Goodbye y'all!

So I left Texas and none too fast. I got a last blast of Texan hospitality as turned in my school bus. I turned the car in and and was handed my receipt. While walking to the shuttle I noticed that the amount charged was roughly three times that of my reservation guarantee.

I went to the counter get my money back and was told that I was correctly charged the rate for the Hummer not a compact because I got a Hummer and not a compact. I pointed out that I did not want Gigantor's car but it was all that was available. She replied that I had been "upgraded".

Most upgrades due to lack of a guaranteed product do not involve a rate change, nor was a rate change explained to me before I drove the carrier away. A natural parallel would be an airline "upgrading" you to first class since coach was over-booked and then demanding $1000 when you landed.

After quite a bit of discussion, Avis decided to charge me the compact car price and not the regular Hummer price. They sure do try harder, but not harder than me.

When I got back to Cincinnati I noticed Texas last going away gift. I had developed a cough that became a hacking, nasty cough that seemed like either pneumonia, bronchitis, or tuberculosis. I was knocked out for the next week and am beginning to feel normal again. Thanks again Texas.

I'm in a foreign land

I had to go to Ft. Worth on business this week and if I had been sent to Uzbekistan I would have felt more at home. First, it seems the wind here blows at 40mph constantly. The plane felt like the little Cessna that I used to fly as it touched down. I saw a skinny girl with big hair get blown to the ground coming off the plane.

Next I got to the rental car desk. Having never owned a car bigger than a Civic, I love a compact car. They said that they were all out and I could take either a passenger van or a Hummer. Holy crap! I figured the Hummer was smaller, but after getting into it (by using the built in rope ladder) I had to wonder.

While driving, the significance of the wind became more apparent. If you are unfamiliar with a Hummer, it is similar in size and shape to a school bus and the flat sides act very much like a sail in a side wind. It took much more effort than I expected to hold the Hummer in its lane with its slow steering response, high profile, and higher center of gravity. I apologize to all those H3 drivers that I figured were drunk. It appears that the blame lies mostly the car and not the driver.

Another amazing difference is the lack of exit only markers. I'd move over to the right lane because, despite its size, there is a very narrow field of view out of the H3 and I was only comfortable going the speed limit. The locals felt otherwise and typically went 70 in the 55mph zone. After a mile or two, without a sign announce it to be such, the right lane magically became an exit-only lane. After three or four times of having to take evasive measures to get back onto the highway, I realized that if there are double reflectors marking the lane boundaries, you were about to be forced off the road.

The good part about Texas is that the highways are all twice the size that they seem. For example, a four lane highway also has 2 lanes in each direction parallelling the highway 100 feet to each side. These are called 'Frontage roads'. I'm familiar with the concept, but Texas uses them unlike any other place in the world. Perhaps it is because Texas is giant.

Texas fills its expanse with meat. For lunch at my meeting you had to give $8 and you could eat a literally unlimited portion of flesh. There were 2 kinds of beef and 2 kinds of chicken. The fatty meat was only comparable to the fatty sides. The potatoes had a 1/2 inch of golden liquid protecting them from the air. I figured it was butter, but it tasted different. I would provide a description, but it was unlike anything I've tasted before. That's not a compliment.

Of course there was also a "vegetable". A salad made from a few pieces of lettuce covered in a ivory blanket of ranch dressing and adorned with golden threads cheddar cheese was there as a side dish.

After the meeting I drove across 8 lanes of highway to get back to my hotel. At the 4-way stop sign chaos reigned. It seems that a person turning left has right-of-way over another going straight. I wondered what the person in front of me was waiting for, but when it was my turn to go the guy coming the other way seemed intent on cutting in front of me rather than turn left behind me as I passed. Good thing I had the Hummer.

All in all I miss my family, my car, and everything not Texan. I'm done with the long, slow, drawn-out speaking, the giant bull statues and the wind. And it has only been 20 hours.

Ice Skating at Fontain Square

In February the snow finally came to Cincinnati and has stayed on the ground for almost a week now, which is noteworthy. We took the cold weather and the free Sunday as a sign to enjoy what winter activities the city offers.


Fountain square has an ice rink all winter long usually very busy with skaters and the broomball league. Last Sunday afternoon we decided to join the skaters out in the cold and snow. It turned out to be as good as we had hoped.

While we were there, flurries came and went but it seemed that everyone was having blast. I skated around with Sarah while holding Finn for a while and Finn seemed to really enjoy the movement and all the other people.

After a while I decide to let him stand on my skates. He was all for it and soon lifted up one foot and was standing on the other. That freed one of my skates to push off with and we skated around the rink.


After each lap we'd stop and he's point back at the other side of the ice and want to keep skating. It takes a lot of bending, both in the knees and the back, to support him and push off and we'd have to switch legs each lap, but he loved it.

It seems that next year we'll be out there with the double runners letting him skate around behind a chair or a cone.

New content! Song of the Week

We've gotten into playing songs and videos from the internet while we dance wildly around the kitchen. This usually happens while Finn eats his lunches since he takes about an hour to eat each meal.

Today was a walk down late 90's ska alley. I've decided that Save Ferris' version of "Come on Eileen" will be the song of the week based on the following arbitrary criteria:

1. Super song.
2. High dancibility.
3. Finn bobs his head to it.
4. I can embed it in the margin.

Hopefully we can update this on a weekly basis. However lately it seems that our posts have slowed to once a week. Perhaps a song selection will give as much insight in to what we're up to as an additional post would.

Hope you like the song and be on the lookout for next week's.

A Little Light Reading

Lately, Finn has been entertaining himself by perusing the books in our living room library. Favorite titles are Plato's Republic, The Canterbury Tales and, as seen in the photo above, Johnny Got His Gun.

Heavy stuff for a kid who can't even say "But, Mom, I hate Dr. Seuss!" (He really does - when we try to read Seuss books to him, he grabs them and throws them on the floor.)

Notorious F.I.N.N

Sometimes Finn looks like his mama, sometimes he looks like his papa, and sometimes he looks like Big Papa. While he slept the other day in his big jacket and hat we took some pictures and in one Finn looked remarkably similar to Christopher Wallace, a.k.a Notorious B.I.G., a.k.a Biggie Smalls.



If the auditions weren't closed, he would be a shoe-in for the lead role in the upcoming movie Notorious. They were trying to match Notorious B.I.G.'s look exactly. The speaking aspect of the role would have been challenging for Finn, but given enough time (a few years) he could learn to speak. He may even be able to pick up the Brooklyn accent.



It would be nice if Finn turns out to be as creative and successful as Christopher Wallace, but I would hope he would not start an infamous intercostal feud. Generally feuds end badly, just ask the Hatfields or McCoys.

Big Boy Experiences Big East Basketball (Finn does too)

Our friend Rich is a huge Big East basketball fan. Growing up in Syracuse has a way of doing that, I guess. He wanted to go see a University of Cincinnati game with us sometime and I figured that Finn should come along too. We all got into the trusty car and Sarah dropped us off by UC. There were quite a number of noteworthy events on the trip. First, it was Finn's first trip in his new car seat. Second, it was his first college basketball game. Finally, we passed the St. George Cathedral that was on fire the night before.


After 13 months, Finn is finally not an infant anymore having met two criteria: 1) attended a college basketball game and 2) is too big for the infant car seat. The above picture shows his new fancy car seat, complete with a cup holder. Many babies pass the infant car seat's 20 pound limit well before they reach a year old, but not our little guy.

Besides the new car seat, this photo also highlights his Elmer Fudd cap. It has been cold around here lately, and the fleece cap with ear flaps works well to keep his head warm. It's a touch of Wisconsin that has followed us to Ohio.

At the game Finn was a perfect child. He watched the game, clapped at the appropriate times and batted his eyes at the cheerleaders. The bearcat mascot came up to say hi to all the kids in the section, but Finn was fast asleep as he was for all of halftime and the second half. I still got a picture of the bearcat. Having been a mascot (at Chuck E Cheese) I know what the guy in the costume is going through and it's not fun. Luckily I didn't see anyone hitting or kicking him.


Finn didn't miss much in the second half. UC lost the lead late in the first half and never threatened in the second thanks to poor shooting and worse defense. On the walk back we passed the Old St. George Church that had caught fire the previous night. The metal framework of the steeples can be seen peeking over the campus building. Luckily, it was mainly the steeples that burned and the building was saved.


So it was quite a day for Finn. He got to see a Wisconsin basketball team win, ride in his new car seat, and see how firemen protected his city. All-in-all a very nice Saturday.

Things I don't think about keeping

So the steroid provider to the stars, Brian McNamee, has given the feds syringes covered with steroid residue and blood, allegedly from Roger Clemens. He said that he has kept them since 2001 because he suspected that Clemens would deny using steroids.

It seems that he, in the normal course of his day, sometime around Sept 11th, said to himself while shooting drugs in baseball players' butts, "Perhaps someday seven years from now I'll have to testify to a Congressional hearing and, judging by his butt, Roger Clemens will likely deny that I ever did this. I suppose that I should hold on to this bloody syringe as proof. I'll put it in that old pair of shoes for safe keeping." I've included an artist (my) rendition of this event. McNamee's crooked hand is purely for illustrative effect and not based in reality. Although Clemen's tattoo is also conjecture, it is likely accurate.



It seems many people keep things that I couldn't ever imagine holding onto. Take as a second example, Monica Lewinski's dress. I know that I am a slob, bordering on unhealthily so. Just ask Sarah. However, the idea of holding onto these types of things seems truly crazy.

So next time Sarah says that my things are in shambles or disgustingly dirty, I'll say, "At least I don't have a store of other people's drugs and DNA." Now that's an argument that's hard to beat.

Finn's news appearance

Sarah's dance class was the morning weather report "on-location" location last week. The weatherman was clearly taken by Finn and his friend Mateo. Here's a brief clip of his appearence.

There is an interesting news item on the scroll. "Authorties had to shoot and kill Cincinnati's runaway cow." Are we back in Wisconsin? And why does Cincinnati have a runaway cow once a year?

Birdie on a string

Finn has taken to playing with the cat. He likes swinging the birdie-on-a-string-on-a-stick while Mr. Pibb runs around after it. Sometimes, he shakes the stick so much that he knocks himself over, which is always good for a laugh. Listen carefully in the last six seconds and you can hear him shake something else out of himself.

Oliver the Cat, April 2000-January 2008

This has been a very difficult week for us. We had to put our cat, Oliver, to sleep. When we got back from our trip to DC last week we noticed that he was more thirsty and lethargic than normal, which is saying quite a bit for who was quite possibly the thirstiest and most lethargic cat ever. Monday he started vomiting and acting very sick so we took him to the hospital the next morning.

From his blood work the vet determined he was in kidney failure. She said that it had likely been coming on slowly for a long time. Looking back we can see that he may have had kidney problems his whole life; it would explain why he never had much energy and always drank huge amounts of water.


This is a picture of Oliver as a young kitty in our house in Middletown, still small, but with big feet. When we first got him, he was smaller than our other cat, Mr. Pibb, but the vet said he would be the bigger cat. The vet clearly knows his job - Oliver at times tipped the scales at over 17 pounds.




Oliver has never been known for his extraverted behavior, but his shyness was always amplified for a few weeks after we'd move to a new place. During our stay in an apartment before moving to Cincinnati, he would hide in one of two places: behind the refrigerator (as seen above) or in the wall behind the Murphy bed. Eventually he became brave enough to come out, right in time for our move into our condo, where he went into hiding again.


While Oliver was not the alpha male of the relationship, he and Mr Pibb had some good times together, including one night when a female in heat came by the open window of our house in the suburbs. Both cats were neutered, but she still sparked their interest and caused a little rivalry between them. That must have been a hot little girl. But even though they had their fights, they were good buddies. They often curled up to sleep together and woke us up at all hours of the night with their playful antics.


When I left for Germany and Sarah was alone in Cincinnati for a month before coming over, Oliver was a loyal friend who kept her company. In this picture Sarah is playing a game with him called, "Can our cat read?" We don't think he could.


Oliver was generally afraid of visitors, but when he was alone with us he wanted to be held, scratched, and brushed. If we were sitting on the couch, he'd jump up and sit on our laps. And he'd definitely get involved if we were lounging or sleeping. Each night when it was time for bed, he would go off to the bedroom and wait for us at the foot of the bed. When we'd wake up in the morning he'd be curled up between us.


When we lived in Germany, the boys stayed in Massachusetts with Sarah's parents. Oliver especially was very helpful with the occasional mouse that would find its way in to the old farmhouse. He figured out that the mice were coming in under the stove in the kitchen and would spend hours crouched there waiting for a little squeaker to come out and "play". He also continued his traditional favorite activity, napping with Mr. Pibb or on a blanket next to the warm radiator.


So goodbye Oliver. You were a sweet cat. We will miss you. It's amazing how a house so filled with noise and activity can seem to be missing something without a sleepy cat at the foot of our bed, but it does.