0600:

iPhone alarm wakes me with “Sonar”. I get out of bed, put on yesterday’s clothes and check Thomas’ room. His alarm clock is rumbling but he is not in his room. I wander around the house looking for him until I find him in bed with his Grandma. I wake him. I take my iPhone into the Big TV Room where I check mail, Twitter and Facebook.

0615:

I confirm that Thomas is showering and then check Graham’s car to see if the glue has completely dried overnight. It has, so I sit down and apply a layer of wood putty to cover the shot pellets that will provide most of the car’s weight.

0650:

Thomas has eaten breakfast and has his lunch ready. I wake Graham and ask him if he needs a shower today. He replies that he doesn’t. Thomas and I depart for HB Lee middle school and I drop him off as his orchestra teacher arrives. On my way home I stop in for a large mocha but opt for only 3 shots instead of 4. Extra shots make me shaky.

0710:

I check on Graham when I get home and discover that he is still sleeping. When I wake him he is alarmed and says that he thought he could go back to sleep when I asked if he needed to shower. He gets up and has breakfast.

0725:

Graham and I drive to Margaret Scott Elementary. We beat the rush of dropoffs and I’m out of there in less than five minutes.

0730:

Shower, brush teeth and get dressed. Review daily to-do list, calendar, email and Tivo schedule.

0800:

Cued up a few episodes of Coverville and Drugmusic in iTunes. Started work.

1000:

Make breakfast: toast with sugar free jelly and a small glass of milk. Installed new stick of butter in butter dish from freezer for use tomorrow.

1100:

Sanded now-dry wood putty on Graham’s car.

1230:

Had Tina mask off the “neck” of Graham’s car and applied first coat of black paint to the top of the “body.”

1300:

Lunch. Leftover Papa Murphy’s from last night. Decided to eat it cold. Reddit and Digg reading while I ate.

1330:

Back to work.

1430:

Normally I would pick up Graham from the bus stop, but Tina decided that she wanted to walk there. It is several blocks away but she assures me she will be fine.

1500:

After a brief search for pinewood derby car painting rack, I made a new one (board, nail and hole in the back of the car). Applied second coat on top and first coat on the bottom. Set Graham to polishing axels and deburring the wheels.

1600:

Graham fell asleep in his bed. I peel the masking tape off the car and spray a coat of clear gloss finish. Thomas works on his axels and wheels before also falling asleep.

1700:

I finish Graham’s wheels and look for the graphite. Not finding it after a frenzied search, I start off for the hardware store to buy a new tube. Several blocks away I realize that I don’t have my wallet, although I swear I had it in my sweatshirt pocket. I return home and fail to find it in another frenzied search. I borrow $20 from Tina and head off to the hardware store again. Upon arriving at said store, I check on the floor of the back seat behind me and find wallet.

1800:

I painstakingly glue together the “pencil lead” weight that I bought at Joe’s the other day. These ideas always seem so much better before they are actually implemented. Graham is awake but feeling lousy. He won’t be attending weigh-in or school tomorrow.

1830:

Graham’s car could use another coat of glossy but there is no time: Weigh-in is from 1830 to 1930. Thomas and I glue on the axels and double-check weight. Graham’s car is over slightly so I clip off some of his “string” weight.

1900:

Thomas and I depart. I drop him off at his Boy Scout meeting and take both cars to the weigh-in. Thomas’ weighs in at 4.9 ounces (had been 4.95 on our scale) and Graham’s is a perfect 5.0. The glue is still wet but had dried enough so that the “strings” did not fall off when the scale guy flipped it upside down for the weighing.

1915:

I text Tina “I’m done” and head back to the Scout meeting. She calls and asks if I can pick up a thermometer. I drive to Walgreen’s and buy same before dropping back in on the Scouts.

2030:

Thomas and I return home from Scout meeting. I scrounge up dinner (I had missed spaghetti earlier while working on the car) and settle in for an hour of Rachel Maddow.

2200:

Bedtime

Graham continues to get seriously into listening to music. Mostly he listens to They Might Be Giants and The Bobs, but he still asks me for a Song of the Day every few days. He’s proud that he has learned the words to many TMBG songs.

Thomas is still very interesting in learning how to program computers. He found a bug in one of the examples in the Logo book I got for him and has decided that fixing the bug will be his first test. He spends a lot of time in his room playing Runescape, an online role-playing game, with his friends. Occasionally, he’ll move over and play his bass for awhile. I love that he does it for enjoyment.

Tina and I have gone back to Phase I of the South Beach diet and have started losing weight again. Last week I lost 4 lbs. and feel confident that I’ll be up to 60 lbs. lost soon. Tina’s already there. We’ve decided we’re not celebrating until we get to 75 lbs.

This weekend Thomas and I were supposed to go camping with his Boy Scout troop, but somebody messed up on the reservations. Instead, they are having three consecutive day camps at a nearby park. The next weekend, Thomas and I are biking out to Oxbow Park with the troop for another weekend of camping. It’s about a 14 mile ride, so it will be interesting to see how all the boys handle it. They’re young so they should be fine.

In a few weeks, Critical Path is moving offices. The new office is just across the street from us.

If you don’t have QuickTime, I also put the movies on YouTube:

• Graham celebrating his first win
• Preliminary heat: Graham
• Preliminary heat: Thomas
• Championship Heat 1
• Championship Heat 2
• Championship Heat 3

As I watched them cavort in the snow, I remembered the first time my hands got really, really cold. It was probably the first winter on my paper route and my gloves (or mittens) were horribly inadequate. I came home with very cold fingers and my mom had me put them under running water to thaw them out. I remember screaming that the water was too hot and my mom telling me that it was cold water. After that I always wore a pair of snowmobile mittens over another pair of gloves.

Much to our surprise the snow was still on the ground this morning and school as first delayed and then cancelled altogether. Thomas and Graham were outside for quite awhile before their play devolved into a fight. Graham had to come in and stay in his room and Thomas wasn’t far behind.

I decided to stay home, too. I’m going to try to divert attention away from the Wii this afternoon and toward Pinewood Derby cars. The race is on the 21st and we have not even started!

Bike odometer: 6041 miles
Current reading: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
Recent listening: Dreamboat Annie, Copperhead Road, Rainy Day Music, Throw Down Your Arms
Recent viewing: Paycheck, Bulls at Heat, Nuggets at Clippers, Pacers at Nets, Lakers at Suns, Bucks at Pistons, Memphis at Dallas, Wizards at Cavaliers
Recent playing: Poker Room
Recently Accomplished: Fixed Graham’s Pinewood Derby car (glued front axle), mowed lawn, paid bills
Imperative To Do: Bike repairs, get watch fixed

1. If I’m looking for an early 90s vintage small truck, which makes/models are typically low maintenance?
2. What questions should I ask sellers when I call them?

Bike odometer: 6032 miles
Current reading: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
Recent listening: Buddy Holly, Grace, Has Been
Recent viewing: Countdown, The Colbert Report, Sportscenter, The Office
Recent playing: n/a
Recently Accomplished: n/a
Imperative To Do: Fix Graham’s Pinewood Derby car (a little glue), mow lawn (front and back)
Cool link: Pimp My Snack

Bike odometer: 6024 miles
Current reading: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
Recent listening: Buddy Holly, Rainy Day Music, Spirit Trail (Disc 1 only), Rock ‘N’ Roll, Love Is A Dog From Hell, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Has Been
Recent viewing: South Park, Countdown, Without A Trace
Recent playing: Poker Room
Recently Accomplished: n/a
Imperative To Do: Fix Graham’s Pinewood Derby car (a little glue), bike repairs, truck shopping, mow lawn (front and back)
Cool link: Funny Video

The track that we race on has four lanes with electronic timing. Each car gets to race on every lane in order to minimize the impact of slower/faster lanes. A computer schedules all the races and tabulates the time for each car. At the end of the round-robin tournament, each racer has four times that are added together. The two lowest total times are chosen as 1st and 2nd place for each of the four dens in our pack. These winners may all participate in the regional competition. The eight den winners then compete for the honor of best in the pack.

After the round-robin, Thomas and Graham were both first in their den and participated in the pack championship round. Thomas took first in 3 out of his 4 races, but Graham didn’t fare as well in the stiffer competition. Graham finished 4th or 5th in the pack and Thomas finished 1st!

I went to the post office in the morning to make sure that both cars were regulation weight (no more than five ounces), and so we had some last minute weight stuck to both cars. Both boys had two golf club weights on their cars because they are light enough to get you very close to regulation weight (more weight means more speed). In these pictures, they are the flat, rectangular weights that are light silver in color. On Graham’s they are mounted vertically (at his insistence) and on Thomas’ they are are flat against the body near the rear (by the fin):

During one of the two races where Graham and Thomas raced against each other, all four weights came off their cars. Evidently, that had been happening to Graham’s car for awhile, so the race official just slapped all four onto Graham’s car where they remained until after the racing was all done. When I picked up Graham’s car after it was all over, I was perplexed to find the extra weights on the car. I couldn’t figure it out until I saw Thomas’ car without the weights and then it all became clear.

I weighed Graham’s car right before we left and it said 5.4 ounces, which might have been a big advantage to Graham, but probably was also a disadvantage to Thomas. Or was it a disadvantage? Physics experts, please weigh in!

There are more pictures here.

Tina’s blog entry is here.

Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
Recent listening: De-Loused in the Comatorium, 12 Songs, Dark Side of the Moon, The Beatles
Recent viewing: Sportscenter, Attack of the Show, My Name Is Earl
Imperative To Do: Rebates
Cool link: State of Oregon Surplus

Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
Recent listening: KBOO Bike Show, 12 Songs/Neil Diamond, Somewhere Far Beyond/Blind Guardian, Rid of Me/PJ Harvey, DrugMusic
Recent viewing: Six Feet Under: Season Three, Olympics: women’s curling, men’s hockey
Imperative To Do: Pinewood Derby: Sand and repaint, rebates, expense report
Cool link: Top Ten Most Welcome Movie Deaths

Bike odometer: 5772 miles
Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles
Recent listening: New Roman Times/Camper Van Beethoven, Still Feel Gone/Uncle Tupelo, Coverville, Ebert & Roeper, DrugMusic
Recent viewing: Olympics: men’s speed skating, ice dancing
Imperative To Do: Pinewood Derby: Sand and repaint, rebates
Cool link: Explanation of the Mac OS X “virus” reported in the news recently

Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles
Recent listening: Zoe’s Radio Show, DrugMusic, Blast Tyrant/Clutch
Recent viewing: Olympics: curling, ice dancing, men’s hockey
Recent playing: Halo (finished)
Imperative To Do: Pinewood Derby: Sand and repaint, rebates

When the next Yellow Line train (which follows the same route as the Red and Blue lines for a time) arrived again, I hopped on to warm up. I stayed on as long as I could before hopping off at the last stop before the Yellow line veers north from the route the Blue and Red Lines follow. I stood there shivering in the cold wind for another 20 minutes or so before a Blue Line train rolled up. My hope started to fade when I saw that the train was completely packed (although not as much as the picture on the right). There was another train waiting at the stop behind it, but the headlights on the Max trains are so bright you can’t tell the color of the placard on the front until it’s almost upon you. Not wishing to spend another second in the freezing cold, I apologized and pushed my way onto the train.

Two stops later it was still just as crowded when the driver announced that the train would be stopped for a bit to deal with a medical emergency. Since I was standing in the doorway, I got off to see what was going on. I found a girl in the back car had fainted and suspected it was because she was pregnant. Nevertheless, medical personnel were called and we had to wait until they arrived. I noticed that the train behind us was still behind us, which meant that it was another Blue Line train (i.e. it had not veered North). I asked the driver if I had enough time to run to the other train and she replied that I did.

So I raced down the block to find a Blue Line train that was not even half full. I sat in my favorite spot when I am without bike (middle of the car), and settled in to read my book. By now I knew I was horribly late to meet Tina at Gateway Transit Center but also completely unable to do anything about it. A few stops later, the driver came on to tell us there would be another delay. Evidently, a fight had broken out on the crowded train in front of us and they were waiting for the police to arrive. Everybody on my new train had a good laugh over that. The delay wasn’t long, though, and we made it to Gateway soon after that.

Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles
McCartney Trivia: Paul’s mother Mary (yes, that Mother Mary) died of breast cancer when he was 14. 42 years later, his wife Linda died of the same thing.
Recent listening: Coverville, Zoe’s Radio Show, DrugMusic
Recent viewing: Olympics: Snowboardcross, Short Track Skating, Curling, Speed Skating
Recent playing: Halo
Imperative To Do: Pinewood Derby: Sand and repaint, rebates

Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles
Recent listening: Coverville, Mexican Standoff/Michelle Shocked, Get Behind Me Satan/White Stripes
Recent viewing: Olympics: men’s downhill, men’s and women’s curling, snowboarding, pair skating, ski jumping (long), speed skating (long and short track)
Recent playing: Halo
Imperative To Do: Pack, Pinewood Derby: Sand and repaint

Current reading: Armor by John Steakley
Recent listening: Meat Is Murder/The Smiths, Evil Empire/Rage Against The Machine, Got No Strings/Michelle Shocked, DrugMusic
Recent viewing: (not applicable)
Recent playing: GamesGrid Poker
Imperative To Do: Pinewood Derby: Paint, Renew driver’s license, Take out garbage
Cool link: Tina’s Art