In Thanksgiving's Wake - Part 1

It has been one of the longest few weeks I can remember since Thanksgiving. For those of you who do not know, the Tuesday morning after turkey day we had nearly 5" of rain and as usual a flood.

It was 2:30ish in the morning and I was experiencing a little insomnia due to cold medication. The weather channel was reporting that we might get up to an inch of rain, but it seemed to me that it was raining harder than that. Around 3:00AM, I was going to bed since the weather guy was still not indicating flooding and decided to look out the window. To my horror, I saw the water already up to the center of the car tires in the carport. I ran and woke up Cathy, put some jeans on and headed out to try and avert the flood.

I grabbed a rake and started clearing the drains but it was already too late. The water was not moving into the drains and the rain was not slowing down. While I was keeping the debris away from the drains so they wouldn't clog when they started to run, Cathy was moving stuff inside away from the doors and off the floor.

It was pure helplessness. I watched the water rise and hoped for the rain to stop and minimize the damage. The water peaked nearly 2" above the bottom of the doors, but due to Cathy's efforts, the flow into the house was not as bad as it could have been.

From 3:00AM to 6:00AM, I watched water rise and then fall while outside in 40 degree rainy weather. I was cold and Cathy and I were tired. She got the kids ready for school in the sloshy house and I started bailing water with the wet vac. Cathy got the carpet guys on the job and I called in sick to work.

By noon we were checked into the hotel and moving furniture for carpet removal. The hotel stay lasted nearly ten days, and except for some minor water damage and frayed nerves, we have gotten back to normal. But this was definitely the last straw, even for our landlord. He has decided to sell the house and is letting us out of our lease. So after the holidays we will begin the new house hunt.

Ashley's Christmas Program

Ashley had her school Christmas music program earlier this week and she did really good as usual. The finale was pretty cool in that they turned off the lights and used flashlights as stars. In the picture, she is in the middle looking to the left.

Another Ryan Update

Ryan finally had his followup visit with the sleep doctor and we were told his apnea was cured by the surgery. We suspected as much since he had been sleeping very well since then, but it was nice to hear it from the expert. Now we will be having Ashley checked as well after a series of throat infections which may or may not have been strep.

Happy Birthday to Me - Mid Life Crisis or Lifelong Dream

So my 44th birthday rolled around last week and it wasn't one of those birthdays with a ton of soul searching and nostalgic what-ifs, but the timing was perfect for the initiation of a childhood dream of mine. 

Let me take you back to late summer early fall of 1977. Star Wars was still in the theaters and I was beginning 5th grade in Mascoutah, Illinois. The 5th grade could be considered a pivotal time for those destined to become band geeks as we were informed that we would be able to join the school band if we wanted. So for me, the eternal music lover, the choice was not if I would be in the band, but what instrument would I play. Can you guess what I chose?

So my first choice, and the choice of many noise loving boy children, was the drums. My mom was pretty adamant that I would not be playing the drums, I believe she may have even used the words, "Hell No!" So I cycled through other choices: trombone - my arms were too short, trumpet - too expensive, saxophone - too expensive. So what choices did I have realistically?

Well, in the previous couple of years, the folks had bought my sisters clarinets when they joined the band and since they had both quit, there were 2 "perfectly good" clarinets sitting at home just waiting for an eager young man to play them. So the choice was made for me, and the thought was that I would probably follow in my siblings footsteps and quit after a year. 

So, I took clarinet lessons and played with the 5th grade band. I was the only boy playing clarinet, I wore glasses, was overweight and as a military brat, I was also the "new kid". You can only imagine the teasing I endured and the number of fights I had to evade. It probably comes as no surprise that I quit the band after the first year. I loved the music and didn't mind the clarinet so much, but the social ridicule for a boy approaching puberty was unbearable.

Which brings us to the present. A few weeks ago, I was sent a youtube video via email of Steven Adler (original drummer for Guns n Roses) playing a demo at NAMM 2010 and my passion for rhythm and desire to play the drums rekindled like a reunion with a long lost friend. Upon talking with Cathy, she said I should look into cost and other logistics such as noise level and voila, I am now the proud owner of a drum kit.

We found a Huntsville music shop (Railroad Bazaar) and spent a Friday afternoon looking at different kits and discussing financing, etc. We ended up choosing a Tama beginner kit. Since Tama is an "A" list drum company, we know we have a good set which will last awhile. The smaller size of this kit (each drum is about an inch smaller than the typical drumset) makes for an easier fit in our "music" room and the sound of the drums is quite good. The cymbals sound like trash can lids though, but we can upgrade those next year after our 12 months with no interest payment are through. The kids have also shown an interest, especially Ryan. When he gets a little taller, we won't be able to keep him away. I even found a set of neoprene pads which fit on the drums to mute the sound by about 95% so I can practice at night when the kids are asleep. It has only been a little over a week, but I am able to keep a simple beat going and have started playing along with recorded tracks (beginning drum patterns) from a book Cathy bought.

So while some people might think that starting to play the drums in my 40s could be part of a mid-life crisis, I encourage everyone to find a way to make their dreams happen regardless of what others may say or think.

Ryan Update

Ryan had his sleep study last night to determine how successful his surgery was and he seemed to pass with flying colors. we have not met with the doctor yet, but Cathy reports that Ryan slept fine and the alarms did not sound. They did not use oxygen either. At home we have noticed that his snoring is pretty much gone and he sleeps so much better than before. Thanks to all who have inquired.

Scaredy Cats!!

We were just getting ready to watch the Southern Miss-East Carolina game and I thought I would share a couple of things with you. One relates to the upcoming game on TV and the other the title of the post.

First of all, we figured out some time ago that the combination of a DVR and live sports could be made better by this little trick. Instead of watching the game at the start time, we begin to record the game. We wait roughly 30 to 45 minutes before actually starting to watch the game. We do make sure not to answer the pone as well in case someone is trying to give us spoilers. We then start watching the recorded playback allowing us to forward through the commercials and the halftime (if we ant to) and we usually catch up to the live game in the late 3rd quarter or early 4th. I guess waiting an hour to 90 minutes would make it more likely to hit the end of the game live.

Secondly, it is so hard to believe that any child of mine would be frightened of Halloween, my favorite holiday. I was not aware of just how scared these two were until last weekend when we all stopped by one of those temporary costume shops that set up in empty buildings around town. This place was pretty sparse inside, but had a series of ghoulish decorations set up for display as well as the costumes. It was the middle of the day so there was plenty of light streaming in the windows, and I am not sure if that added to the problem since they were better able to see everything. Ashley was hesitant and stuck extremely close to us, but Ryan when white and actually began to tremble as he said over and over, "go home, go home!" We stayed long enough to peruse the children's costumes (a very small collection)and left in a hurry. So there you go, the Jones kids are a couple of scaredy cats, but I love them anyway. :-)

Ryan's First Girlfriend

It seems he has started early, but his first girlfriend is in his preschool class. It became clear to me on Friday when I was pulling up to the school. I saw a little blond girl climbing the stairs to the school doors when Ryan began hopping up and down in his seat shouting "Maggie-Grace, Maggie-Grace, its Maggie-Grace." I couldn't get him out of his car seat quickly enough and he ran up to the stairs. But when he got there he looked up and then just lumbered into the school. I now wonder if his attitude changed because he did not see her there anymore.

So jump forward to the end of school when his teacher tells us that as the kids were lining up in the hall and sitting on the floor waiting to be picked up, Ryan sat down next to Maggie-Grace and put his head on her shoulder. Apparently, the kid on the other side told Ryan that Ryan could put his head on his shoulder, Ryan said, No, I stay with Maggie-Grace!" Is the "girls are yucky" stage coming or did he just pass them by? Only time will tell.

Squirrels in my Pants?

I was watching the cartoon Phineas and Ferb with the kids a few weeks ago on the Disney Channel when the big sister, Candace, had two squirrels run into her pants. This sparked a new dance sensation and a hip-hop song S.I.M.P. (Squirrels in my Pants).



Flash forward until this afternoon while Ashley was dancing to the aforementioned S.I.M.P. she had bought on iTunes. It hit me like a truck, I know where I have heard of that before.

In 1984, Ray Stevens had a hit with "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival" where a "squirrel went berserk in the First Self Righteous Church in that sleepy little town of Pascagoula".



It just goes to show that the past will always come back around just like boomerang.

The Old Man and the Social Network

I have been using social networks so long now I cannot even remember when it started. This is kind of unusual as I am not a hugely social person in "real life". I began by creating a webpage to deliver course handouts and using email to contact with my students when I was a graduate teaching assistant. This lead to a gig as a webmaster for the Biology Department and gave me an excuse to play around with new technologies. I was on AOL Instant Messaging (AIM) very early even though I did not have any friends using it. I had a Myspace page before it was cool, and dumped it before it was uncool, again with no friends with which to share posts. Same with Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Posterous, Google Wave and numorous other services. So now that age has continued moving along and my friend-base has grown only slightly, what about now?

Some people try to hold on to their youth by taking part in current trends, but what many kids/teens/young adults fail to realize is current trends are not as new as they think. Facebook is cool now (does anyone say "cool" anymore?)so students giggle when I announce that I can be reached on Facebook, but I was on facebook while most of these students were in middle or high school. This semester the giggles were for my new point of contact via text messaging. Now granted, I also laugh at the old lady in Walmart trying to text on that tiny flip phone, but could I be that little old lady to the current generation of students?

Many of my students have become facebook friends and some have even remained so long after the course is over. If you take away family and real friends from my friends list, the majority of the list remains. These students, former students and high school acquaintances make it look like I have friends, but again I am a mostly nonsocial creature.

My Twitter feeds go largely unread, few if any comments are seen on my facebook, dust bunnies are collecting on my Flickr feed and do I really care? NO! I have a voice in the world even though I am shouting in the wind of the world's shouting. Getting my thoughts off my chest is good therapy even if noone reads it and that is good enough for me. If those few that do happen across my ramblings and are entertained or informed, that's jsut gravy.

My students do not IM me anymore, there are no new Facebook friends this semester and the phone barely rings. It is a sign of the times as old technology leave us (goodbye Google Wave)and new technology emerges (hello mobile phones)that those of us geeky enough to want to stay up to date, in spite of our older age, must continue to persevere even if we are beseeched by giggles.

As for this blog, it is time to wipe away the cobwebs and centralize my utterances especially in a time where Twitters are wormed and Facebooks are less and less secure, at least until the next new technology is born.

Sick and Tired of Being ... Sick?

As my wife sat in the emergency room with my 4 year old son on Christmas eve, I began to wonder why he seems to get sick so much more than anyone else in the family. He is young with his immune system still developing, but none of the rest of us were this prone to illness when we were four. There are many thoughts being tossed around the immunology circles about why today's kids are more prone to illness and allergy including that we may be too clean. Huh? Too clean? I don't now about you, but I don't think we are any more clean than our parents were.

The week after Christmas saw me being as sick as (or maybe more sick than) my son had been. As I thought again about why, I looked at my illness. I am a few years into my forties, I have been overweight for as long as I can remember (and beyond according to old photos) and I am not into health practices such as vitamin and herbal therapy. But have I always been as prone to illness as my son? In fact, no. As a child, I was not sick very often. I was injured many times being the wimp I was, but illness was fairly normal with chickenpox when very young, strep throat early, the flu a few times and colds maybe one or twice a year. As I have gotten older, it seems to have increased, but not until I moved to Northern Alabama has it seemed to become worse. I have been here for just over a year and have been sick more than I can remember in a past year.

Allergies are probably a major part of the illness my son (and now I) experience so often, and there may be some merit to the idea that we are too clean. I point to a couple of perspectives related to this idea: 1) children are exposed to less dirt, pets and other potential allergy causing agents while young preventing the immune system from adapting properly and 2) we are using more chemicals to clean and these chemicals may be weakening our protection to diseases.

It seems that as very young children are exposed to a variety of pollens, pet danders, and other "dirty" things, their developing immune systems begin to accept most of these materials as "not harmful" and will "ignore" it in the future. But if those exposures are not made during this developing period, those materials will be considered "harmful foreign" particles and the immune system could develop allergic responses. With kids spending more times indoors and not being allowed to get dirty as often, the exposure to these potential "allergens" is reduced thereby causing more allergy symptoms which often are similar to the common cold.

My own illness last week, I believe is partially linked to chemical effects. With my son being ill with Respiratory Synticial Virus (RSV) over Christmas and into the weekend, I began to develop symptoms on Sunday. On Saturday, I cleaned parts of the house in anticipation of a houseguest with a new cleaner. This bleach based cleaner was to be sprayed on tubs, sinks toilets, etc, and left to "eat away" the dirt. Use in a well ventilated area sounds easy enough unless it is freezing outside and there is not a fan in the bathroom. The overwhelming smell of bleach as the chemical fumes penetrated deep into my sinus passages should have been a clue to the potential damage. I am convinced that the weakening of my protection against upper respiratory infections along with the presence of RSV led me to the infection which took me out for a week. My son who was not exposed to the cleaner was up and about after a day of fever, I was out for the entire week. I know I am a wimp, but it was not simple me trying to get out of work. In conclusion, I advise all of us to consider the cleaning products we use and evaluate if they may be causing more illness due to harmful effects on our bodies.