Tree's Up!

Usually this is one of my favorite times of the year, putting up and decorating the Christmas tree.  But for some reason this year I am just not in the mood.  Maye it is because I really wanted to put the tree in front of the window this year, but we kept the same tree we have had the past few years.  So once again it got stuck in the back corner of the room.  This year, I decided to tell Sarah and Alison they could be responsible for putting up the tree while I was doing other things, like getting out all the ornaments and cleaning out the space in the basement where all the Christmas stuff belongs.  Ali started and got it about halfway up before I came p and finished putting the tree together.  Then Alison tested out all the lights while I finished things downstairs.  Then it was time for the lights.

This year I started stringing the lights from the top of the tree and worked my way down.  I thought I was good when I was about 2/3 of the way done (if not more) and I was at 1000 lights.  Unfortunately, the lower 1/3 of the tree takes the most lights.  I ended up using all the lights I had, though I don't know if that was 1800 or 2000, I lost count.  Either way the lights were all on by the end of the day Friday.  

So today the girls put on the ornaments.  I told them I didn't care what ornaments went on because we are at the point where the tree is made up mostly of their ornaments.  They put on a few of ours, well I guess more than a few, but they put them all on and arranged them.  That's another reason I wanted to put it in front of the window, we would have had more room for ornaments that we have with the tree in the corner.  Oh well, maybe next year.  

So this year's Hahn Christmas tree is brought to you by Alison and Sarah. 

Indian Invite 2013

Saturday was the first cheer competition of the year.  And when I say competition, I mean performance because as the host school, the Falls was not able to actually compete.  Their routine was just an exhibition.  And it is a good thing.  More on that in a minute.

Alison went on first with the Jr. Indian cheer team.  It was the same routine they did at Jr. Indians night at the football game this year.  They had a couple of crash practices the week before to refresh their memories, and Alison actually had to miss their first one because she had pneumonia.  But they came out and did a pretty good routine.  I'd include the video here, but it was really bad.  I have come to realize that I must have some sort of setting wrong, because the camera is supposed to record in HD, but when I look at it, I can't believe it is HD video.  I think it is probably something relating to the light settings because everything looks really washed out.

So... on to Sarah's routine.  They had one fall, which wasn't bad.  Their routine was not very heavy on the tumbling, which is quite different from last year.  And speaking of last year, one of the other squads, the Falls' main rival in fact, pretty much stole the Falls' routine from last year.  It isn't 100% the same but I would say it is about 75%-80% identical.  Sarah said something about it to me and I had to say, there is a reason they stole it, it was a winner.  I think that Sarah's squad took 1st place in all but one competition last year.  But back to the critique of their routine...  It wasn't bad, but I don't think it is as good as last year.  If they actually were competing, I wouldn't have scored them very high.  Sarah told me that they would have been in the Small JV category, and I was comparing them to the Large JV category.  I didn't pay much attention to the other small JV teams so I can't really say where they would have finished, but I'll go out on a limb and say it wouldn't have been first.  Their team was also down two girls who were concussed and were not allowed to compete.  One of the girls got kicked in the head at practice by her flyer and was still dealing with the post concussion symptoms, and the other girl just fell and hit her head, if I remember what Sarah said.

The Varsity, however, is another story.  They were awful!  I think I counted them falling six times in addition to other flubs.  I was actually embarrassed to say I was from the Falls.  I shouldn't since it wasn't my daughter messing up, but I seriously felt horrible for them.  I hear things from Sarah that I won't go into because I don't know who might come across this review, but if what she says is true, it doesn't surprise me.

So now on to the next competition, which is Dec. 7th, the UCA qualifier.  Why they compete I don't know because even if they earn a bid to nationals, the JV team doesn't go.  From what Sarah told me last year, if they get a bid, the Varsity ends up taking it, which doesn't make sense to me.  But hopefully they'll perform well, and use the Indian Invite as a stepping stone to getting better.

Garage Door

This past summer we ran into a problem with our garage door.  For a couple of weeks the electric eye wasn't working.  So we were unable to close the garage door with the remotes.  It would close, but you had to hold the button in the garage until the door was all the way down.  The remotes still worked to open the door so I dealt with having to get out of the car to close it.  Well that lasted for about a week and a half or two weeks, and suddenly the electric eye started working again, so I just left it.

I want to say it was sometime around the end of September that the eye went out again.  After a week or two, I decided that the eye was broken and I needed to get a new one.  I did hit it last winter with the snowthrower so I figured that it just took that long for the thing to finally give out.  I pulled out the instruction manual to see if I could order spare parts (it is a Genie), and there was a section for doing that, however, the only part not included was the electric eye.  Seriously, why would I need to order a spare track for the door arm, but they don't feel it necessary to include the electric eye.  So I got the 800 number to call and see if I could get a replacement, and I couldn't even get past the automated messages unless I had the model number and serial number of the door (which is located behind some panel up on the motor.  I was calling during the day from work, so I had to wait until I got home to get it.  Unfortunately, I was busy with other things when I got home and I never got around to getting the ladder out and taking the panel off.

That was back in the middle of October, because I was still working at Krueger at the time.  With the cold weather that just got here, I decided I needed to get on it.  I thought I would try looking on the Genie website and seeing if I could just order it online.  Well they didn't even list my model on their site.  As a last resort I just searched replacement Genie garage door parts.  It took me about 60 seconds to find a place to order a replacement electric eye, and in all places, Amazon.  And it only cost me $15 + shipping.  The part got here last Friday and I took the old eye and receptor out and put the new ones in in about 10 minutes.  It's working as good as new now, which is nice because it would have really sucked having to get out of the car in the snow yesterday to close the garage door before going to work.  I could kick myself for not just searching for the part online first. 

Plumbing Woes

When it comes to doing home improvement projects there are certain things that I just cannot stand doing, mainly because I suck at them.  Number one would be electrical work, either because I am afraid I'll shock myself, or I will end up wiring something wrong and end up causing a fire.  But a close second would be plumbing work, which was the main reason I hired someone to redo out bathroom.

However, Sunday morning Kris called me to the bathroom after she was done with her shower.  The tub was probably a good 3 to 4 inches deep in standing water.  I immediately thought that the girls had not put the hair strainer  in place and there was a big hair clog in there.  I tried snaking it a little bit but I didn't get anything up, so at 9:30 Sunday morning I had to go to Home Depot to look for Drano.  I was hesitant to pour it in, because if it didn't work, I was going to have a tub full of caustic chemicals.  But I did it anyway.  And as expected, it didn't work.  So I was forced to take the access panel off and take the trap apart.

I had to reach in and close the drain to keep the tub from draining while I cleaned out the pipes.  Well, unfortunately, there was no clog in the trap.  So I went from the trap back to the drain, also no clog.  So I determined that the clog was past the trap which required taking even more pipes apart to snake them. 

This was all a result (in my opinion) of the contractor not doing what I wanted with the drain.  We had a fixed, pop-up drain previously that I hated because the drain would always get clogged with the girls' hair, and I could never snake it.  And because of the pop-up drain, I couldn't use one of those plastic hair strainers.  I had asked for just a plain, flat drain, but Kris had also asked to get a drain that matched the bath fixtures so we ended up with another pop-up drain.  At least I was able to find a tub strainer, but the slits in it are bigger than I would like and I think a lot of hair still goes down the drain.

Anyway, having the access panel off at least also allowed me to finally fix another flaw that the contractor left us, that being he did not seal the bathtub overflow pipe.  Shortly after he finished We ended up with water all over because the overflow pipe leaked.  So since September no one had been able to take a bath.  I found this out all by mistake though as I was trying to fix the clog in the tub.  I was trying to go though the overflow pipe to snake the drain so I had to take the cover off which is when I found out that there was no gasket around it.  

At least now, the pipes are all clean and sealed, and it only took me 5 hours.  And at least it was less painful than watching the Packers game yesterday.

Halloween Update

Sarah finally gave me pictures if their cheer practice so if you want to see what she did for Halloween, go back and check out the Halloween post.

First Illness of the Season

November is only half over and we already have our first illness of the winter.  Alison came down with a cold earlier in the week on Tuesday.  She had testing that day as well as having it be her first day of phy ed for the semester which meant she was getting her locker assignment.  Against my better judgement I let her just take some ibuprofen and go to school.  By the end of the day she had a fever of almost 102.  So she stayed home Wednesday and Thursday.  

When Kris got home from work Thursday afternoon, Ali's temperature was over 104, so Kris called the doctor.  She was able to get the last appointment of the day at around 7:40 PM.  Her doctor said he heard her coughing in the waiting area and that she didn't sound good.  He listened extra long to her lungs and ordered a chest x-ray because he thought he heard a touch of pneumonia and wanted to make sure.  He looked at the x-ray and said it looked suspicious, but he couldn't tell for sure and the x-ray tech had gone home for the day and wouldn't be able to read the film until morning.  

Kris got the call the next day that Alison did indeed have pneumonia again.  I think that is the 4th time in the last five years she has developed pneumonia.  One other thing the doctor said was that he thought he heard a touch of asthma in Ali's breathing, and that it isn't uncommon to develop it because of the pneumonia scarring the lungs a little bit.  So that is something we will have to keep an eye on.  The tech that Kris talked to also told her that unfortunately the more you get pneumonia, the more susceptible you are to it.  So now we'll have to be very careful every time that Alison gets a cold to make sure it doesn't develop into pneumonia again.

As of this morning, though, her fever is gone and she is feeling much better after having a couple of days of antibiotics in her system.  She still has a cough, but hopefully the inhaler and antibiotics will help clear that up quickly.

Cheer Preview

Thursday night after Sarah's cheerleading practice we had a special preview of the girls' routine.  Their first "competition" of the year is this coming Saturday.  it isn't an actual competition because it is their own competition (the Indian Invite) so they can only perform as an exhibition.  The coaches asked the parents to come see their routine and learn the cheers so that we can help by cheering along.  Apparently the judges award points based on crowd participation so obviously we are going to want to help out be cheering along.

I have to say that from what I saw, they are going to need our help this year.  Their routine, in my opinion, leaves a little to be desired.  Last year's routine was much better.  This year there is less tumbling, their cheer doesn't have a lot of rhythm to it, and their dance routine is sort of simplistic.  Sarah said they have adjusted it already from what it originally was, and they will probably tweak it a little more before their first actual competition, but I don't think they'll have the same amount of success as they had last year, unfortunately.  I hope they can improve things enough to at least be respectable. 

Christmas Prep

On Sunday I had to run to the hardware store to look for a replacement fuel line for the large snowblower (that's another story all together).   While I was there I took a walk through the Christmas section.  The reason being that I was thinking I need to replace the lights on my Christmas tree.  With the number of lights that I put on, the room gets heated to the point where the furnace won't go on, and then the rest of the house is freezing.  

Last year I was looking at LED lights instead of the mini incandescent lights, and a string of 100 was something like $20 a string.  I think I figured it would have been about $500 to replace all the lights on the tree, which is quite ridiculous.  Well the price hasn't come down all the much.  I think I might wait a couple of weeks and see if they go on sale at all.  A string of 100 regular lights was $2.50.  So is it worth paying almost 10 times more in the long run?  I suppose they won't ever burn out, so replacement costs won't be anything, but I just don't know if I can justify spending that much on lights for the tree.  Maybe if we rearrange the room, I can put it in front of the window and away from the thermostat and that will solve the problem without having to break the bank for new lights.

I Hate Leaves

It is an unavoidable nuisance of autumn, having to rake leaves.  And luckily for me, my trees don't drop their leaves at the same time.  The maple tree closest to the house in the backyard starts dropping them about the second week of October, and the one closest to the fence about a week later.  And they usually drop for about a week.  That doesn't include the tress in the front yard near the street.

This year we are about a week later than usual.  I got all the leaves up from the first tree the week before Halloween and I was just waiting for the leaves from the big tree in back to fall.  Then came the rain and wind on Halloween.  It knocked half the leaves off in the backyard and all the leaves in the front were falling and blown around. Of course the village came around to collect leaves on November 1st, when no one had their leaves raked up from the rain that came through on Halloween.  So of course everyone raked them into the street the next day or two when it was dry, me included.  

Over the course of the week, we had even more fall so to help me out, Sarah and Kris raked the yard on Friday when she was home from school, so most everything was in the street when I got home on Friday night.  Then Saturday we had more rain and winds gusting to 30-35 mph.  It was like they never raked at all, and to make things worse, it was like all the leaves up and down the street ended up in my yard.  In fact, there were no piles of leaves left on the opposite side of the street.  

So I ended up spending three hours on Sunday re-raking and using the yard vac to get them all up again and back into the street.  As a result, I missed the first half of the Packers game vs. the Eagles, though I didn't miss anything.  So now I have the biggest piles of leaves on the block in front of my house. The pile is about 15 feet long and 3 and a half feet high. I am not sure when the village is going to be collecting them again, but tomorrow and Thursday it is supposed to be rainy and windy, which means there is at least a 50-50 chance that they'll be all over my yard again.  Of course, the village will come collecting them the day after.  With any luck it'll be so cold that they'll be frozen and the wind won't move them.

Furniture Shopping

Last week Kris and I decided that we have had enough of the couch in our living room.  We've been living with it broken for about the last two years, and it just kills your back to sit on it.  So yesterday we decided to go looking for a new couch and chair, or a love seat.  This is the perfect time too, because in just a couple of weeks, it'll be time to put up the Christmas tree.  If we can decide on a new couch, maybe I can move the tree into the front of the room in front of the window.

The problem is that with our room size and the placement of the windows and the traffic patterns in the room, there is not a lot that we can do as far as arrangement.  The salesman at the store that we were talking to informed us that he was an architect (who couldn't find a job in his field) so he helped us out with possible arrangements.  With that in mind we went browsing and after about 30-40 minutes we had a couple of styles sort of picked out, but nothing that we loved.  Then just as we were about to go home and give it some thought, we saw one style that looked pretty good.  I wasn't wild about it at first but as we were talking about it with the salesman it started to grow on me.  After about 10 minutes I thought that it would probably work as far as the colors went, it was just a matter of being able to fit it into the space.  Kris took a picture of the description on her phone so we had all the dimensions and when we got home I tried sketching things out on my computer to see if we would be able to arrange things in the room.  

The salesman told us about a sale they are going to be having coming up that was even better than the promotion they were running this past week.  We still have to discuss things a little bit, but we may end up going back this week to order something.

Teacher Conferences

It's that time of the year again.  We are halfway through the fall semester and that means the girls have a couple of days off and Kris and I get to go to teacher conferences.  We had Sarah's scheduled for Wednesday and Alison's for Thursday so that Kris and I could attend both.  Sarah is doing quite well in her classes so far, so it isn't like we really needed to go for any particular reason.  I think we really more or less wanted to see if her teachers had any concerns with how Sarah has been doing.

All of her teachers said she was doing fine (the one's we met with - we didn't meet with all of them). They all asked about what she was thinking about as far as a career when she goes to college.  So far she is insisting doing something with forensic science (because she watches all the CSI/Crimial Minds/NCIS shows).  We've tried to explain to her that real forensic science is nothing like you see on TV.  And Wednesday night, her biology teacher told her the same thing.  We're trying to get her to explore options that would still keep the same type of work, but not exactly the forensic stuff you see on TV.  Her biology teacher gave a few suggestions and we are trying to steer her in the right direction as far as the classes she is taking, or going to be taking.  We're hoping she ends up making a good choice.

Alison's conferences were on Thursday.  Her reports were just as good as Sarah's (in fact I think hers were probably better).  Alison has been trying very hard to get all A's this year and so far she is doing a good job.  Her teachers had nothing but good things to say about her performance so far.  Ali's teachers all told us that she has made a very good transition to middle school.  We pointed out that she had to transfer schools because of being re-districted in third grade so she's got experience with transitioning schools.  Ali also pointed out that since she has been to the middle school so much when Sarah was going there, she already knows where most everything is and is very comfortable.

So congratulations girls on some pretty stellar conferences.

Trick Or Treat

This year we had no children to go trick or treating.  I suppose we need to get used to it.  I think that the last time Sarah actually went trick or treating she was in 6th grade, but she was at a Halloween party at a friend's house.  Well that is what Alison did this year.  She went over to a friend's house after school and went trick or treating over there.  Kris asked Ali's friend's mom to at least take a picture of her in her costume.  

Our trick or treating hours were from 5:30 - 7:30.  It had rained most of the day but then there was a break right around the time trick or treating started.  Then at about 6:45 or so the sky just opened up.  I think we might have had one person after the rain started.

Sarah had cheerleading practice on Halloween so she couldn't do anything.  I don't think she would have done anything except maybe give out candy anyway.  But her coach did let them wear costumes for practice.  Sarah was a cow.  I think she has a picture somewhere, but I need to get it from her.  There may be some more with the other girls on her squad too.  As soon as I find one or two, I'll update this post.

When Alison got home, she was very cranky.  She was soaking wet, and very uncomfortable in her costume.  She forgot some of her things at her friend's house, she face make-up wouldn't come off when she was cleaning up.  It was horrible.  I wonder if she is going to want to go again next year?  

UPDATE

Here are Sarah's pictures from her cheer practice.

Note: The final picture is a combination of the JV and the Varsity squads.

Status Report

Well I have been at my new job for a little over a week so far and I am enjoying things so far.  I am on a "training program" that was set up to help me learn the whole plastic extrusion process from start to finish.  I started out working the first week in the quality department so that I could see the types of issues that the company faces on a daily basis.  I think it is helpful since these are the sorts of problems I am going to be looking at eliminating.  I was also able to see some of the paperwork that they are required to complete.  I have to say that after ten years, it is refreshing to see a formal process for doing things from the time raw material comes in the door until it leaves as a finished product.  And I couldn't be happier to finally work with other engineers again who know how engineering work is supposed to go.  It makes me think that I was stupid for waiting for so long to move on from my previous job.

This week I have been working in "blending", which is actually mixing the specific plastic that will be extruded.  It is very interesting.  It starts out as a powder, and actually looks like a fine sand before being put into an extruder for pelletizing, which is the form the plastic takes before going into the extruders for final forming.

Tomorrow is my last day doing blending (I think) and I don't know what the next area in my rotation will be.  But so far I think I made the right choice and I am enjoying learning all about plastics.