Notes For Me ( and You)

7:oo am on a Saturday sounds early for indoor soccer – and I can tell you it is, whether coaching or playing. And it’s worse when you get beaten, even if only by one goal ( 7-6) . We certainly were not all awake!  Good news is we got home earlier than we would normally have woken up – and that included stopping for fresh donuts at Krispy Kreme.

There is still frozen white ice on the grass and on all shady spots with more snow possible on Tuesday.  I have started  looking at all of the computer models produced by NOAA and others, and reading the many forums and blog posts by the amazing number of folks who follow these models with the fanatic dedication, with the same passion as crazy sports fans.  Here is a good place to check out the models if you are interested.

After two days (extra) off the boys are back at school. The snow was followed by sleet followed by freezing rain, then a warm up and then, last night, a hard freeze. As a result everything that was not cleared of the slush mixture at the critical time, is now sealed in a frozen crust.

More winter weather is forecast for next week, with a similar mixture of rain and snow. However as we move into February, the chance of a serious long spell of cold weather start to diminish, and eventually spring will arrive. In anticipation of that I am just starting to order some seeds, and other plants, including several kinds of potatoes.

On a sad note I see that John Martyn has died. He was a great guitar player, and one of the few artists I saw at the Strathclyde Student Union that I would have gone to see today. I am sorry I never got to see him play since then.

After a three day weekend, because of a teacher work day, the boy’s break just got at least one, maybe two days longer. Our first real winter storm of the season is moving in, causing Montgomery County to cancel school.

This is our first year of both Nancy and I working out of the house – but at least all the boys are old enough to be left to their own devices. With Nancy working so close by, there is at least the chance of a surprise visit home to encourage responsible behavior – we hope.

I however have to get on the roads and navigate to work, today via downtown for a meeting and then back out to Virginia. The forecast is for snow, to sleet, to freezing rain. Maybe I will telecommute tomorrow!

We have new neighbors in the big house downtown and a nation has pinned completely unrealistic hopes on President Obama – but hope is better than what we had before.

We did not try to go downtown, settling instead for our TV and then a neighborhood party. Things are heading back to normal today with everyone back to school and work. The weather remains cold and snow still covers, just, the grass and garden.

The observance of the birthday of Dr. King (actual date January 15th) falls today, Monday 19th and the whole family is off. The holiday has special significance this year, forming as it does “inauguration eve” for the celebrations tomorrow which again is a holiday for the schools and Nancy’s office -and I am taking a day of leave to join them.

Peter left last night to go snow boarding with some friends at Seven Springs in Pennsylvania. He is really getting a lot of snow time in this year. It is actually snowing here for the first time worth mentioning this season. However, we don’t expect to get very much, just a whitening on the grass.

Jake’s team, with me as the coach, played two indoor six-a-side soccer yesterday – tieing the first one 3-3 and winning the second 10-6. So that season is off to a good start. However all three boys lost at basketball – but Nancy’s team won last night so things ended on a high note.

The first really cold air of the winter has finally arrived, along with a dusting of powdery snow. Tonight we will be in the single digits ( -13 deg C) and probably no higher than the teens for a high tomorrow (-8 C).

Good thing this weekend is an indoor sports marathon – swimming, soccer, and lacrosse. What is even better is that this is a four day weekend, with the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday followed by a day of for many for the Inauguration of President Obama.

Only occasionally does Washington DC, Nation’s Capital, Capital of the Free World, etc., etc, cast any shadow on our day to day business. For the most part our suburban life could be located outside of Dayton or Hartford rather than 25 miles from the White House. But occasionally we do get to go to events that could only take place in DC. Journopalooza, held last night at the National Press Club was a minor DC occasion, but one with a few very unique features. The event was to support journalistic charities and therefore the tag was that each of the four bands had to have at least one ( usually more) journalist / media types. So we were able to put some faces to some names from the pages of the Post, most notably Tom Toles , the editorial page cartoonist. The other amusing thing was seeing some folks with very dry day job titles playing rock star. The event was well attended with at least one “famous in DC” attendee, CIA Director Michael Hayden – apparently in attendance to see one journalist with whom he had sparred repeatedly on 4th amendment issues!

Our reason to attend was our friend from Washington Grove, Joe Hodges. His band, Nobody’s Business
was the last to play – and the best. They play at a a lot of events and were very good – some of the others were garage bands that might have been advised to stay there.

After the Press Club kicked us out we completed the Washington experience at the Old Ebbitt Grill before coming home in the small hours.

Here I am, back travelling again. Since the travel budget at work was tightened in 2008, I have managed to avoid taking as many trips as in past years, and I don’t think that will change in 2009. But here I am, first week back, writing this in Memphis. I’m not here, despite the date, to celebrate Elvis’s birthday. I’m on rather more mundane business making several stops, including a midnight tour of the massive FedEx hub located here.

Although I do not like being away overall, I can’t deny that it is a pleasure to take some time to read and watch TV all by myself! Tonight I have the special treat of being able to watch the college football championshop on a large high definition TV in my room without family interuption. Hopefully I will get to see the whole game before heading off to FedEx.

The Christmas break has finally ended. School is open and Nancy and I are back to work. 2009 will be a big year for our family, the main event being (hopefully ) the graduation of Alex from school and his departure to a college or university somewhere.

The break was nice and relaxing – maybe too relaxing since there were a lot of “to-dos” on the list going into the holidays and not many of those became “to-dones”. Still, I caught up on sleep and on some minor chores and I will just have to get to everything else as time allows.

It’s January 2nd and I am sitting looking at man made snow on the slopes of Liberty Ski Resort. Somewhere out there Peter and his friend Russell are snow boarding and I am sitting in the “lodge” reading and doing computer stuff.

We had a peaceful new year, focused around all of Nancy’s family and all the cousins. On the 31st the adults went to dinner at a Moroccan resturant in the Kentlands and the kids had Chinese at our house. We came home and were all together for midnight. We went to bed around 1:30, but all the cousins stayed up until maybe 5 am before they all finally crawled into sleeping bags and slept all over the living room.

All of the out of town folks are leaving today or tomorrow so by Sunday we will be getting back to normal, with everyone back to work or school first thing Monday.

It has been chilly but no rain or snow had fallen, nor is any expected.