zero hour

last family pic of 2014.

gonna keep this short and sweet.

while 2014 definitely goes down in the annals of shitty years, there was plenty of sweet to go with the bitter.

my wife and our beautiful children are a constant source of pride and joy. they are my everything and make my life worth living.

aside from a broken foot suffered during the great water crisis of 2014, i am grateful for the abundant health our family enjoys. i pray that the Lord may continue to bless us all in his mercy and love.

i am thankful for work, the good people i work with and the chance to do good work.

i am thankful for the love of my family and friends and the love in the kindness of strangers.

i pray that the work of my hands may be suitable offering in thanksgiving for all these blessings and gifts and that, despite my frequent stumbles, i may continue to strive to do the work of the Lord.

the annual exercise. let's hope it bears a more fruitful yield in 2015.

the resolutions are variations on the theme:

1. go to confession more
2. continue to pray, meditate when possible
3. exercise
4. manage that money
5. give your wife a bedroom she can be proud of

i should also pray for resolve, i think.

all praise and thanks to God for his many gifts and for pulling us through a very, very hard year. amen and amen. alleluia. amen.

the big day

i'm about ready to pass out. long day.

christmas journey began yesterday evening with trip down to mom and dad's in beckley for a children's christmas vigil mass, followed by supper with the cousins.

mom. with chicken. beckley.

mom outdid herself with just the essentials of a dinner party: roast chicken, palabok, beef with oyster sauce, and a side of broccoli casserole and steamed white rice, plus a tasty coppola cabernet sauvignon.

i don't think i'd enjoyed such a spread in years — everything you want and as much as you want. i was very happy. (the boy appears to be a huge fan of crispy chicken skin. he wasn't so hot on the rice noodles, but did a decent number on the chicken breast and rice. the girl maybe licked her food.)

the kids ran around and played. the grownups — we used to be the kids — sat around the table, sipping wine and sharing stories and news.

we left about an hour later than i wanted to but everyone seemed to have a great time. despite a pledge as i buckled him in that he would not sleep on the way home, he was out only a few miles onto the turnpike; she was asleep just a little after the first toll booth.

we hit the ground running upon reaching charley west. mama busied herself with preparations for santa's visit, including some three kinds of amazing cookies, while i did the important work of uploading photos to the facebooks.

we were both conked out right around midnight.

the kids were ridiculous once daybreak arrived. the moment they'd been waiting for finally dawned — and they both slept in. if i'd known they were going to wake up two hours later, i'd have gone back to bed at 6:21.

once up, they quickly got into the spirit of opening gifts and seemed excited and elated at both the process and with their take. mommy, daddy, their relatives and santa all did very well to hit the high points on their amorphous christmas lists.

mommy, meantime, broke out the fruits of her day of christmas eve cooking with an array of breakfast casserole, oven french toast, salmon cheese ball, bleu chees stuffed green olives, orange marinated black olives, bacon, kielbasa, green beans and sweet potatoes for a morning-long nosh with mimosas.

baby with leap pad.

(btw, daddy arrived just in time after hitting up the local 7-eleven for an 8-pack of aa batteries, which i could have sworn we were well-stocked in, to power up the kids' new leap pads. the cashiers were especially warm and chipper for having to work on a hoiday, and i was grateful to not have to feel too bad for their christmas plight.)

the kids finally got the hang of their new learning tablets after a frustrating 30 minutes or so. daddy took about a half-hour nap after that before work. (his selfless staff stuck around after the rest of the copydesk took its leave)

a super special shout-out goes to the mommies today. if ever you needed evidence of a mother's love for her family, you need only look at their dining tables. mom and kris worked a day and a night to create feasts for their families to enjoy for their christmas meals. and they were spectacular.

and i can't say enough about the efforts kris has put forth even before advent started to ensure the family had a magical holiday, from decorations and projects to kid-wrangling, gifts and cooking. mommy did God's work as our family's christmas angel.

whew... things got a little blurry there ... anyway, had breakfast for dinner and hope i have done ok by documenting a blessed, pleasurable and satisfying whirlwind christmas holiday. amen, Lord, amen. thanks be to God. hallelujah. amen.

hurdles

clay center christmas.

i wish i knew the secret to making the holiday last. or more like savor the moments.

it's kinda like my wedding: gulping down each sequence, not even past one before looking for what follows; all focus on the finish line, hurdling each event, running full speed, then up and over the next, and the next and the next and then it's all over.

especially now, while my children are still babies, i need to take this in, to burn into my memory their wonder and anticipation and innocent acceptance of everything at face value.

it's a runaway truck chasing us and we can't rest until it's past us. there has to be a way to make the time slow down.

believers

visit with santa claus. town center.

these two are well and truly in their santa years. last year, the boy discovered christmas circulars in the paper and began understanding the idea of the jolly old elf who brought toys.

the baby has a vague idea that santa brings toys, but doesn't seem to recognize the whole asking or making a list thing.

after watching our friends' amusing photos of their kids' howling on santa's lap the past few years, we pretty much figured we'd bypass all the hassle by waiting.

this year, though, the boy seemed to have gotten past his wariness of christmases past and grew pretty keen on talking to the big man. (he could see him at the coonskin park lodge as we drove to see the outdoor light display last weekend and really wanted to pay a visit. unfortunately, we were on the way out of the park.) so we promised that we'd go.

we planned an off-peak visit — mid-day, mid-week — so as to minimize lines and impatient, anxious, tired, low blood-sugared kids and, wonder of wonders, there was no line.

it was all basically a photo op with santa to sell a few pictures, which didn't seem like a bad thing. baby went with her brother, which made her brave.

they were both distracted. mama tried to get them to look into the camera. old saint nick seemed more focused on being photo-ready than coaxing a list out of the little monkeys, which, really, saved everyone a lot of awkward drama and time.

sensing the visit was drawing to a close, i told the kids to tell santa what they wanted. being my children, they both choked. he said he wanted a robot, which he'd never mentioned before. she said, in a wee voice, that she wanted a "dowah" — aka, dora the explorer —which is actually one of the things she would like, so, not bad.

next in line for the visit.

but overall, this has been the kind of christmas experience that you carry with you the rest of your life: christmas pageants, carols, a tree in the house, decorations, anticipation, television specials and the visit with santa. it's the time that you believe in everything, from flying reindeer and a sleigh, to the words your parents speak.

the kids were inspired after watching an old max fleischer christmas cartoon set in a depression-era orphanage to give some of their toys to charity, so i think they have an idea that there are children out there who are not as fortunate as them. and at least they are aware that this has something to do with the gift of Baby Jesus and that this is a season of giving and that giving is a good thing to do.

me? i'm trying to slow things down and savor the sights and sounds and the hustling, bustling sensory overload that comes with a multimedia christmas. i'm trying to count my blessings and be grateful for circumstances that allow me to provide for my family not just for the season, but for the rest of the year, too.

God bless us, every one.

demented elf

elf struggling with his inner self.

there was a poll or study some years ago that a kid stops being cute around age 5. how cruel, i thought. surely around 7 or 8, earliest.

i stand corrected.

it's about right. the boy's set to turn 5 next year and, wow, he's that sad, weird combination of obnoxious and needy for affection and attention.

couple that with the deactivation of the impulse inhibitor that is the christmas season, and he is treading on every last nerve in my body. kris was ready to call tomorrow christmas in order to open gifts early and spare herself the last two weeks ratcheting mania and anticipation that is threatening to make the boy's head explode.

that we began celebrating the baby's birthday this weekend didn't help matters as he began helping himself to her gifts and party accoutrements. given my aggravated frame of mind, i made pointed comments all day that he should be as ready to "share" with his sister as he seems to expect her to be with him. (yeah, this went beyond trying to catch a contact buzz from staying in close proximity to her unwrapping gifts.)

kris told me to tone down the sarcasm and snark as she said he has already picked up on her exasperated rhetoric and begun throwing it back at her and his sister.

and i know i shouldn't be so curt or critical toward an almost 5-year-old boy who is caught up in the throes of the greatest day on the childhood calendar. part of it is knowing what a terrific spazz i still am and how he is mentally ill-equipped to handle the excitement and anticipation of child's christmas. i need to recognize that he's giving it all he's got.

i just need to back off and chill out and enjoy that he is earnestly looking forward to telling santa claus what he wants and that the holiday yet remains for him a time full of wonder and mystery and a steady, electric charge of joy. God bless us — and God help us — every one.

first night

he didn't ask for a song at bedtime. hope this isn't the start of a trend.

lazy saturday

watching "cars."

not busy, not stressful, not productive per se. steady rain nixed plans for a christmasy day of a downtown parade and a visit to santa at the library. so the baby hunkered down for a nap while the boy went shopping with mama. daddy got a few loads of laundry done and paid a few bills.

spent most of the evening in front of the tube. baby missed out on promise of hot cocoa and popcorn by not eating her supper. watching her face fall when her brother received his bowl and mug is something i don't hope to see again any time soon, if ever.

this wasn't the petulance of the terrible twos that she's been making up for not showing until she's almost three — three! — but the real heartbreak of reaping the seeds of consequence that she knew she sowed.

but the girl has to learn that she can't just live on the snacks she hopes to get between meals if she refuses to eat what mama prepares.

then there's this:

sullen kitty slurps tuna water. #notmissing pic.twitter.com/x2lr7z5EM0
— some asian guy (@grumpnet) December 6, 2014

after not showing her face for about five or six hours, at the end of which i finally posted to social media on the off chance she escaped from the house while kris went to pick up the paper, she saunters into the kitchen not a minute after i post her pic on the facebooks and the twitters. starts lapping at her favorite tuna water as if nothing happened at all — not that i called for her in the basement or the perimeter of the house or our neighbor's crawl space. ridiculous cat.

and finally ...

yeah, west virginia looked pretty good yesterday. (and not just in football.) hope this is just a taste of things to come.



(so this gives me three more posts for the month. seven. more respectable, right?)

road trip

two hours outside fort chiswell, va. the last snakebit thing on the trip.

still recovering and fading fast from about 30 hours on the road over three days. will try to hit the highlights.

trip began inauspiciously:

• major communications problem with kris kept us in the kroger store parking lot for half an hour while she completed a three-minute errand as we were supposed to leave town. (i parked instead of circling lot for a change and texted her our location; unfortunately, she did not have her phone on her.)
• discovered the memory stick i loaded with tunes from six oldies road trip cds i burned for mom and dad were saved as quicktime files instead of mp3s, making them unreadable to the audio system in dad's yukon. (amazing that i'm writing about a truck's onboard computer. we are living in the future.)
• after switching the car seats over, loading the truck, treating the windshield and getting ready to head out, find the battery has died. it also won't take a jump start. luckily, aaa had a wrecker over in less than an hour and was able to boost it.
• finally, we hit the mother of traffic snarls near fort chiswell. spent about two hours moving maybe three feet at a time for three miles. never did learn what caused the backup as the entirety dissipated like some weird car clot at what i imagined the bottleneck was on the junction headed to charlotte. (hit a lesser snarl on its outskirts that only slowed to a crawl rather than a standstill.)

interstate 77 was pretty clogged all the way down to i-26, and even then things were hairy. oddly enough, once we hit i-95, traffic was minimal. (it being sometime after 10-11 p.m. probably helped. the roads were the closest thing to clear that one could imagine from then until we arrived at 4:03 a.m.)

the most amazing part there and back was that the babies, who had nightmarish trips the past two years, were better than gold. that they kept it together even after the crawl past fort chiswell with the trip barely started and complained of nothing more than the occasional leg cramp for the next 14 hours was nothing short of miraculous. (seriously — thank you, Lord, and ss. christopher, joseph and mary and margaret-mary.)

ride 'em, cowgirl.

both of them were excited for the trip and to see their cousins. the girl has made extraordinary strides in not being so stand-offish and shy around them. (still not so much with her boy cousins, who haven't yet learned the art of subtlety.) she ducks behind daddy when she arrives, but it's not too long before she ends up like she does above.

vogue.

the boy is becoming more himself. auntie joy says she loves listening to him talk. if i could describe it, i'd say he talks in the hyper-expressiveness of a character in a children's educational cartoon series. kris and i were both happiest to find that he took our orders for a good visit to heart: listen to mommy and daddy; no acting or talking like a baby, which he seems to think is funny or endearing, which it is — for about 30 seconds, then it becomes kinda imbecilic; and no pouting. the last was most important; he took admonishments in stride and stopped bad behaviors when told. crucial stuff when a boy is amped on the excitement of the trip and seeing his cousins — and knowing santa is just around the corner.

dad and i both took naps at the hotel after dropping off mom, kris and the kids. must've slept a solid two hours before we had to head back to pj's. this was one of those rare occasions where i hadn't snacked all day before the big meal, so i was hungry enough to eat everything: turkey, ham, two kinds of stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce, garlic twist rolls and butternut squash ravioli. plus pecan pie and oatmeal cake. seriously good eats.

last day — or next day — after noshing on leftovers for lunch, dropped off kids at the house, dropped off mom at the outlet mall across from the hotel and took another nap before the drive back. another solid two hours. then the long goodbye and the trip home.

special thanks to the mcdonald's restaurants of rock hill, s.c., palm bay, fla., and beckley, w.va., btw, for keeping us fed on the drives down and back. good service and fine happy meal prizes for the kids. (the boy ate almost all the meat in his burgers for both his suppers, which helped keep his belly full.)

side notes:

• watched maybe four dvds — all on the way down — the whole trip. otherwise managed to play with activities kris brought.
• super, super pleased to find that xm/sirius satellite radio continued its thanksgiving tradition of offering a free weekend of service. appreciated the christmas channel (@siriusxmholly) for providing trans-generational music that i could leave dad to listen to on his driving shifts.
• the sirius 70s station was particularly helpful to while away the miles. hit a couple of sweet spots on drive down and back where i didn't have to change the station for the better part of an hour when the played back to back chicago, earth wind and fire, dire straits, queen, firefall, player, carpenters, barry manilow, etc. it was 70s am radio at its best.

thanks to the Lord for our time together and the blessings our family shared to be together. for these and many other blessings, amen and amen.

holy crap, have i been that busy?

me and junior at the wvu-kansas state game.

just four posts for the month. thursday night ballgame, working solo the sunday after, a two-day work week, and the lightning thanksgiving visit. so i missed last sunday. and no west virginia u football recap. so, well, maybe just off by a few. plus, wrote a lot the past couple of months, so it just seems like a long time since i posted.

anyway, this is the best thing that happened that night. after a three-game losing streak with a damaged quarterback, we insert the junior college transfer. he sure lit things up, which ultimately proved too little too late, but sure showed a promise of things to come.

a pretty good day

@WVSO little guy got a real charge out of the paul bunyan and friends program. excellent cast of singers & musicians. pic.twitter.com/fbYBW33rHm
— some asian guy (@grumpnet) November 15, 2014

as i've gotten older, i've learned to appreciate days that are above average — not filled with spikes of spectacular or a steady rise building to crescendo, but a buoyant and constant sense of pleasant surprises, lucky breaks and overall contentment.

this was one of those days.

familiar territory

On this date 20 year ago, Republicans won control of both the House and the Senate in the 1994 Midterm elections. pic.twitter.com/T9ulpCLymi
— Charles Apple (@charlesapple) November 8, 2014

so my mountaineers lost today — overwhelmed by big texas beef and unable to recover in time. so not a lot of occasion to mull over recaps, boxscores and analyses.

couple that with a hard election week and all that entailed and you can see why i finally retreated to the familiar confines of my comfort medium, the romantic comedy.

watched "sleepless in seattle" for the first time maybe since we got married or at least had kids. went down real easy.

found myself examining the dynamic between the father and his young son in a way that i didn't before. must've been the boy's bright, tousle-hairedness that reminded me of my own boy.

trying to hold on to the smallness of him.

amazing it's been more than 20 years since it came out. couple that with the turnover not only in the u.s. senate but the w.va. statehouse, and i find my mind treading familiar territory indeed.

foolish behaviour

state of the children, november 2014.

just marveled this morning that we'd quietly gone without major behavioral issues like tantrums or violent outburst from the boy for a while. or at least not worth writing about.

then, tired, gluten-fed preschooler blows up at bedtime. at bedtime! luckily, things did not escalate and everyone returned to ground state.

(mama had been away all day and he was stalling from going to bed after staving off the frustration of being unable to position a ramp so as not to fall down on one of his precariously built vehicle courses. so tired he was after being such an exemplary boy all day.)

anyway, daddy was tired and mommy was tired and everyone just needed to go to sleep. or at least lie down. (amazingly, after a few minutes for everyone to cool off, he seemed to be contrite and apologetic, even go so far as to explain to his mother that he was so tired when she went in to try a goodnight do-over.)

so here we are. hope i don't have to log one of these for a long time — if ever.

(and the girl, btw, has belatedly entered her terrible twos. so far it's pouting and oversensitivity and whining and crying at the drop of a hat. otherwise, she's as sweet and loving as ever.)

facing the music

last game of the season for me and the boy.

while raising children has gone a long way to putting perspective in terms of where i place my emotional capital when following west virginia university sports, it doesn't completely take away the sting of losing, especially the heartbreaking kind, like this weekend's game against texas christian, which slipped through our fingers.

our previous defeats to alabama and oklahoma more than ever seem like "good losses," that is, while not wins, we beat expectations and could glean many positives from the experience. i was eager to see what others thought of us, seeking "affirmation, not information" as colin cowherd would say.

this game, on the other hand, i can't even bring myself to read accounts two days after the fact or even second day analysis pieces. it's taken me this long to even get to thinking about it. (and i wouldn't even be doing that if not for this lovely bout of insomnia.) so i'm finally doing it.

as in our previous setbacks this season, we had nothing to be ashamed of by way of play or preparation. and it took the best effort by the best defense in the country to force us into mistakes by harassing and rattling our quarterback and separating our backs and receivers from the ball. simply put, the horned frogs were the better team.

therein lies the heartbreak. we had this better team on the ropes — more like pinned than pummeled, frankly, less through sheer physical play as brilliant defensive schemes and heads-up execution. but a lapse, a mere moment of confusion, was opening enough for an escape and reversal, changing a slight lead into the slimmest of margins for defeat.

i suspect that being so tantalizingly close to adding another top 10 notch on our belt is what had most fans so upset. we were four seconds away from scoring the upset before it was kicked from our grasp. victory was so close we could taste it; now the whole affair leaves a bad taste in our mouths.

again, however, we can still glean positives: we have a defense. (and in the coming years, if staffing remains the same, it will be even deeper and more experienced. you think about that.) we still have a good offense. we are relatively healthy. (knock wood.) and ... we likely may not face a better opposing defense the rest of this season.

despite everything, all my hopes for the year are actually coming true. we are bouncing back from the past few years in a big, big way. we look good, even when we lose. i can only see positives for the future of the program. i'll go ahead and say it: things look bright.

so i'll close with something good:

little things

boy pulled his first slice of pizza from the box today. #milestones
— some asian guy (@grumpnet) November 1, 2014

after today's preschool halloween party, kris was beat, i was beat and the kids were amped. picked up a couple of boxes of pizza on the way home. kris and i killed ours in one sitting. the boy finished  his in two. it was in his second attempt that i witnessed the milestone.

passed

so west virginia beat oklahoma state on the road. i managed listen to most of the first half on the radio while raking leaves and mowing the lawn and watching the boy and, later, his sister play outside.

then i took a shower and watched disney's "aladdin" with the kids after supper. (boy really doesn't like watching conflict or tension.)

that said, not paying attention to the game went a long way to making the time pass and providing a release valve to the pressure of listening to a conservatively called game.

was pleased that we finished strong. we are bowl eligible now. and now, seriously? we're playing for a shot at the conference title? just gonna enjoy the ride.

crazy ivan

Offensive left guard Quinton Spain (67) is a leading contender
for all-Big 12 honors. (Photo: Charles LeClaire, USA TODAY Sports)

because i can't stop myself, i'm taking another look back to before the start of the season, when usa today's paul myerberg all the way back in june picked west virginia to finish no. 78 among 120 division i football schools.

he wrote:

So this isn't a Big 12 contender, but we knew that already. Instead, I see WVU as a borderline bowl team – not three-win bad, as some have suggested, but hovering somewhere between five and seven wins. WVU wins five if the current predicaments at quarterback, offensive line, defensive line and special teams remain unresolved; WVU goes 7-5 if two or three groups improve before the opener. It's a shaky situation, in my mind. The $1 million question: How many wins does Holgorsen need to return in 2015?

as of this week, he had wvu up 17 spots to no. 22 after a steady rise since the start of the season.

and just to add to the pre-game jitters, video explaining why wvu will upset oklahoma state in stillwater tomorrow. (i particularly agree with the first two commenters on this post.)

the next test

last look back at our latest — and hopefully not last — success. (the last time i did this, we went into a two-year swoon.)

i, of course, took my concerns to a wider audience with this blog post wherein i worry about our recent visit to the rarefied air of public acclaim.

tomorrow's game should once again tell us a lot about this team, its coaching — and its conditioning. (it's gonna be hot in stillwater: sunny with a high of 91 degrees.)

with any luck, i'll be doing yardwork with the kids and hopefully off balance enough to not get too wrapped up in the ballgame.

whirlwind

holy cow, whatta day. up before dawn, on the road with the sun and four potty breaks on the drive up. only blemish on the day was not getting the boy on a stadium bus for free. (oh, yeah, and failing to pull boy's pull-up all the way over his pecker for the drive home as he slept was the other.)

cornered by the camera.

for the record, he ate a bag of chips, a bag of pretzels, a protein bar, a footlong hot dog, popcorn, peanuts, another regular hot dog, three chocolate chip cookies and a liter of water.

needless to say, what with the upset of west virginia beating its first top five team in seven years and its first ranked team since last october against oklahoma state, i'm a pretty happy guy. (fox sports highlight here.)

top that off with this late-night supper, and i'd put this among my hot 100 of best days.

eats hardees bacon cheeseburger, onion rings and vanilla milkshake. pops cholesterol/hypertension meds for dessert.
— some asian guy (@grumpnet) October 19, 2014

seriously. i'm grateful and glad.

and i know the Lord has better things to do than care about the outcome of football games, but the win was just the cherry on top of what i'll call a blessed day: a well-behaved boy, a safe journey to and from morgantown, a generous dad, a job that allows me to buy food for me and my family, kind strangers and unexpected friends. blessings all. thanks be to God. amen and amen.

farm visit

the latter part of the day.

kris thought it would be a good day to take advantage of good weather and a friday to visit gritt's fun farm in putnam county. she thought we'd have the place to ourselves, but we knew we were in trouble when we saw multiple school buses and a lot full of cars.

still, the kids had a blast for about four hours. we left in an orderly fashion. the boy even said "thank you for taking me to the pumpkin farm." and we had pizza for supper. except the baby, who doesn't like pizza.

tractor train never disappoints.

they added a petting zoo, a pedal kart track (not nearly enough karts) and even built restrooms with running water.

they also had chickens and rabbits.

of course, they still had the popular corn pit and pumpkin patch.

baby nearly choked on this stuff because she kept laughing.

seriously, it was about this side of uncomfortably warm this year, unlike our last two visits, which were on cold mornings.

kuya left her.

plus, the boy loved the slide ... but you can only have a first time once.

discoveries

the kids yesterday discovered albums, specifically, soundtrack albums.

they were listening to kris' pandora children's music channel when idina menzel's "let it go" from "frozen" came over. as an online "radio" station, it's only going to get played once and there's no rewind, so when the boy wanted to hear it again, i had limited options.

i wasn't going to pull up the youtube version of the song because the kids tend to get distracted by video on the laptop and then just want to watch more.

probably my next soundtrack album purchase.

and i wasn't about to buy a soundtrack album off amazon or itunes, but the thought occurred to me that maybe the streaming music site spotify might have it available. and sure enough, it did.

(side note here: it's kind of a modern miracle, isn't it, that i can pull up an album in its entirety through a cable line and it doesn't cost a cent?)

(the other side note: this is very good soundtrack. watching the movie for the first time, i didn't think it hung together well at all, but subsequent viewings/listenings reveal smart lyrics and a musical cohesiveness and variety that wasn't apparent in the inital go-round.)

so i called up the track and the kids did their re-enactments to accompany their singing as they've been wont to do all year, but then i did something they'd never heard: i just started playing the rest of the album.

and they were mesmerized.

baby just stood in front of the speakers closely listening to the words. the boy was giddy to hear the catchy, now-familiar melodies of the other musical numbers featured in the film. he even did a soft-shoe song and dance of the movie's, well, song and dance sequence, all of which was too precious to interrupt with an effort to catch it on video.

that it was coming without benefit of the movie and purely as an audio experience seemed to strike them as such a novelty, that they could enjoy this music without dramatic visuals and dialogue was like a revelation to them.

i suspect and actually hope that i've kindled in them the same appreciation and love for the movie/stage musical that i've enjoyed all my life.

overtime

judging by my recent posts, it's obviously been a football month. kris says i become crazy during games. i may need to write a first-person piece with interviews of mental health professionals.

so it's taken me about eight hours to come down from a big west virginia win today. it wasn't "big" in the way that beating alabama or oklahoma would have been. just big in that we kept our shit together and battle and battled and battled and came back after not having our way as many expected for most of the game.

the past two years, when adversity reared its head, we'd fight, but ultimately cave. this time, we beat back and stunned the team that's been our nemesis since we entered the big 12 with a heart-stopping, last-second score.

this team seems to have heart. (and, so far, health.) going into our match-up next week with undefeated and top 5 baylor after their own wild game, i think we can definitely get jacked up. now whether we can execute and stay focused is going to be our next hurdle.

civil right

UPDATED STORY: Same-sex couples in WV can obtain marriage licenses today http://t.co/gPVglP8Gsu #WVequality pic.twitter.com/3LRtrsWQQe
— Charleston DailyMail (@charleywest) October 9, 2014

there's a long story behind where we are now, but suffice to say history was made in west virginia this afternoon when the governor and attorney general announced they would not put up a fight on behalf of the state's ban on gay marriage.

i'd been following the issue for the past couple of years as one state after another either legalized the practice or had its own bans struck down. i observed with the remove of someone not directly affected by it, but curious to see how it would play out.

i never in a million years would have expected the day would come to my socially conservative mountain state.

but when i learned of our officials' actions, and the more i thought about my friends who would be affected by it — how much they wanted to formalize and officially recognize their relationships —  i became kind of overwhelmed with relief and a happiness for them that i never dreamed that i'd feel.

the newsroom was a flurry of activity as the staff rallied to cover the story, pulling together to cover all the angles and buoyed, perhaps, by the sense of history being made and that we were the ones recording it.

football hero

lil leatherhead, mountaineer field #HailWV pic.twitter.com/oyFCZYeQ0W
— some asian guy (@grumpnet) October 6, 2014

the boy is starting to get into the spirit of things watching football games, btw.

i pointed out to him the kansas jayhawk mascot lurking on the sidelines of this weekend's game and while he noticed it, didn't seem to be fazed.

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a little while later, though, as the crowd grew rowdy to stir up the defense near our end of the field, he was taken up enough in the noisy spirit to chime in, "hey, you scary bird! you're not so scary now!"

what it lacked in catchiness, i think it made up for in inspiration and effort.

quick snap

this was probably the best thing in yesterday's game between west virginia and kansas. nice and surgical.

the rest? boggy. no urgency. lots of points left on the field, as they say.

i should be grateful, given the extraordinary strangeness of the day, where 11 of the top 25 were upset and five of the top 10 teams went down.

but i'm hoping that the rosy assessments from guys i've come to trust that we're good enough to sleepwalk through games against bad teams or that we can still administer an ass-whipping even when we're not firing on all cylinders are correct and not indicative of a regression back to last year's flat team that couldn't finish games.

flush with pride

implements of destruction.

so the arm toilet tank lever on the commode broke this morning. a trip to lowes — after an unsuccessful visit to pile — yielded an aftermarket version of our kohler angle-mounted lever, which was a perfect match. (not pile's fault; easier to have a handful of universal mounts versus a wall full of specific makes.)

turned out the driving from here to the west side back up to corridor g was the hardest part of the job. well, that, and figuring out how to get the arm into the hole in the side of the tank without breaking it off the lever.

(turned out they didn't separate. all i needed to do was remove the nut and thread the whole arm through the hole and re-tighten the nut. glad i didn't do something bone-headed, like force the pieces apart.)

all told, the operation took about 10 minutes — an all-time record for home repair.

anyhow, getting to use the tiny channel lock pliers to loosen the old lever and tighten the new new one made me feel like i was actually doing handyman work. little victories.

counting chickens

photo from countdown for no. 78, all the way back in june.

because it's a bye week for west virginia, i'm left to pick over remains of the past four weeks.

took a moment to check on my buddy paul myerberg over at usa today to re-read his preseason ranking of my mountaineers.

in the process, i discovered that a) he does not tweet everything he writes and 2) he's been keeping up his tradition of re-ranking the 128 teams from his original list as the season goes on.

way back on 24 june, he had us at no. 78.

after our loss to alabama, he bumped us up 8 spots to no. 70. (must've agreed it was a good loss.)

then we beat 2013 fcs runner-up towson in the way you're supposed to beat a division ii team and he moves us to no. 64.

we win a nail-biter in college park to take down maryland with great offensive stats and bend-but-don't-break defense. we took this one rather than back into it as we've seemed to do in close games the past few years. myerberg responds by advancing wvu by 11 to no. 53.

then we just get worn down by what has to be the best squad in the country in a defeat to oklahoma. clint trickett makes some untimely mistakes while still putting up impressive numbers and the defense doesn't quit. up now to no. 45.

and then there's this, which made me chuckle and appreciate our new conference-mates after today's results:

So WVU > Maryland > Indiana > Missouri > South Carolina > Georgia So WVU > Sec East
— Matthew Gaylor (@MatthewGaylor) September 28, 2014

this may be the next test for dana hologrsen as a head coach: keeping the boys from reading the press clippings and focused in advance of a home game against a team we have no business losing to.

and, yeah, i'm probably cursing us in advance of a game that should start padding our conference record, but i have faith the ship is righting itself. (a double whammy if ever i heard one. after all, i remember writing this.)

four weeks in

and my mountaineers are 2-2. i'll go ahead and say a handful of breaks here and there and we're 4-0. but as i've been saying all day, we needed those breaks against two of the top four teams because we simply do not have the horses to not execute well and still win games. (one day. and maybe not that far away.)

and just because i monday morning quarterback, i look over the smoldering wreckage after losses and  look for valuables i can salvage.

here, i read that our boys last night displayed "a level of performance that would beat 80-90% of the teams in college football," which would have been great if we hadn't been playing the top 10 percent.

and, "If the Mountaineers play the rest of the year the way they have this first month of the season, they will win a bunch of games."

barring injury and mental breakdowns, i'm going to predict here we only lose one more game, tops, the rest of the year. so there. i've cursed us.

he's actually looking at the camera for pictures these days.

anyway, got to enjoy a weekend with the boy and his godmother. these night games still find him loopy and ready to go home in the first half, but he manages to keep his shit together until he konks out. (no screaming in the night, either.)

he did start getting into the spirit of the game in his own way. "you girls, go jump into the stadium!" seemed to have some sort of menace as a cheer.

he also did yell "let's go mountaineers!" and i taught him how to say "de-fense." so it's a start.

(and, um, he sat through his first "eat shit, pitt" chant after the pitt loss to iowa went up. on the plus side, he did so without picking up what was actually being said, which i'm sure his mama is grateful for,)

a do-over from the unpleasantness of the last visit.

he was pretty good in church and was proud to not spit on his godmother when we took a picture — which he asked for after mass, i suppose to show how he was going to be good. if the light were better or if the phone had a better flash, it would be a much nicer picture.

anyway, that was our weekend.

week in pics

everything just right.

it finally got chilly this week. a little later than usual, i think. monday, slept with two blankets and it was a deep, deep sleep. my favorite part about fall.

i like this shot because of the mottled texture in everything and the contrast of the autumnal reds and yellows against the gray paint in the porch.

one man's trash.

this might look like a bag of garbage, but it could be, as kris said, a life-changing development. in addition to now offering single stream recycling — ie, no longer separating our metal from plastic from paper — we can also toss cardboard into the bag for curbside pickup.

now it may not mean much to you, but the cardboard piles up pretty fast in our house between trips to recycling center. not having that to clutter up the house on a weekly basis is a wonderful, time-saving service. and it all started this week.

hoodie, part i.

in the interest of fairness — partially because of a paucity of marshall university garb in our house — i took advantage of the cooler weather to dress the boy in a marshall jacket for school this week.

he really wouldn't stand still for a good shot — a phone glitch at the moment, where i can't actually use the camera and use a photo app instead (don't ask how i do it) — and i wound up with this, where he remained motionless long enough for me to snap something.

i like that it makes him look pensive and reflective, but really, he was just trying to tie the straps of his bookbag together.

as a p.s. — kris says that today, he actually sounded out the signage here. they were driving through kanawha city when she realized she was listening to the boy say, "i want to go to 'b-ah-m-s."

the little monkey was actually sounding out a word using his letters. this is what he was looking at:

You guys, Boom's is open. pic.twitter.com/KYu4c8FJOr
— Matt Murphy (@DMLocalGov) September 18, 2014

he's turning into a person.

(kris also said she was making an extra effort this week to not raise her voice to the boy. she figured if she wouldn't yell when frustrated at him, he wouldn't yell or otherwise act out when he got frustrated in general. five days in, it seems like progress. hopefully, actually listening and doing what he is told will follow. i know, i know — one thing at a time.)

 pretty pony tail.

and then there's this pretty thing.

we're all still happy to see the girl's hair has grown out enough to create pony tails and she looked so cute for preschool this week that i needed to get it on film, as we used to say.

she's coming along swimmingly in week three of school. she told her mommy that "i'm not going to cry" when getting dropped off and put up a brave face, determined not to break down.

this week, she didn't even flinch when mommy left. (it helped that another kid was totally losing it both days and drawing the attention of the class.)

also, while she's sent to school with the same gluten/dye-free snacks as the boy, kris informed her teacher that she's ok to eat whatever the class does.

on the first day, however, when her teacher tried to offer the morning snack, the baby wouldn't have it; she insisted on the food her mama packed for her. (that's my girl.)

this held true for the first couple of weeks. and then the teacher produced a package of oreos. needless to say, it was game over that day.

kris figures the baby's acquiescence may have come from watching her cousins noshing on the cookies on vacation or at the lakehouse. must have developed some powerful curiosity there.

hoodie, part ii.

and this is my godson, wearing the birthday present i sent him. already looks like a teenager. my brother assures me he's fond of west virginia u gear. which makes me happy, of course. (it's also probably the last thing i'll ever buy at our local sporting goods store before they close. i got him lots of birthday presents there.)

wvu lb isaiah bruce's number.

i found this at a tj maxx at a fraction of retail. it was nice because it features the new design that rolled out last year. i found it while looking for a hat or something for the baby and i thought it would be something nice he'd like. (hopefully, this weekend the team will do something to make it popular for him to wear.)

bad time to be swept up in a lesson

press release re battery charge against wvu cb daryl worley.

i suppose, given where we'd prefer to put our priorities, it would take football to finally make society say, "enough's enough."

and, regardless of perception vs reality, this kid's actions show he hasn't been quick to pick up on that message.

some lessons you have to learn the hard way; some you have to keep learning; some you never learn.

as a middle-aged dude, i hope he can overcome his youth and find the maturity to seek and accept the help needed to not treat anyone this way.

and by the way

we actually got to attend mass as a family again. and, again, mama had to go to the gathering space with baby when she wouldn't sit still. oh, well. it's a start. 

exhale

ok. despite a plethora of mistakes that nearly eradicated some record-setting work from our offense, my mountaineers pulled out the win going away. ("a walk-off field goal," the radio guys said.)

another away game, another day to focus on family. probably kept me from losing my mind from all the times we shot ourselves in the foot.

just happy to see the coaches/team keep their shit together and not panic.

i'll just enjoy this for the next day or two. then comes our next test.

curating

just trying to capture the flavor of the start of a promising football season from folks who aren't me and hoping to God i'm not jinxing things.

this i picked up from a recap from my favorite aggregator:

Saw my buddy wearing a Bama shirt. Me: "Just had to wear that shirt huh?" Him: "If y'all could catch the ball, I'd be asking you that"
— Jason Perdue (@jason1040) September 6, 2014

this i probably re-tweeted from the professor emeritus of alabama coverage after it appeared in my feed or someone else re-tweeted it:

A little late but I was very impressed with @WVUfootball Saturday against Bama. Don't tell anyone but I'm a fan from afar.
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) September 2, 2014

this from another sports guy i follow who has always been a hard grader of my mountaineers:

So -- this is going a little differently than the past few Bama neutral site openers.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) August 30, 2014

and this from my buddy marcus because i need to remember what our prospects looked like before the season even started:

Once WVU loses in embarrassing fashion to Alabama, I never want to hear it from a WVU fan again that WVU is national championship caliber.
— Marcus Constantino (@amtino) August 29, 2014

also today

drawing of himself in a monster costume.

the boy has been on a tear with his drawings. i love this, but not as much as one he created yesterday. i'll try to get a scan or at least a shot of it tomorrow. it seems to be part of a halloween series inspired by the early autumnal sales/decor at our area retailers.

apple corps

© apple

just taking a moment to jot down the beginning of something. it may be a hit; it may be a flop.

but apple today introduced its new wearable computer that works with its iphone.

listening to my colleagues in the newsroom was kind of like listening to my friends when the ipad was introduced about 4 years ago.

"who wears a watch?"

"i already use my phone for this."

as i recall, the question of the ipad was along the lines of "i've already got a laptop; why do i need this?"

i have a feeling we'll be watching the next step into the future. again.

three pics

a puzzle, this one is.

took the boy to west virginia's home opener this weekend. he was up before dawn and skipped his nap on the drive up. then he stayed up about three hours past his regular bedtime. not a good set-up for the mid-morning sugar crash after sitting still for 10 o'clock mass today.

the hilltop where morgantown st. francis de sales is situated has a lovely, mountainous backdrop. i thought it would be nice to take a photo of the boy and his godmother. long story short, he was balky and uncooperative.

the unfortunate incident.

he took it one step too far, however, once his theatrics devolved to spitting at his auntie joy. rather than apologize, he took swat on the behind in front of everyone in the parking lot. i told him it's hard to say sorry and he was right to feel ashamed to the point of tears for doing what he did. he was left to mull in silence on the ride home.

lunch afterward cured all manner of ills and he kept it together for the drive home. even took a nap.

but ... the night before was a good time.

got to take a bus ride to the stadium. a nice guy in the blue lot gave him a turn to play cornhole. he ate a whole box of popcorn. he shot about a dozen photos with daddy's camera.

football!

finally, he had a fun pic just before we hit the road at the half. he wanted a shot to send to his mommy of his evening watching "football!" slow smartphone notwithstanding, it only took two shots to get it right.

(given his state of mind and the afore-mentioned factors leading into a night game, i decided half a game was better than a whole one compounded by an hour drive to go one mile*. it helped that by the time we left the stadium, we were rolling the way a good team should be rolling against an out-manned squad. i could leave not feeling like i was abandoning anyone.)

next week, we play our barometer game against maryland. if the history of game holds true, it should tell us what kind of team we've got.

* in an odd combination of cheapness and the desire for fast transport with a small boy in tow, i've had to park at the wvu health science center to watch basketball games at the coliseum and at same venue to watch football games at mountaineer field right behind the health science center.

meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

... papaw let the girl take the tractor out for a spin last week.

day one

just shoot it, dad-o.

just for posterity's sake. first day for both my babies to go to school. also, the boy has occasionally taken to calling me "dad-o." wondering if that comes from his gaga and papaw using the term "daddy-o."

little feat.

and here are their shoes for the new school year. not sure how we'd keep our kids clothed without my smart-shopping, coupon-clipping wife or my sibs who pass along their gently used hand-me-downs from their kids. thank the Lord for them all.

keep playing

work in progress. magic island labor day 2014

"keep playing," he said to his sister as they ran to-and-fro before bed.

it was as if he were trying to squeeze out the last bit of fun out of a long, hard day.

today being an actual day off now that i'm in upper management, i didn't want it wasted in front of the tube or on the couch.

the boy was doing his best to stay active, including crawling all over me as i tried to recover the dregs of a mid-morning nap on the couch.

truth be told, it was pretty annoying. but he's 4 and his sister's taking a nap and his mother's in the shower and he'd been playing indoors for the better part of two hours and needed something to do.

we were supposed to go to the last ballgame of the season for our minor league franchise. but the weather being iffy and the baby being fussy and needing said nap put the kibosh on that.

so kris took the boy out on a drive to look at houses while i had some lunch and caught up on the papers.

the day turned out to be pretty nice and we wanted to enjoy the outdoors, so we headed out with vague ideas on how we wanted to spend it somewhere.

luckily the parking was good up from magic island and the city had done a decent job of keeping the goose poop cleared away.

sand drawing, magic island volleyball court.

we watched the kids chase geese and then other kids out at the playground. the boy drew a lovely picture of himself and his sister in the sand of the volleyball court. he then was led kicking and screaming to the car when it was time to go.

into the tub they all went.

supper was easy. kris treated us to the all-american holiday dish of take-out sushi from the celebrity kroger; she made fish sticks and fries for the kids, which they ate "picnic style" on their little table in front of the television for a "thomas the tank engine" movie.

everyone went down after that pretty fast.

but it was the boy's urging of his sister to "keep playing" that kind of put a name on the thing that begins slipping from our grasp beginning tomorrow.

he begins 5-day pre-school this week — that now means no mornings off to drive me crazy until i leave for work. i'll only have him 1 1/2 days a week. and then next year, it's kindergarten all day, meaning i lose that half day.

city kid.

and he'll be taller. too big to be crawling all over me taller. and then he won't be a little boy any more.

right now, when i see him first thing in the morning or on return from work, or someplace without him, i'm a rock star. "daddy!" and he runs over for a hug and to inform me of his latest creation or grand scheme.

used to be the same thing when i'd visit my sister. for the better part of five years, my entrance to her house was always a great occasion.

to her brood, my coming in that front door meant a new face, someone else who can give some attention. i would always brace myself for the greeting stampede of "uncle p!" and the crush of hugs and kisses.

last week, i swung by to pick up a few things and the only people to greet me were my sister and her husband. the kids, now hitting their tween years, were in their own worlds, doing their own things. it was ... different. it was foreshadowing.

so as he's making his mama and me crazy, i should remember the childish antics — if we continue to tamp them down and work to teach him how to be a decent person — will subside.

he'll be less of a wild man then, maybe a little more self-conscious. he'll probably be less manic or obsessed with making secret plans and maps. i hope he never loses his love of extemporaneous singing and dancing.

just for a while longer, i hope he'll keep playing.

also

josh martin exhibit at taylor books.

yesterday, the boy spied the cd jewel boxes that have been in my jeep since i got it.

whatever is in there is probably the last line-up from some road trip before the children or some such thing.

so there was music there that was at least 10 years old.

he asked what the boxes were in the center console and i explained that discs were how we carried music around.

he asked if we could listen to one.

i removed the "painted by memory" cd that was in the player and full of heartache and angst and instead popped in something peppier that i figured would appeal to him.

in went "welcome interstate managers" by fountains of wayne.

and once the power chords hit from "mexican wine," the boy was hooked: "daddy, i love this music."

great, i thought. i'd just doomed him to loving nerd rock, the whitest white boy music there is.

(not really. he also cut loose with some early hip-hop from us3 the day before, which made for a nice kitchen jam with his sister and me while i washed dishes.)

as we made our way through the backroads of south charleston, he asked, "daddy, when i'm bigger, can you get me a phone with ear plugs so i can listen to music all the time? i love music."

the potential for tuning out the family notwithstanding, i'm glad he appreciates tunes of all kinds.