon and evening playing with Laney in the waves and repeat our walk down the beach, Ailsa, Jensen, and I loaded up the car and went to San Onofre. I took the 8 foot foam board and tried to surf on it a little. Last year with Sean's I had a lot of fun. This board is at the bottom spectrum of what I can knee paddle on. I am out of shape for too much belly paddling. So, I mainly paddled out a ways and turned around and caught one wave in. We all tried Laura's SUP board and had a lot of fun. It's a little different than I expected. I didn't have much trouble paddling around. But, when it came to trying to catch a wave, I couldn't see what was going on at all. I wanted it to be like a Venetian gondola where the bottom of the boats are shaped so that the gondoliers can paddle all the time on one side. I only caught one wave after knee paddling into it. I also tried out Larry's long board. It was somewhere in the 11 foot range, which is longer than what I usually use. Again I mainly paddled out, turned around and caught one wave in. It was simply too much work for my out of shapeness.
We had a wonderful at San Clemente for two weeks. We still love the beach and hope that Heaven has something like it:)
We went to the beach as soon as we could after we arrived on Saturday afternoon and it was glorious. The whole two weeks we were there the water temperature fluctuated between 64 and 68 degrees. This is at the low end to the almost comfortable part of the spectrum for me. The weather was a little more iffy than normal. We had 2-3 days where the sun really didn't come out. I've found now that I rather prefer the days were there is a little cloud cover so the sun isn't simply blazing forth all the time.
The surf was probably more “up” than normal. And, there is a story or two to go with that. I was having fun with the body surfing (since I didn't do any last year, and I didn't bother to get the surfboards this year from Ed and Sean, just didn't have the gumption.) On the second Tuesday (16 Aug), the surf report was 4-6 feet and started with yellow flag conditions. I like the waves to be biggish. I have surfed and body surfed even in 10-15 foot waves. But, I am getting old
Anyway, I was out and the bigger waves were only coming one at a time. I caught a couple and then missed a couple because I wasn't in position to catch them. A lifeguard came out to tell some people that we were in a rip. He asked me if I was okay. I said sure. In the past they have left me alone because I was using fins. A couple minutes later I caught a big one and got a little pounded in exiting the wave. Years ago I developed the habit (perhaps bad) of exhaling through my nose when under water while body surfing to keep from getting water in my nose. (Maybe I should use a nose plug instead.) This may be fine on smallish waves. But in bigger surf sometimes you really need to hold your breath.
I came up from my wave sputtering a little. Right on its heels were 5-6 more huge ones. I was stuck in the impact zone, and drifting nearer to the pier. (The lifeguards don't like you to get too close to the pier. There is almost always a current that pulls swimmers north into the pier. This current is stronger when the waves are bigger. When I am waiting for waves and treading water, I am almost always swimming south just to stay in roughly the same spot.) I was getting worked by the pounding waves and breathing hard. At the lifeguard station on the pier they sounded a sort of siren/klaxson and I wondered if they were trying to warn me or everyone about the newly dangerous conditions. At this point I might not have minded a little assistance from the staff, preferring, of course, the girl lifeguard. The set of waves finally passed and I soon made my way in. Right after that they changed the flag warning to “RED, dangerous for all swimmers.” I really didn't do anymore body surfing after that, I think. Partly, because I tweaked my back again the next morning. But, overall I had a lot of fun and still can do well. I just don't have the stamina I used to.
The same day Alex wanted to go to the Wedge because of an exciting surf report from there. He and Britty and Ailsa went. I thoroughly coached Ailsa on how dangerous it could be and to stay out of the way of the serious surfers. Of course they all had to go in the water and Ailsa came back gushing about how fun and wild it was.
Still on that same Tuesday, the weather had finally been fairly sunny all day and we languished late on the beach. Around 4pm Lenore and I started a walk toward the south and the kids decided to join us. We just went at a leisurely pace. We thought we MIGHT walk down to the old Western White House, which I have never done yet. But, we went at such a relaxed pace that we were only probably at the most 2/3rds of the way there when we needed to turn back. Still, it was a wonderful walk together with the family. We searched for shells and rocks and skipped stones in the water. (I threw out my shoulder doing so. But, that's not hard to do.) The sun shone down. The water was nice. The beach, once we got past T-street, was almost deserted. It was pretty much an idyllic adventure as sort of the capstone for this year's vacation.
With the aging of the grandkids, we are at a point now where just about everyone is mature enough to get along well. The kids did lots of things together and often took walks in the evening down to the beach or into town. One evening while strolling the pier the kids saw that someone had reeled in a small sand shark and left it to die on the pier. So Ailsa picked it up by the tail and threw it back in. I think Kharma should guarantee her never to be bothered by any sea creatures for the rest of her life.
The pattern for many years has been to rent one apartment for the first week and then two for the second week. Our numbers have grown over the years and we are sometimes packed in cheek to jowl. While we sometimes do have fewer people at the start, they trickle in during the first week and by the end of that week our facilities are stressed. I hope in the future as we continue this tradition, we can convince people that one apartment is not enough for the first week and that it would be okay to take on some of the rental cost so that Poppa doesn't have to bear it all.
Poppa brought some Shirley Temple DVDs to watch in the evenings. I have often thought that the kids should watch these. However, the kids weren't that enthusiastic. I think they watched one or two of them and in reality they really didn't want to hang out with the adults at night. But, we introduced the clan to Doc Martin (quirky British sitcom) on Netflix and the adults were soon hooked. I think we got through two seasons or more while we were there.
Once again I took the tandem bicycle and my own road bike. It's gotten to where the kids (especially Ameer) won't let me go on rides by myself. I got in 8 rides and 6 were on the tandem. Ameer went on 3 of those. I also rode with Shazia, Jensen, and Sajid. Last year we started a thing where at some point on the ride we would sprint to see how fast we could go. Last year it was at the “landing strip” on the marine base. This year we started doing it on the downhill going northbound right near where you can see Lower Trestles. Ameer and I got up to 37.9 the first try. Every other try after that fell short. Ameer finally is starting to understand how consistently you have to exert yourself on a serious bike ride. He started to pay attention to our average speed and contribute more and more. On our last ride we averaged 17.97 mph, which isn't fantastic but respectable for an old guy and a kid who really doesn't know what he got himself into yet.
The girls took some shopping trips into town and we also went down to the Spectrum one day. They had spied a beautiful cat in an antique store up on Del Mar and I decided on the last morning I had to go visit her and get a picture.
We had a wonderful at San Clemente for two weeks. We still love the beach and hope that Heaven has something like it:)
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