Christmas cheer

On Tuesday night my mom had some family and old friends (i.e. friends from way back, not old friends) over for dinner. It's a yearly Christmas tradition since probably before I was born. Here are some pictures from the fun!

Interview with Dad - Part 2

M: If you could change one thing about yourself - and not physically - not a physical aspect of yourself, what would it be and why?

D: Just one?

M: Yeah, just one

D: Probably I would change my... there's a lot of things I can put my finger on that I'd like to change, but..

M: Ok, well just give me an example

D: My ability to focus on something that i don't really want to focus on. Because it's hard for me to make myself pay attention to things when I'm thinking about something else or something else is going on. It's especially tough with MP because a lot of times she wants to play or do something and I have something else on my mind, I have to make a concerted effort to concentrate on her.

M: What's been the most surprising thing to you about fatherhood?

D: Other than how much infants poop?

M: [laughing] Yes.

D: Just watching how a little person goes from a small little helpless baby to a toddler that can talk and has some sort of reasoning and can laugh and is developing a sense of humor. It's just amazing. It's very faith-affirming

M: What is the best thing about me being SAHM now?

D: I think you seem to be a lot happier and more content. When you were working at your job you got a lot of satisfaction from the success and everything but at the end of the day it just translated into money, whereas with MP it's more ... what's the word I'm looking for... it's not a material pursuit. It's something that's so noble - it's very unselfish. You're helping this little person that you love so much try to become a person and provide them emotional support. And help her learn. Sometimes I'm at my job and I'm like 'Man, I only get to see MP probably 3 or 4 hours out of the day.' I like my job, but if I could, would only work part-time and spend more time at home, because MP is awesome.

M: What has been the worst thing about me staying at home?

D: Really just having to tighten the financial belt. That's really the only thing I can think of. And that I know that you kind of have mixed feelings sometimes about not using your law degree which you spent three years pursuing.

M:What was it like growing up the oldest of four kids?

D: I hope my parents read this... it was awful! They kept making me work! They beat me! No, let's see... I don't really have any reference to compare it to I just know what it was like to be me and I was the oldest. If i grew up in another life being the youngest then I might have a comparison, but um, I know that my dad always tried to look to me to be an example and I know sometimes I was and sometimes I wasn't.

M: If you think back on your childhood, if you set the scene in your mind, is the scene happy loud? What are people doing? Are you bickering?

D: Oh, it's happy. And there's usually some sort of background commotion going on - nothing bad, but people talking or playing. Yeah, I definitely had a happy childhood. My parents were great and my brothers and sister were great. You know when I was growing up I used to think we had a slightly dysfunctional family but I realize in retrospect it was a very healthy family unit.

M: Is there another question you think I should ask you so you can answer it?

D: No, you gave me a pretty good little interview...

M: Alright, I've got one last question. What do you think about me blogging and the blog in general?

D: Uh, I think it's really interesting. I think you get a lot of enjoyment out of it and I enjoy reading the posts. I think it's also good for... I don't want to say documentation... it's good for posterity? perhaps? Just so we can go back and look and see these things. This is basically a modern-day equivalent of a baby album. Only it's extending beyond a baby. It's kind of like an online diary that you don't put your private secrets in because everyone else reads them.

[laughing]

M: Any final thoughts?

D: Ask me if I am glad I married you?

M: Are you glad you married me?

D: NO! [laughing] Yes, I am. I was thinking about that when I was running. I think you are a wonderful mother, a wonderful wife and I'm looking forward to spending the next 50 years with you.

M: Aw, thank you! That was sweet.

Transcription of interview with Dad - Part 1

I thought it would be interesting to interview family members and publish the interviews on the blog. Easy blogging and good for saving memories. Dad was my first victim.

M: Alright before we start the interview I have to tell you that you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be published on the internet. Do you understand these rights?

D: No

M: Ok. So tell my readers - that's my mom and your mom -

D: Oh, there's two now?

M: [laughing] - what you do for a living? What do you do every day?

D: I sit in front of a computer screen and get bombarded with electrons.

M: What do you do for real?

D: I analyze the structure on the Ares 1 Upper Stage.

M: And what is the Ares 1?

D: It is the rocket that is supposed to carry people up into space that is currently planned.

M: It's going to replace the shuttle?

D: Yes.

M: And how long have you wanted to have a job like this one?

D: Probably since I was about four or five? I remember drawing sketches of empty cans and thinking about how I could put together a rocket. I had this grandiose vision of filling up straws with gasoline and inserting them into the bottom of cans - I hadn't worked out all of the thermal aspects yet - and lighting it and somehow staging it and making a rocket.

M: Why do you think that you were interested in rockets so much when you were little?

D: Because it was something that was so un-ordinary. It was just amazing that people working together could make something to achieve such a spectacular feat as actually leaving the planet.

M: Would you ever want to travel in space?

D: Yeah, that would be cool. It depends on the circumstances. If it was a 10 year journey, probably not. If it was for a three month journey, probably so. I figure long journeys you probably miss too much - especially with MP, you miss a lot of your children's lives. You basically have to give up some of yourself to go on long trips like that.

M: Tell me about your high altitude balloon projects. First, explain what a high altitude balloon is.

D: It's a balloon that goes to a high altitude.

M: Ok, what is a high altitude?

D: Generally somewhere around 75,000 feet.

M: Ok, where do commercial airplanes fly?

D: Between 30,000 and sometimes up to 40,000 feet.

M: Ok, and where is space considered to begin?

D: The international boundary is at 100 kilometers.

M: Can you convert that to miles? [laughing]

D: About 62 miles about, somewhere around there. The U.S. recognizes space at 50 miles.

M: So explain briefly what you did for your high altitude balloon projects.

D: I put together some cameras with a gps unit, a radio and basically made what would be considered an embedded system to read the gps, figure out if it was going up or down, figure out if it needed to take pictures, or radio back its location. I got lucky in that it worked and landed somewhere that it was found.

M: How many of these did you launch?

D: That you know about? [laughing] Two.

M: How many did you launch that I don't know about?

D: There's one in the air now.

M: How long after they were launched were they recovered?

D: The first one was about 3 or 4 days and it actually landed in a creek, which is just bad luck. Some people came by in a canoe and saw it and the picked it out. Fortunately the container was made out of styrofoam so it was not submerged so much. The second one was... 4 years? No, 3 years. It was found by hunters in the woods. They saw it and it was still stuck in a tree. And the guy was nice enough to send it back and in return I let him keep the GPS - he said it still worked.

M: So did you recover pictures from both of your high altitude balloons?

D: Yes, luckily the flash memory from the second one was completely in tact. It was a relatively low-resolution camera 1.3 megapixels - but all of the pictures were perfectly preserved. Most of the pictures were of the tree it landed in. And the film camera the pictures came out but a little bit of light or water leaked in and they were not quite as stunning.

M: What made you want to develop these high altitude balloons?

D: I just wanted to send something up really high that would take pictures. I thought that would be really cool. In engineering jobs you're kind of worried about documentation and processes and you kind of lose sight of why you became and engineer, so if you do these small personal projects where you're in control and you don't have to worry about the bureaucratic stuff that comes along with a lot of engineering jobs, it becomes a lot more fun. I just thought it would be cool to get pictures from really high up. I guess it goes back to being a kid - I wanted to shoot a rocket up so high that the sky turns black. I basically wanted to send a rocket into space. And I still want to do that, but i realized a that stepping stone would be a high altitude balloon. I developed a lot of the knowledge that you need to go to space.

Balloon payload



Pictures from the balloon (~100,000 feet):

Your daily dose of depression

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Come Sing Along!

In case anyone is reading this in the Huntsville/Madison/Decatur area, tonight is the night of the most awesome Christmas tradition of all times. Sing Along Messiah!!!

Weatherly Heights Baptist Church

7:30

Huntsville, AL 35803

1306 Canstatt Drive

Top ten things they don't tell you

about becoming a SAHM.

I'm just presenting the facts - no real judgment about them, just my observations.

10. People will tell you how happy they are that you are staying home. People never told me how glad they were that I was working. It's a complete paradigm shift. For most folks (at least down here in the South) people's reactions are "good for you!" or "that's wonderful!" when you tell them you're staying a home. No one ever had that reaction when I was working.

9. You'll miss the money. No matter how much planning you do, it's still a huge adjustment. I guess if you spent a year or two living on one salary, you might be better prepared. Otherwise, it's a shock to the wallet.

8. How much you can accomplish in a day is directly linked to the attitude of a tiny dictator. M.P. has days where she plays very well independently for long stretches of time. My laundry couch gets emptied those days (I must note it is currently completely empty). Other days, I'm lucky to put the dishes in the sink, much less in the dishwasher.

7. Despite being very busy, you'll sometimes have a hard time answering the question "what have you been up to?" Especially if the person asking it isn't a SAHM.

6. You will lose friends. Mostly co-workers, but other friends as well. You just can't go out and have a drink after work like you used to.

5. It can be hard to make friends. I'm in a playgroup with over 100 women. I've been in it for nearly a year. Despite attending activities once a month or more, I can't say that I've really made any friends. I'll see people and then won't see them again. It's hard to make time for follow up and follow through. Plus, I tend to be an introvert at those sorts of events, and I never know when to "take the next step" in a potential friendship. And I over-analyze. Can you tell?

4. It will be even harder to take time to do something for yourself. When I was working, I didn't feel guilt about going to get my hair cut or going out to lunch. I was certainly busy and needed a break and I took one. But now I view my role so differently that I have a hard time doing anything that doesn't fit into the "productive" category of my brain. There's always something to clean, something to cook, an errand to run, a phone call to make, an e-mail to send.

3. You can be over-committed even as a SAHM. I thought that I'd be so desperate to fill my time that pretty much said yes to every opportunity that showed itself. I realize that I can't do that and keep my sanity.

2. You need a support network. Your spouse needs to understand that you have a very difficult job. You need folks you can call on for a break. I'm blessed to have family so close by. I'm blessed to have a wonderfully supportive husband. Very very blessed.

1. Even though staying home is, in all honesty, a fun and rewarding job, there will still be days when you miss the office. Don't feel guilty for those days.

Weekend Wrap Up

Dave and I knew that this was going to be a marathon weekend - in a good way.

Friday night M.P. spent the night with Huntsville Grandparents. We were supposed to go to one of Dad's 2 work Christmas parties, but we were too tired, so we skipped. Instead we worked on converting half of our bonus room into a playroom for MP.

Saturday morning we had dress rehearsal at our church for our Christmas concert. We had just enough time to recover and eat lunch when the SEC Championship came on. ROLL TIDE!

The Tide was up, but the game was not decided when we jumped in the car to head down for Nana's surprise birthday party. We were able to hear the Tide EMBARRASS Florida on the radio. Happy 29th Birthday Nana! She was surprised and MP had a great time running around.

We were worried about how we were going to entertain MP during a dinner that started at her bedtime. Fortunately MP has gotten very interested in "cooking." So for about 20 minutes, MP stirred water with a spoon in a coffee cup. Dad held the cup while MP cooked. She would occasionally taste her concoction and declare "Mmmm!" or "Hot!"

The highlight of the dinner (aside from seeing family) was the awesome slide show that Uncle B put together. As always, he did a great job.

We hit the road and MP fell asleep around 8:30 - an hour and a half later than usual. We hoped that she would sleep in, and she did sleep until 7:00. We went to church and kept nursery. Then I went grocery shopping while Dad worked some more on the play area.

The concert was at 6:00 last night. I sang in the choir and Dad played trombone. He had a duet with another trombone and they sounded awesome! It was really fun, except that there was no nursery and M.P. was not too happy about not being able to play with Mom and Dad. Thankfully my parents took care of her and took her back to our house for the second half of the concert.

Uncle B joined us for the concert and dinner afterward. A lovely weekend.