Football Epilogue

The first lift up. This is going to be a quick one. I took my kids skiing in Montana a little over a week ago. It was a fun trip. The snow was great (at least for a Minnesota skier) and we left the rockies on Sunday sore, but ready for our next outing.  As with my recent flurry of trips, it's a good opportunity to reflect on the food and activity choices. So here's another report card: Item Score (1 to 4 with 4 = best) Notes Water Intake 2 I made sure to drink morning and evening glasses of water. I also bought a case of sparkling water. Intake in normal conditions was likely adequate, but the activity, high altitude and dry air had me feeling dehydrated. Alcohol Consumption 3 This was limited to beers at dinner.  Steps/Activity 4 Two full days of skiing and a decent chunk of time wandering mammoth hot springs. This was well covered Positive Attitude 4 Hell yeah! ...

 Lower calorie density, the marmosets get it.

 Since we manufacture product at work, I haven't missed a beat on going to the office. Thus, I'm also wearing a mask a lot. Here's a list of my mulling other advantages to mask wearing (top 10 style): 10. Walking by the work bathroom is less, uh ...noticeable Particularly after lunch. We should totally leave some matches or spray in there. 9. It's much cheaper than orthodontic work, or a rhinoplasty for that matter 8. Fewer mints need to be handed out to coworkers Yeah, no comment here. 7. Ventriloquism just got a lot easier Because we all need a creepy doll in our closet for loved ones to find. 6. We're bringing sewing back Even I tried sewing a mask...I failed :( 5. Loud talkers are now a little quieter 4. Also filters out wildfire particulates (and keeps in sneeze particulates) It's a win-win-win for everybody! Although so is avoiding mixing flamables with gender reveal parties. 3. Your eyes are now your best fac...

Drew saw a Lego Tensegrity online and thought he'd give making one a shot. Side view Top View

The new one gallon keg. Okay, more like 4 bottles and a one gallon keg. Alas, it was time to bottle my latest brew. I again went to Mr. Beer for a two gallon extract kit. I was able to get a lager and an Oktoberfest refill for rather cheap. This was my first time doing a lager. I stuck almost strictly to the kit except I added a little extra corn syrup for what is hopefully some extra fermentation/alcohol content. Bottling was a little more exciting this time as I picked up a one gallon keg with a small regulator and some food grade CO 2 charges . This means I'm able to enjoy some suds with some suds right away. Typical bottling requires a secondary fermentation with "priming" sugar to produce the CO 2 . This takes three-ish weeks after bottling to achieve decent tongue tinglyness. Cleaning and prepping the keg took a little extra research as I wanted to get any leftover oils, etc. from the manufacturing process off the keg; not to mention I'm intere...

Here's a beat to start your week with Nirvana/Foo Fighters musician Dave Grohl.

So, my company's marketing/application videos are notoriously campy, but also a little fun. Here is a recent one using our sensors to make a "smart" chess board.  It's almost as cool as Wizard's chess .

Here's an earworm for today. I hope the traditional Pi day food is in greater supply today than toilet paper and hand sanitizer! 100 Digits of Pi

Halloween has passed. The colder weather is officially here. In doing the outdoor winter preparations I took the tomato wires out of my garden. Upon stacking them upside-down they looked a lot like a Christmas tree to me. So instead of shrugging it off and continuing on with the winter prepping, I decided to try my luck at converting the wire into a lighted spiral tree. This was totally silly and totally a diversion from being actually productive, but hey, it was fun. Here's the route I took: Flip over tomato wire (t-wire) and tape the legs together.   I used blue painter's tape out of convenience. I may pay for that later. My tree frame in my kitchen. Please ignore the mess. Life is messy and so am I...to a point. Get rigid steel wire and spiral it around the tomato wire.   I used roughly one turn between each rung on the t-wire. I used zip ties to hold the skeleton together. Tape would also work, but the ties allowed me to adjust the wire to get th...

My daughter and her aunt on the bunny lift at Bridger Bowl just outside of Bozeman, MT.  Okay, maybe not. My kids are excited at the prospect of the first snowfall. Now that it has passed, maybe they'll be ready for the first real snowfall, which hopefully will not show up until the Thanksgiving-ish timeframe.  The last few winters have been rather mild. I am on the fence about liking and hoping that mild winters will continue. I do enjoy the reduced number of alternative workouts involving shoveling, the treacherous driving, the increased heating bills and the mouse invasion. In contrast, I do enjoy some of the activities a snowy winter has to offer. Getting the kids up on skis these last couple of years has been tremendous fun. I'm hoping to bring them someplace a little bigger than the local Hyland Ski area  or  Buck Hill . In the coming years these places will be great as I envision being able to drop the kids off, maybe ski a couple of hours and enjoy the ...

Just when we thought our 6th grade the football season was over, an amazing opportunity was presented by one of our coaches. Through some contacts we were able to play one more time as a team. This time on the indoor field at the Minnesota Vikings practice facility, Winter Park!  This was really a fun event which allowed the kids to play indoors on the artificial surface. We played our other counterpart in the league who were also the league champions for the season. Prior to playing one of the Vikings players, Jarius Wright, came out and talked with the kids about playing football, leadership and handling adversity. The kids, parents and coaches got to bombard him with questions. I found myself asking who's idea was the "Duck, Duck, Gray Duck"  touchdown celebration? He did say that he calls it "Duck, duck, goose", he's from Arkansas so I guess that's okay, and it was Kyle Rudolph's idea. Other questions ranged from who his favorite players ar...

This evening, my girlfriend and I picked up a potentially interesting hobby and activity: ballroom dancing. This momentous evening came out of my looking for an interesting birthday present for her. I wanted to find something simple, but fun and hopefully memorable. I chose the gift to be from  Fred Astaire dance studio(s)  largely on account of there being a  Groupon  available. What could be better than dragging my uncoordinated buttocks out onto the dance floor? As a couple of my old football teammates can attest, I have a knack for stepping on and probably even mutilating toes. I think I've even inadvertently stepped on my kids' toes a disproportionately high number of times. Sadly, it's not because I have size 14 feet. I've worn a humble size 11 since high school. I think it could really be a coordination thing.   I'll even argue that I possess some amount of rhythm as I do play guitar and know my way around a drum kit. I can just over, under or o...

FOLD!!!  I have a slightly quirky way of dealing with chores or other various manifestations of "adulting" that are required in keeping up my image of being a reputable member of society.  Of the tasks I lament, laundry has to be the lamentyest (I hope Merriam-Webster gives me credit for that word). For the human doing the washing and folding, the act of cleaning clothing, linens, etc. has not changed my in the last half a century or so. In fact the last major revolution was probably the spin cycle.  The spin cycle probably saved numerous people from having their fingers skinned in the roller ring-out process. It also gave one's handier half something to do when the load becomes unbalanced and wet clothes need jostling, but I digress. My point is, you still have to lug your soiled sundries to the bowels of your house (or a hallway if you live in California or other places that don't typically have basements), load the washer, soap the washer, move wet clo...

Unfortunately, our football season came to a halt last night. I'm going over what could have potentially been done different, but ultimately it is what it is. On a positive note I did see some of our team play at what us football guys like to call "the next level". The next level is like a switch flipping in how someone plays the game. Movement becomes more instinctive. There's a speed difference and there's an increase in the tenacity. Interestingly, I feel like it comes out of adversity and frustration. The first times a player hits that next level may be out of being pissed off on missing a tackle or a block or even being yelled at by a coach, but then an amazing "ah-ha" moment occurs. The player, either consciously or subconsciously realizes that they are faster than they've been, that they are tougher than they've been and all of a sudden you see a change in how they play the game. From my personal experience I've realized my next le...

Here's a little panorama of the kids from our team lined up in a semicircle at tonight's practice. They're getting ready to honor one of our coaches as he re-enlists for another term in the United States Navy. It was a great thing to witness and set the tone for a crisp practice on a crisp day. We followed up the ceremony and the subsequent practice with a team picnic. I have to say I don't think there are many teams at this level that have the cohesiveness, focus and selflessness combined with the overall sense that our ultimate goal is to have fun playing a sport as best and as hard as we can. Tomorrow is our first playoff game. We ended the season with six wins and two losses, earning us a #3 seed. I am once again looking forward to being on the sidelines helping the kids play hard and smart football, especially on the "O" and "D" lines. Come what may, we look forward to the opportunity to play and have fun!

I may not be on the field, but these games get my heart pumping. I've been helping to coach my son's 6th grade football team. I work mostly with the O and D lines. We had an awesome opening play drive in last nights game and a come from behind win. Here's that opening play TD.

"Dude, it's not cool to say you'll spot me and then try to tickle me."

I'm liking this new crock pot. Tonight's dastardly concoction: an ad hoc Sun-dried tomato pesto chicken. Crock and shred 2 lbs boneless/skinless chicken breast Add 1/3 cup balsamic vinaigrette dressing/marinade 1/4 cup sun-dried tomato basil pesto  (I'll figure out with actual homemade tomatoes and pesto later) 6 to 10 fresh basil leaves 1 tbsp oregano mix it in, let it simmer, part it out, feed a nibble of chicken to your begging cat and voila! I think I'll have mine over veggies or cold on a salad, but would go well over pasta. Delicious.

2016 was a doozy of a year. Lots of household names passed away, the election defied arrogant polling and I'm still not wealthy nor famous; although I must admit to some putting sticks in hornet's nests on Facebook in uncanny oldest sibling fashion. I rang in the new year with the kids. We had ample junk food, played board games and watched movies on the DVD player my son bought from Goodwill for $5 earlier in the day. He was hoping it would be a small soldering project, but it turned out to work sans repairs. Finally, we toasted midnight with sparkling grape juice. Around 11 pm I had the kids sit down to do a little 2016 reflecting and 2017 goal writing. My son got right on it. He was grateful in 2016 for the new puppy at their mom's house, learning how to ski and seeing the new Star Wars movies.  My daughter was a little more bashful and I actually wasn't able to get much from her aside from going skiing and getting her pet turtle. I had a few things: ex...