Let me state up front that I don't really think I have anything useful to say this week, but I'll post anyway. Yesterday, I went surfing at an old man break about 20 minutes from our house. I've been feeling like surfing more recently - not sure why. Average age of old men at the old man break is about 55. They think it's a little weird to see someone like me paddle out, but they know what's going on when they see how bad I surf. The waves move slowly there, and a shortboarder could never get up. It was fun, although the waves were almost non-existent. The crowd reminded me of the tenor section at I-Wash. A bunch of guys that had been around forever, laughing at each other and making irreverent comments. It was a really laid-back vibe, though, and was fun to talk to them. Surfing has been a good hobby because it doesn't cut into family time that much (just sleep). Normally, I either go before work, or on Saturday morning at about 5:30.

Let me make a few needless comments about the Cougs. It has been nice that they are so bad this year because I am a lot less nervous about the games (Mari thinks it is cute/irrational that Wazzu football games make me pitsweat). Now, with the season pretty much in the tank, it was fun to sit back and watch the Cougs put some other team's season in the tank. My take on this week's performance: they aren't much better than they used to be, but at least they've figured out how to run the offense against a team that will swarm our receivers to take away the pass. I still don't think the Cougs will go to a bowl (if they do, could you please make it the Poinsettia Bowl?) since they would have to finish 3-1 and get some help, but it's still fun to watch the games.

Well, that's about it. Oh, our rented house almost burned down this week.

I am happy to report that I violated my company's dress code this week by wearing flip flops into the office. I know a guy at work who said he'd be going surfing on Friday morning, so I decided to tag along. He was going to a break I consider to be a short-boarder wave, so I decided to just body board. Although he did refer to me as a "sponger" and I got some dirty looks, I had a good time. The issue with going to work after surfing is that it's hard to get from a wetsuit into a worksuit. I decided to just pull on my jeans and shirt, and leave the shoes for when I got to my desk. This was ok, but I did wear my flip flops into the building before changing into company approved shoes.

We had Mom here this week, and had a great time spending time together and talking. I'm glad to have a Mom that I can talk to for a really long time about lots of stuff. One must admit that it's getting pretty bad for Dubya when even Mom has to give ground on issues like Rumsfeld and government spending. The other thing
Mom's visit did was require us to come to terms with our failing Select Comfort bed (the kind with the adjustable air bladder). We bought a new one few years ago when we bought a larger bed for our Pittsburgh house, so we have a queen size one for our guest bed. It's worked fine for a long time, but just recently (when my brother in law came to help us move) it started crapping out. He said he woke up in the middle of the night to find himself in direct contact with the bed boards and most of the air out of the bladder. No matter - I'll just call up these yokels from Minnesota who made the bed in the first place and get them to send me new bladders. Upon closer inspection of the 20 year warranty, however, this appeared to be a fruitless strategy. Although the company spares no expense in advertising the warranty, if you've owned the bed for longer than 2 years, you have to pay 20% of the replacement cost plus 4% for each year since you bought it. If you bought the bed 19 years ago and it breaks, you will pay 96% of the replacement cost. How is this a warranty? We bought the bed 8 or so years ago, so I decided not to waste my time calling them.

I thought originally that the pump mechanism was leaking, but I put a clamp on the air hose that went to Mom's mattress, and it still deflated. The air bladders are rather large, so checking for leaks was a pain. However, when I did (by spraying soap water all over), I found multiple leaks all over both bladders (see picture). I then marked each leak with a crayon, and slathered "GOOP" (a common sealant/adhesive) on the problem areas. This appears to have worked, but I still don't know whether the leaks are a one-time thing or they will continue to spring up periodically. In this age of self-assembling nano-materials and airliner fuselages made from composites, an air-tight mattress bladder doesn't seem like a real tall order. Apparently, though, it is.

Tonight we attended the baptism of one of Jerome's classmates. I was just getting settled into my seat when I saw Jerome file into our row, and noticed that he had his pants on backwards. This was immediately apparent because there are no boys (or mens) pants that have pleats on the butt. I spent a long time trying to figure out how this could have happened. I mean even if you don't notice that they feel funny when you put them on, you still have to reach around behind yourself to zip and button them. Turns out the pants are loose enough that he can just pull them on without unzipping them. It reminds me of when we were living in Philly, and Mari chastised me for putting Asha's pants on backwards. Asha had lots of pants that Mari made, and so there were no helpful tags. "You can always tell where the front is" Mari said "by looking inside at which side has the shorter distance to the center crotch seam". Fine, I thought, I can do this. One day I went to put Asha's pants on her and no matter which way I turned them, it looked like the distance to the seam was exactly the same. They also looked funny both ways, so I gave up. When I protested later to Marie she said "Oh, sorry. I accidentally made those pants with 2 butts".

Note to Cougs: please call me when coach has changed.

Yesterday, we had a full-on party for Asha's 6th birthday. Thanks to Mari's preparation and exhaustive researching of party options, we found party nirvana. At the local gym, the YMCA will run a gymnastics party for a very reasonable sum (less than Chuck E. Cheese, which we hopefully will never use). This involves zero prep on our part, and for an entire hour, and instructor just runs the kids around the gym and has them do exercises on all the equipment. After the kids were good and tired, we herded them into an adjacent rec room, fed them ice cream and cake, opened presents, and we were done. What's more, the kids loved it too (Asha - "I'm the happiest girl in the world"). For the record, I do realize that the YMCA idea is far more expensive than a stocking cap, a knife, a fork, some mittens (preferably sewn together with a long piece of yarn), a pie plate, some dice, and a hershey's bar wrapped 6 layers deep in brown grocery bags.

I always find it interesting when we get directives at work that tell us how to do stuff that we should already know how to do. One such example surfaced about a month ago when we got a "dress code". I will now list many items which I found in the dress code, followed (in parentheses) by the number of times I have seen them in the office:

miniskirts (0)

leggings (0)

shorts (1 - there is this one weird guy in engineering)

midriff shirts (0 ... ok fine 1, but technically, the dude in question just has a
very large midsection, and was not wearing a midriff shirt)

tee-shirts (0)

shirts with advertisements or slogans other than (insert name of my company here) or the shirt manufacturer (0, although the letter of the law dictates that snooty executives that are always showing up with Ralph Lauren-logoed shirts are in
violation, since Ralph Lauren doesn't actually make anything)

tank tops (0)

exercise or similar apparel (0)

sleepwear (0 - I have nodded off once or twice at work before, but I wasn't wearing sleepwear)

hats, visors or other non-religious head coverings (0 - note that in an office where I used to work, a Steeler's stocking cap would qualify as a religious head covering)

flip-flops or beach-type foot wear (0 - see earlier post on how HR tricked some employees into wearing flip flops to a company sales meeting, but that wasn't in the office)
slippers (0 - but that's not a bad idea. Maybe I could also get a smoking jacket)

Recently we also receive the new officially sanctioned company power point template (Yay!). One nugget of advice in the document that came along with the file: "When comparing (my company name) to a competitor, use warm colors to represent (company name) and cooler colors for the competitor." The presentation comes with a palette of acceptable colors to use for representing my company. The fact that we have people who devote time to this level of minutiae is perhaps one reason my company's stock price has tanked so bad this year.

Mom is coming to visit this week, which we are all looking forward to. Although we are done moving in to our house, maybe Mom can Feng Shui it up real nice for us.

Lastly, I found a link for a housing concept we are now considering: click here