HELLO

He has been pretty quiet recently. He is planning. Also, he is excited to see HENRY soon. HENRY is his good friend that sails around the world, sucking. Bob hangs out with Henry Jr during the day and talks about dirt.

Bob likes the 4th of July. He likes the boom booms and it's funny when the dumb dog thinks it's WWIII or something.


Look at the fire he made! He made a fire, and it was good, and he was pleased. No salmon to cool on it, though.


Here he is playing with sparklers. He is such a little firecracker!! BOB!

Hobbies, or fleeting whims?

I've been trying to find some things that interest me so I'm not sitting on the couch as much this summer. I also need more reasons to keep myself outside getting sun before the I get hit with the brutal, tropical August insolation during the cruise next month. Of course, I can't be outside all the time...and usually I can't even SEE the outside from my windowless sarcophagus of an office.

Anyway, I am playing softball in the Science Park softball league at Raytheon. I'm trying to ride my new bike farther and farther to burn some fat and get some sun. I'm puttering in the garden here and there, but not keeping up with the weeding like I should. But I'm realizing that the things I'm interested in are typically boring to other people my age.

For example...

Everyone knows that 1.) I'm a scientist (at least by degree), and 2.) We have been geocachers since 2004. But I also like things that are relating to genealogy...which I guess isn't typical of people my age. So how do I tie those interests together? I'm volunteering to take measurements of old marble headstones to examine the effects that weathering, pollution and climate have on them. Here is more info on the Gravestone Project for the two people who might be interested. So yes...I drive around, find cemeteries, and take measurements of marble gravestone thicknesses with calipers, and mark their locations with the GPS. Yeah I know...it's not terribly exciting, but I enjoy it for whatever reason.

Continuing on the genealogy theme, I have also recently realized that Family Search is digitizing a TON of records so researchers can get access to them. The issue is that someone needs to input the data from the images so they can be searched. So I decided that I should volunteer to do that too. This is partially motivated by the fact that I like researching family history, and partially motivated by the ridiculous fees that are charged by Ancestry.com and other online genealogy sites to search their databases. When a particular set of images is finished being indexed by the volunteers on Family Search, the searching and document images are available to the public for free. That's something I would like to see. I think charging for public record access is ridiculous...even though it is a convenience thing. I've had a discussion with Karen before about the "price of convenience," but I guess that's a more in-depth discussion on the matter. I just started the record indexing thing yesterday, and so far I've indexed about a hundred records from the 1905 NY State Census, and about seventy Delaware birth records. It's small progress, but I think everything helps.

Also, I've always been interested in how people who call themselves bird watchers could possibly be entertained by their hobby. To me, that sounds almost as boring as indexing genealogical records. The other day, while at a retirement party for one of our superiors, he listed twelve things he was going to attempt to do during retirement. One of those things was to identify one hundred bird species just by sitting on his patio. I thought that was a rather far-fetched goal. Certainly there can't be one hundred species of birds in Central PA that would all be visible in one location. So I'm making it another goal of mine to identify as many bird species as I can while I'm doing other things out in the yard. I'm not going to do anything special to see them...but if I notice something new while I'm puttering around, I'm going to take note of it to see if I can come anywhere near one hundred. Of course, I think being in a more "suburban" setting here, compared to the other guy's more rural locale might put me at a slight disadvantage, but we'll see. If anyone is interested, these are the birds I've noticed so far (because I don't feel a post is complete without a bulleted list).

• American Robin


• American Goldfinch


• Northern Cardinal


• Mourning Dove


• Blue Jay


• American Crow

Not a very impressive list thus far. There are other birds that I know I've seen in the back yard since we've been living at our current residence, but I won't officially count them until I see them again. Another problem is that a bunch of the finches and sparrows I can see flying around move too fast for me to positively identify them. And when they're sitting still, they're roosted too far into our neighbors' trees so I can't see them. Anyway..

If any of you have actually read this all the way through...I'm sorry. You probably thought I was lame before, and now you think I'm REALLY lame. Sadly, I'm ok with that. As noted in the title of this post, I'll probably grow bored of doing these things, and move on to another "hobby" that I won't do long enough to actually call a hobby. That's typically how I operate.

Random Update

We've been pretty lax about updating the blog...which is really no surprise, given our propensity for laziness. Honestly, there hasn't been too much to update about, except maybe for my NASCAR weekend at Pocono with the MIL.

These next few weekends should see a distinct increase in activity, and possibly blogg-about-able circumstances. This weekend we are traveling to WNY to visit with my family for my grandma's 80th birthday. My aunt, uncle and cousins are coming out from California, so everyone is merging for a very rare family get-together.

The weekend after that we'll be traveling to DE for annual birthday celebrations for Kathryn (who's birthday is actually this weekend) and Karen (who's birthday is next weekend), and probably some late fathers' day stuff thrown in there too. I think there is going to be some amusement park action in there, and I will try to sneak away to do some waymarking of Delaware historical markers too...because I'm that awesome.

Alright...that's all for now. I know this was terribly informative and insightful, and everyone is richer for having read it. You're welcome.

The Great Flying Circle!

So I have learned something great! Once upon a time way before the fence grew, there was this circle thing. It wasn't a ball, balls are fun. It was round but flat and not very fun. When it came flying at me, I was scared!! My mommy and daddy would throw it to each other but when it came near me I didn't like it.

Then one day I watched it land on the ground and I ran up to it and pounced on it. It was dead! My mommy and daddy laughed and told me I was cute. Then a little later when I pounced on it, it wasn't dead! It flipped up and I took it! I could run around with it in my mouth! Like a ball! But not a ball.

And then sometimes when they threw it, it would roll around on the ground and I grabbed it! Then I ran some more! It was so much fun!

BUT THEN! I stopped being scared! It flew at me and I ran really fast after it and then I GRABBED IT FROM THE AIR! I did it! And then I did it again and again and again and again and again and it was so much fun! My mommy and daddy were so proud of me! I could catch it all day!!!




Do you see that? I'm a flying pup! My daddy isn't home right now, but when he gets back I am going to play more with the great flying circle! It's my favorite thing!!!!

Picture update!

Head on over to the Photos Page to see the updates!

Extraction!

I had my wisdom teeth taken out on Tuesday morning. After fighting dentists for years, saying I had plenty of room, I gave in when I heard the word "impacted." To be honest, I didn't see any sign of this so-called impaction when I looked at the panoramic x-ray, but that's probably because I'm not a dentist. What really helped me be okay with the whole process was Jeff - he had a tooth removed by the same surgeon a few months before and it really wasn't that awful. I found out they would put you out and then you'd wake up numb and not remembering anything. Sounds almost fun. Almost.

My mom and sister drove up from Delaware on Monday to take care of me. My "last meal" was at Perkins, which was delicious and probably provided enough calories to last me a few days of eating very little. Well, that plus the insane amount of Easter chocolate I devoured that evening as well.

The next morning we drove to the surgeon's office and I waited for way too long. After 15 minutes, I was called back to pay them (money first, right??) then sent back out to wait and get more nervous. I finally went back around 8:15 and two women strapped me in and hooked me up to a monitor. I prepared for the IV but it wasn't to come. I sat. And waited. And waited some more. After staring at the monitor, I figured out the blood pressure cuff inflated every 5 minutes, so I counted down and tried to get my vitals as low as possible, just for fun. I set off the "low resp" indicator once. And kept waiting. FORTY-FIVE minutes later, everyone descended upon me and everything happened very suddenly. After thinking that the IV hurt more than I expected, I felt very drunk for about 3 seconds and then ... I woke up numb. It was weird.

Recovery went pretty well, thanks to my mother who kept me full of things to not make me feel. The worst part was the next morning when eating nothing but 3 cups of Jello the day before caught up to me. I slept through feeling like I was going to die and things have been uphill ever since.

I really appreciate how nice everyone was to me. Although sometimes I wish we didn't laugh so much playing family games - laughing hurts! But seriously, I got to stay in bed and sleep as much as I want. If I wanted mashed potatoes, I got them (they were delicious and a welcome change from Jello!) So thanks Nee, Kamoo and Jeff for making an experience that could have sucked turn out to be not so bad!

I also do not feel ashamed to say that after eating yogurt every day for breakfast, and Panera soup for lunch the past two days, I've also had ice cream for dinner. In fact, I'm probably going to have ice cream now.

And in case anyone was wondering, no, I have not eaten that bunny!

New Photos

My parents came down to visit us this weekend, so of course there are new photos on the PHOTOS PAGE.