Ol’ Rafter

We’ve been dogsitting a 10-year-old Lab/Golden Retriever this weekend named Rafter. From what Elise told me, Maly was sitting at the office window for the better part of Friday afternoon, waiting for Rocio to drop Rafter off. I got home from work around 7 p.m. and was quickly and excitedly greeted by the dog. He’s been nothing short of a good ol’ dog since he’s been with us. He reminds me of the days as a boy growing up with dogs around.

This morning we all took him for a walk to Starbuck’s. Everyone took the trek well, despite the cold weather. There was plenty of sniffing and peeing along the way, and the dog stopped to pee every once in a while, too. I think he takes well to our house as well. I find the humor in him walking through the kitchen and, with his tail wagging, knocking the drawings off of the refrigerator. Maly has come to terms with Rafter’s going home tomorrow. After she went to bed tonight, he followed me around the house — from the kitchen to the living room. Back to the kitchen and then to the office. When I’d park at my desk in the office, Rafter would park at the doorway, quietly waiting to follow me wherever I might go next.

He’s been a good companion to have around the house, even if it’s just for the weekend. I’m thinking come Monday, Maly’s going to ask, “Daddy, when can we have a doggy like Rafter?”

“Whenever you learn to sell live felines on eBay, Sugar.”

Midwestern prophecy

“Would YOU want to move back to Iowa?”

“Maybe under certain circumstances.”

“Like global warming?”

“Like if you died.”

“…”

Garage rock

One of the personal highlights of this Christmas for yours truly was receiving a rock tumbler from my in-laws. Yes, I’m excited about a rock tumbler. I’m excited because it means a new tradition for Maly and me. Elise’s maternal grandfather spent years and years collecting and polishing rocks. And hundreds of these polished rocks live in a large bowl at the Boeckman house. I wish I could have had the opportunity to meet Grandpa Thurston and hear some of the stories of where some of those rocks were found. Maly loves to play with those rocks when we visit Boppa and Gran. She likes to look at all of them and pick out the ones that she finds prettiest. So, over the past year or so, when we find a cool rock, we pick it up and keep it. And we put them in the porcelain turtle that Maly painted for me in Cabo for Father’s Day.

So I finally got a rock tumbler. On Saturday evening, Maly and I went for a walk around the block. We “borrowed” a couple rocks from a neighbor’s xeriscaped yard to add to our collection. I told Maly that once this set is polished, we’d have to return the rocks to the owners. I’m hoping they’ll let us keep a couple because we picked out a couple really cool purple rocks.

I’m hoping this will mean a new tradition for Maly and me, where we can go on deliberate or accidental rock hunts and be able to remember where we found our jewels years later.

Bohemian rock tumbler mufflerLast night we took the rocks we’ve collected, plus half the bag of “sample rocks” that came with the tumbler, and started our first batch of rocks to polish. The whole process takes about a month, the current, first round lasting 4 days with coarse grit and water. The tumbler is working loudly in the garage as I type this. This afternoon we (neighbors included) unanimously decided that the tumbler is a little too loud, so I built an insulated box to muffle the racket.

I’m looking forward to the finished product, plus lots of rocks hunts in the future, and hopefully a huge collection of polished jewels and memories.

Tinker or Beau

Generally I get Maly ready for bed every night. We’ll eat dinner, play for a while, take a bath, put on pajamas and read a book before it’s time to go to bed. A few weeks ago, after I read a book to Maly, she asked me to tell her a story. Usually midway through the book we’re reading, I go into retired mode. When she asked me to tell her a story, the request caught me a little off guard. She loves animals, so I thought I’d tell her a story about my childhood pets.

I told her about Beau and Tinker. When I was a young boy, we had a little beagle named Tinker, and a yellow lab named Beau. Those were my childhood companions – the dogs that every little boy should have growing up. We played all kinds of games together. They were my soldiers in my army. They were the monsters when I needed a foe. They were my travel companions when I needed to explore. They were my guardians when I needed help in the real world.

I don’t remember what all I told Maly about my companions, but I know I told her about how their lives ended. Tinker was shot on the side of the road and we had to have the vet put her down. Beau, who was an old yeller in every since of the word, was attacked by coyotes and his last proverbial leg wasn’t strong enough to hold him up and longer. Beau was the one that caught copperheads and rattlesnakes. He was the one who crushed armadillos in his jaws. He was the one who was always by my side.

Maly knows that her dad had two dogs as a boy. Beau and Tinker.

On another recent nightly bedtime ritual, asked Maly what she wanted to ask Santa to bring her for Christmas. She leaned up in her bed, carefully held up three fingers and said, “three kitten toys! Oh, and a doggy toy. Like Copper from Fox & Hound.” Well, Santa and I had actually been texting each other earlier that evening and he told me that Maly had too many kitten toys already, but the dog toy might not be a bad idea.

I picked up a little stuffed beagle toy from the local toy store a couple evenings later. I thought about getting her a stuffed Copper, but decided against it. I know the Disney empire is hurting and all, but I wanted to give her something that I picked out; something of a reflection of me and my childhood.

Fast forward to Christmas morning. I have learned two things this year: 1) When the child reaches the age of 3.5 years old, she gets the concept of Christmas morning gifts and 2) the child excitedly screaming, “I GOT A PUPPY DOG!!!” from the side of your bed on Christmas morning is one of the sweetest sounds I think I’ve heard since I heard my wife say, “I do.”

Over the past four days, Maly has had that little stuffed beagle closely in-tow. For the first couple days, she called her dog Tinker. Just yesterday, I was informed that the dog’s new name in Beau. Either way, I’m glad she likes it. I’ll be curious as to what the dog’s name is when I get home this evening.

I think I just might put a bug in her ear about getting a real dog. Someday.

How great concepts materialize

About a month ago John posted a link to an interesting video on the growing rate of national unemployment from January 2007 to October 2009:

[flv width=”400″ height=”300″]http://www.janicek.com/01dz/panhandle_iowa/Unemployment_rates_by_county.flv[/flv]

Then there was a conversation on Facebook:

And then we went into production, all within the same day:

A Sunday with the Zombie Eater

I just put Maly down for bed. I don’t know if it’s the time of year, my subconscious is telling me to cherish these moments right now, the fact that we had a a great day together, or PMS.

The weekend started out on somewhat of a low note. I got up extra early on Friday and booked it to work. I was the first person in the office and I was ready to get everything done and get out by noon so I could do some Christmas shopping. Well, that never happened. I’d expected this to be a slow week at the office and it’s been anything but. I got home around 6 p.m. that evening and had to keep working until 11 p.m., after having dinner and casual conversation with the Zombie Eater.

On Saturday I’d planned on getting things done around the house, like finishing the Christmas lights, cleaning the cars, putting stuff on craigslist — just getting things done. Instead I went with the girls to run errands and have lunch. We went to the post office, Home Depot, Bed, Bath, Bird Feeders, Bark Mulch, Tire, Lube & Beyond, the toy store, Lowe’s, and probably a few other places. That pretty much took up the better part of the afternoon and evening. I put Maly to bed and then we watched “Terminator XXIVO5 – Rebuttal of the Automated Teller Machine”, you know, the one where it’s man versus machine, things blow up, Guns ‘n’ Roses playing in the background, grrrrr, motorcycle, “I’ll be back” and the fate of the world is yet to be determined. Awesome movie.

This morning Elise and Maly went to church. I stayed home and worked on Christmas lights. After the girls got home, Elise informed me that she needed to clean the house because the housekeeper is coming tomorrow. To clean the house.

So I talked Maly into going on a walk. We walked our usual walk to the mailbox, which is a few blocks away, but this time, we just kept walking. We went exploring in the woods south of Slaughter. We threw rocks into the “Turkey Bowl” rain reservoir/ad-hoc skate park and we discussed the dangers of snakes that hide under rocks and logs. At one point, Maly said, “Daddy, will you hold my hand?” I obliged and asked why. She told me she was a little scared.

We walked around for 20 minutes more and came across a concrete wall. Maly walked up on the wall and fell a good three feet, flat on her face. She fought back the urge to cry, picked herself up and brushed herself off. After that, I knew she was probably tired, so we started heading back toward the house. We came across a huge branch that had fallen out of a big oak tree. We stopped and had a riveting conversation about ball moss. Then we started our trek back to the house. About half-way there, Maly told me she was tired, so I gave her a piggy back ride all the way back home.

Once we got home, I washed the cars and Elise and Maly went back to church for a story reading. By the time they got back, both cars were cleaned and the Christmas lights on the house were done. Elise went back to cleaning the house, so Maly and I went for a couple rides on the PlasmaCars, and then for another walk, this time just to the mailboxes to get yesterday’s mail.

Whenever Maly and I go on walks, I test her on her house number, street address, city, state and her mom and dad’s names. Tonight we talked about how stranger equals danger. She even asked, “So Daddy, are strangerous dangerous?”

Tonight before bed I told Maly that I was only going to go into the office a few days this week. I then went on to tell her that Daddy was going to the movies with friends tomorrow night. She excitedly asked if she could go with us. I told her that this movie was about aliens. I had to tiptoe around explaining what aliens were just before putting my baby to bed.

I couldn’t have asked for a better day today, even if I had the all the power in the world to plan it myself.

Thanksgiving 2009 roundup

Thanksgiving has again come and gone. This year my mom came up to spend the day with us. I got caught up with work late on Wednesday afternoon (office closed at 2, I don’t think I left until around 6). I came home and mom and Elise ran out to do some shopping. Maly excitedly told me she wanted to ride PlasmaCars, to which I had to oblige. Twenty minutes into our ride, I got a call from a client in L.A. so I had to go back to work (from home, of course). Maly is such a good girl when Elise or I am on the phone. Maly was quick to point out after I got off the phone, “Daddy, you’re not done with work? We’re supposed to ride PlasmaCars!”

Elise and mom came home a few hours later and we had a great roast that Elise had been slow-cookin’ in the crock pot all day. Then mom and I made desserts for the Thanksgiving dinner the next day. Mom made a custard pie, I made a pumpkin cheesecake.

On Turkey day we had a great meal over at the Heisterman’s with all the fixins. It was great to spend time over a meal with neighbors we like to consider family.

7 p.m. came quick and mom, Elise, Maly and I darted across the street so we (me) could watch the UT vs. A&M game. What a game that was. The Aggie’s put up a good fight and made for one of the most exciting games that I’ve watched this season.

Friday morning Elise, Maly and I loaded up and headed out for our annual trip to Okeene, Oklahoma for the Boeckman family Thanksgiving. Maly did fantastic in the car. It wasn’t until it started getting dark when she started getting antsy and wanted to know, “are we there yet are we there yet are we there yet?!?!”

We pulled up to the farmhouse right at 6 p.m., just in time for fried catfish. We visited with family for a few hours before Elise and I headed back to the swanky Okeene Motel while Maly stayed back and had a sleepover with Boppa and Gran.

Elise and I got up on Saturday morning and headed back to the farmhouse. We snacked (dumb idea before a Boeckman Thanksgiving feast), Maly played on the swing and I took some shots of the Boeckman farm. Then it was time to EAT! Turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed taters, green bean casserole… you know, the whole nine. Then we watched a pretty uneventful OU vs. OSU game, and a similarly uneventful Florida vs. FSU game, and then a nail biter of a Mizzou vs. Kansas game. Then some sort of tile game with numbers, I don’t remember the name of said game, but I pretty much sucked at it, so after I won a game, I declared my self Grand Champion of Awesome Tile Game and quickly retired.

On Sunday morning, we headed back to the farmhouse (Maly in-tow this time, she wanted to stay with us at the hotel on Saturday night) for breakfast, and then we hit the road back to Texas. The leg back to Texas is always the long one – everyone’s heading home on Sunday and the traffic in the Ft. Worth area is always congested. We made our way west of I-35, through the towns of Burleson, Joshua (yes!), Cleburne and Hico until we finally got into familiar territory, and then finally home!

Alas, another long, roady Thanksgiving weekend. Always good to spend time with family!

Best of selling stuff online

Elise and I bought our current house six years ago. John & Christine moved out of their rental house and into their first house in Austin around the same time. During our mutual moves, I got John’s L-shaped desk on permanent loan until he needed it back. He was helping me out by furnishing our home office. I was helping him out by providing free storage until he needed the desk and accompanying cabinets. Last week, John needed his office furniture back. So that was our excuse to go out and get new office furniture. Getting new office furniture meant that we had to paint the office again. Painting the office meant that we had to move most everything out of the office. Moving everything meant that I found a bunch of stuff to get rid of.

I couldn’t tell you the last time I sold something on eBay. I don’t think I’ll ever sell anything on eBay again. eBay’s a pain in the ass. Listing a single item takes too long in that you have to fill out so many forms, then you have to pay a listing fee, final value fee (at least I did the last time I sold something) and then you have to deal with potential buyer questions and, worst of all, shipping. When you factor in all of the above, it’s not worth the time to sell a single item every once in a while on eBay.

If I have something that I need to sell these days, I’ll approach my immediate personal network first (friends, neighbors, etc.) If I don’t get a quick response, I’ll take 5 minutes and snap a few good photos and write a good, honest description of the item I’m selling and post it on craigslist. Austin has a fantastic craiglist community and I’ve had a great overall experience both buying and selling there.

When we were cleaning out the office, I found a couple old hard drives and a wireless router that I’d been hoarding for years. I decided to take photos of them with my phone and sell them. Here are the items I listed:

$15 Seagate 120GB ATA hard drive
$15 Maxtor 160GB SATA hard drive
$10 Netgear 802.11g wireless router

And then the craigslist community turned into one that nearly rivals eBay’s. I’ve had people email me who want me to take detailed photos of one of the hard drives. One gentleman emailed me and asked for my home phone number so we could run a series of tests on the wireless router. I had to bite my lip and not respond immediately. I took Elise’s advice and politely wrote the gentleman back and stated: “you have my money back guarantee that the router works.

The moral of the story: spend your spare time reading the “Best of craigslist” and just horde your junk. You’ll be happier that way.

The end of the sabbatical

I haven’t written on the website in a really long time — two months, in fact. I have a really good reason for having not written, and when I figure out what that reason is, I’ll write about it and post it here.

Writing has always been very therapeutic for me, and it’s a way for me maintain my sense of wit and humor in a world that’s otherwise told me that my abs are flabby and and I need to refinance the house. I’m not one for New Years resolutions, or any form or resolution, but my thoughts are to just start writing again. Life happens and, before you know it, it starts slipping away from us all, undocumented. I have a terrible memory, so I used to write about our lives’ happenings here. It’s always fun to browse the Janicek.com archives to see what we were doing on this date 5 (or however many) years ago. In fact, this time 6 years ago, we were shopping for the house that we still live in. And 7 years ago, we bought Elise’s Jeep (that is now my daily commuter). And 8 years ago around this time I lost my first job out of college at the tail-end of the dot-com fallout.

I updated Janicek.com’s theme this evening. For a few years I tried to make money by serving ads here on the site. You’ll be impressed with the fact that over those years, I amassed enough advertising revenue to buy a starter pack of ab-intensifying topical cream from a late night infomercial. I think it looks so much better without all of the ads (I’m still talking about my stomach muscles here). I can’t seem to figure out how to get the monthly archives to properly display over there to the right of your screen, but I’m sure I’ll be able to figure that out soon enough. In the meantime, you can always watch my 2002 episode of “Cribs”, which was shot when we were recently married and still poor from our days as a dot-com ex-employee and a beer cart girl.

So lots of cool things have happened in years past, none of which are referenced above. My hopes and aspirations are to focus more on important topics, like raising an almost-four-year-old daughter, duck herding, and the other truly important things in life.