House warming

We had a house warming party today.  There are still some boxes to unpack in the master bedroom and in the office.  But we got the rest of the house all nice and had two couples and 4 kids over.  It was delightful.  The wife of Kevin, a post doc in our lab, is Japanese and played in a ping pong team growing up.  It was fun to play with her and with Kevin and Brent Nye.  We had some round robin and everyone had matches.  That makes 3 times that I’ve been able to pull out the table.  And in this home we have room.

Hailing

Some as big as marbles.  Most a bit smaller.  It’s lasting longer than one might have expected, maybe 2 minutes so far.  Now it’s coming down faster.  Bigger than marbles now.  It’s loud.  Funny, it is still hot and a bit muggy.  Now it’s been coming down for something like 5 minutes.  Now we’re getting huge splats of water too.  It’s a bit quieter now.  Hmm.  Looks like we have some drainage issues: our back patio is turning into a chipmunk sized swimming pool.

It’s been about 10 or so minutes now and the rain is still pouring down but the hail has stopped.  I had to go recover a screen that had fallen from a window and got to walk through the chipmunk pool.  The water was warmer than a pool and cooler than a jacuzzi.

We were planning on having 8 adults and 17 kids over here.  Now that we won’t be going outside we cut things back a bit.  One family that was going to come was going to bring 8.  (They are babysitting for a family with 5 kids.)  Anyway, we rescheduled with them for next week.  Nine kids we can handle indoors for a couple of hours.  Now it’s slowing down.  Hmm: looks like we need to clear out some rain gutters.

Our little Prometheus

Abby and Timmy fight like crazy. I would say that they fight about 22% as much as two of my younger brothers used to fight, which means they fight a ridiculous amount. Abby can also be a bit of a tease.

Gina and I used to call Abby our little Prometheus because she would risk parental wrath to do something for a sibling. More recently she has taken on other risks.

Today Gina took the kids to the park. Timmy got on one of those horses attached to those big springs. A bigger boy started yelling at him to get off, and throwing sand. His caretaker told him that he needed to take turns and then promptly turned her attention elsewhere. The boy immediately began again, yelling and threatening to push Timmy off the horse. Abby walked right over there to solve the problem. She didn’t threaten or yell. She just put herself between the boy and Timmy and the boy slunk off.

Abby is overcoming it but she has been terrified of dogs. We don’t have any and she has been bitten one or two times for no good reason. One large dog in particular frightened the kids. When a door got open that dog came in and went to Elsie, barking like crazy. Abby, fear written all over her face, rushed to get between the dog and Elsie. As she got closer she hesitated and then made her decision. She went forward and sheltered Elsie. Kate started calling at the dog to get it to come in another direction and only after that did adults intervene.

Anyway, I’m proud of our little Prometheus. I hope that when push comes to shove I will be like her.

Singing for joy

This morning we awakened not only to the chirping of many birds but to a song even more exuberant. Timmy was singing loudly and more melodically than usual to himself. He was singing “It’s my birthday! Today is my birthday. It’s my birthday. It’s morning on my birthday.” The sound was so happy that I couldn’t help but be happy right alongside him.

That brings Timmy up to 4 years old. I love being a dad.

I started a new blog on optics and physics today a…

I started a new blog on optics and physics today as well.

Doug on optics and physics

I’m starting an optics/physics blog.  It should be fun.  I thought it would be considerate to both audiences to separate this blog from that one so I’m giving it a shot.  Anyway, I updated my profile and focused it on optics-type information.  I figure those readers don’t know me while you do so I might as well let the introduction be aimed at them.

Anyway, here is my blog on optics and physics.  We’ll see how it goes.