Year: 2013

The ash tree in our back yard turns beautiful shades of red, orange, and yellow when autumn hits. This is what it looked like a couple of weeks ago:

Of course all of the leaves have fallen by now, but for a few days it was brilliant.

Last week Laralee opened the front door and was surprised to discover a squirrel camped out on the pumpkin on our front porch, tearing it open and having a feast. (No, this wasn’t a jack-o-lantern left over from Halloween– it was a whole pumpkin we hadn’t carved… left over from Halloween.)

He didn’t even move when she opened the door just a few feet away. He was pretty intent on the goop inside the pumpkin, and as she and I watched with amusement, he continued to dig in and chow down. He was throwing little pumpkin-skin scraps all over the porch.

A few days later, Alex noticed a squirrel in the tree in our front lawn, right next to the porch, staring down at us.

Is it the same squirrel? Is he camped up there waiting for us to put out another pumpkin? Who knows…

Kyra is pretty happy today. She’s been wearing braces for over a year, and during the past two months she’s had at least four appointments with the orthodontist where she was scheduled to have the braces removed. Unfortunately, on each visit they found another reason why she needed to keep them on. They were fine-tuning her bite, and removing the braces early would mean her teeth would shift back to their old positions.

Today was her lucky day, though, and the braces came off.

Here’s Kyra in the morning, looking sad (or attempting to do so) because once again we weren’t sure whether the orthodontist would actually do it.

And here she is this afternoon, with her pearly whites visible to the world, and no wire grilles. Yay!

This afternoon I taught Alex and Kyra how to drive a stick shift. They’re both pretty comfortable driving– after all, Alex has been doing it for almost two years now, and although Kyra only has four months under her belt, she took to it pretty easily. But as anyone who’s done it knows, learning to drive a manual transmission is a whole new ballgame.

I remember how rough I was when I first started: constantly killing the engine or grinding the gears. I figured the same thing would happen with these guys, so I was hesitant to take them out. After all, I love my car and would hate to listen to the poor gears grinding. But Kyra really wants to learn to drive a stick, and Alex sort of accepts it as a useful life skill and thus worth learning.

To my surprise (and joy), both of them did pretty well. Kyra was a little smoother as she started from a stop; Alex tended to release the clutch too quickly and kill the engine. But in general, they did pretty well and we enjoyed an hour circling a parking lot while a few neighbors and dog-walkers watched in passing.

We’ll keep practicing, of course, and at some point we’ll have to do The Test. When I was learning, mom decided that I’d only be “officially” good at a manual transmission when I could pass The Test, which was a stoplight at the intersection of Willott and Jungermann Roads. The light was at the top of a steep hill, meaning as you sat at the light you were a couple of feet in front of the next guy, ready to slide backward if you didn’t get into first gear smoothly and quickly. I passed (although nervous) and haven’t looked back– all of my cars have been manual, and I love driving that way.

I wonder how long it will be before we’re ready for The Test…

Ahh, Songza… a nifty music service that Thom showed me. When you first arrive, it suggests different types of music depending on the time of day. There’s always something about “working” (we all know web developers need music while coding) and usually some off-the-wall category as well… often “Music for drinking gourmet coffee”. Well, just now it’s “Music for entertaining cool friends”.

I have no idea what kind of music I’d want to play while entertaining cool friends, but I’m going to find out.

There’s a haunted house in Canada called the Nightmares Fear Factory. They’ve been in business for many years, and apparently the “show” is pretty terrifying. There’s a part right at the very end, after the patrons have spent the last 20 minutes being scared over and over, when something absolutely amazing happens. It’s not clear what– I haven’t been there, nor will they “reveal” what it is– but at the very instant it happens, there’s a flash camera that captures the moment.

Who knew terror could look so funny?

Halloween at Zing!