MISTER WENDAL

I cannot stand the ...

2016-01-22T17:19:00.000-08:00

... middle seat in any aircraft. For the life of me, I just cannot.

On wide-bodies, with a 2-5-2 layout, the middle seat in the set of 5-abreast seating is even worse. Thankfully, I've never found myself seated there, but I probably would be major depressed before boarding the flight.

I had the unpleasurable experience of having the middle seat on my transcontinental flight last night.

I didn't have a choice about it though, as I had to get out of Charlotte, NC before the nasty weather forecast for Friday and the weekend got to Charlotte. The airline notified me that my Friday evening flight was cancelled and my next possible options were Saturday evening, so I just had to find any airline that would get me back home, preferably non-stop, or else risk getting snowed-in throughout the weekend at the hotel.

I found a flight, however, the flip-side to buying tickets only a handful of hours before a flight is that only middle seats were available.

So I took it.

My only consolation was to pick a "good" middle seat - one further up the front than way back. I would be getting off the plane quick, I told myself.

I sat miserable all through the four and a half hour flight from Charlotte. Too far from the window that I craved, and too far from the aisle that at least would have given me the option of getting out of my seat without constantly bothering anyone. I sat there, with my arms tucked in beside me like a packaged chicken on a supermarket shelf.

I woke up this morning to a 60 F day. Curiosity had me check the weather in Charlotte.The sleet had started to fall at 3 am, cars were covered in snow, temperatures had dropped down to the 20s. Winter Storm "Jonas" warnings were in effect.

And some airlines had cancelled all their flights out of Charlotte.

Thank God for middle seats !

The sun finally broke through today ...

2015-01-04T19:34:00.000-08:00

... snapping way too many days of cold weather. Laughable as it might be but when it drops below 70F most Angelenos freak out about the weather. So when its been in the mid-50s for the past 2 weeks we've literally been crying about the cold!

Today though, the sun finally came back from vacation and warmed us up a little.

We've been miserable without you around. Welcome back.

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

2014-12-26T16:08:00.001-08:00

I haven't blogged much this year, but nevertheless, I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Hope you and your families enjoyed a truly blessed one.

Merry Christmas

1st Graders Music Break - Vivir Mi Vida

2014-04-28T23:56:00.000-07:00

I got a sneak-peek of my 6-year old in her 1st Grade classroom during a music break, after we returned from their class field-trip. Yes I did chaperone - something I hadnt done since my 3rd Grader was in 1st Grade. Blame it on work.

But anyways, what I did see was her losing herself in what is evidently one of her favorite parts of her school day. I'll let the video do the rest.

If you hadnt guessed yet, she's the one in the white tee and jeans on the left of the screen, that cant sit down more than 30 seconds !

Have a great week.

Daddy - What Do You Do At Work ?

2014-04-01T00:24:00.001-07:00

At 8 years old, I never had a conversation with my father about his work - about what he did or how he did it. Nor at 18 years old, 28, or even now. All I new then was that he worked in an office. He had a driver pick him up to take him to office and drop him home again, and a couple of other places. Occasionally, a flag would be placed at the front of the car. And every about 3 years, maybe a little more, we'd pack up and move some place else because of his job. I grew up to know what he did, but he never told me himself. I never knew, matter of fact, I still dont know, what he loved about his job, or what he hated about it. I didn't know if what he did benefited other people and in which way if it did at all.

Tonight at bed time, my 8 year old asked me about my job, and what exactly I do and how I do it. We spent close to 2 hours talking. At the beginning the concepts of network engineering and architecture didn't make sense, but it slowly started coming together as we talked.

She wanted to start configuring routers, and have me explain Cisco configuration syntax, and how that makes the Internet work. She wanted to start tracing network cables to switches, and know more about how this firewall thingie burns naughty packets that try to cross network boundaries. And how does information fly from the laptop or iPad wirelessly to our wireless router to get to the Internet.

We had such a wonderful conversation that suddenly opened up an amazing world that she wanted to learn all about there and then. But it was way past her bed time. I'd peaked her curiosity enough for her to maybe want to take "Scripting for Kiddies" classes - we missed the last sign-up, but another class will come round again.

Before going to bed, she asked if I can take her to one of my clients so she can see all these things. To my clients, not likely, but I got plenty of colleagues who work in an enterprise environment, instead of a consulting environment, that would be happy to have me bring her around for a data center walk-through.

I can't wait.

4.4 On the Richter Scale

2014-03-18T01:14:00.001-07:00

At 6.05 yesterday morning my alarm went off. I hit snooze not too long after and slipped under the covers again.

A few minutes later our apartment block shook. It rumbled. A brief terrifying rumble. You ever get those cold chills that run down your spine? I felt that after I heard the lady in the apartment upstairs shout out. Although it seemed to last longer than was really comfortable, it must have been over in 5 seconds. Maybe 3. But it was more than any alarm could do to get me out of bed faster than I ever have or could.

My wife, just as terrified, jumped outta bed just as fast, heading to our 2 year old daughter's bed to grab her out of her bed, and I headed to my older daughters' room to get them outta there quick. My 8 year old was up - she'd been scared out of her mind and out of her bed too. I don't think I can remember a time when she held me so tight out of fright.

My other daughter, we've always joked could sleep through an earthquake. Its not funny, but she actually did. I dragged her out of bed and headed to our dining room, to "drop, cover and hold". I've always wondered if that's the smartest thing to do, or to run out the building onto the street. If the rumbling wasn't over so quick, I don't think I'd have kept my family in that apartment. I'd have been out on the street with them, half-naked in Spongebob Squarepants pyjama bottoms. Whether or not that would have been the correct thing to do, I don't know.

Angelenos, are not only so used to this earthquake thing, but seem to take pleasure in it when its all over (IF no one got hurt). I thought I was weird when I got onto twitter to see if that might have been what I thought it was, and sure enough hashtag #earthquake was already starting to trend. Twitter a lot of the time breaks news faster than prime time TV does, except when LA prime time TV has to "interrupt normal programming to bring us breaking news" (their words) about the highway police chasing another idiot down the freeway - we actually love those, so we don't really complain.

Tonight all the girls are in our bed. They used a perfect excuse to not want to sleep in their own beds - and tonight we didn't fight them on it.

A Venice Beach Sunset

2013-12-02T23:18:00.000-08:00

On Saturday we took the kids to Venice Beach to catch the sunset. What a beautiful sunset it was too.

Vlog: Turtles & An Empty Aquarium

2013-09-11T14:36:00.002-07:00

A couple of days ago, a cousin of mine met a "traveling Chinese" lady - she kept calling her a "traveling Chinese" lady and wouldn't explain what that even meant. Like was she on a road-trip, was she visiting L.A., why did she have a store if she's traveling. Anyways, this traveling Chinese lady was selling a pair of turtles that she thought the kids would love, and would also add an "exotic" touch to my wife's aquarium !!

Kids loved them no doubt. I'll let the video tell the rest of the story ...

... so our challenge, if you've watched the video above, is should we keep the turtles, because the kids love them, and/or because and it'll give our aquarium something different than the "regular" fish I've never been too flattered about anyways, or just give them up and turn them in to the pet store that my wife gets all her fish and aquarium bits and pieces from? My wife wants no major part in looking after turtles, even though she's the self-confessed aquarium lover.

I dont really think the kids would mind their being given away that much. They'll complain a little bit, but will go back to living with the fish, which they themselves are not too flattered with. They would rather have hamsters - something I suggested to my wife and she emphatically said "NO" to.

In reality, all they really want is a dog. All I really would care about is a dog. But I gotta say no to that at this point in time, until we get a bigger place to live in. The Mrs isnt opposed to that idea, and for once, regarding pets, she agrees with me on when it'll be worth having a dog around.

And the world moves on ...

2013-05-18T21:56:00.002-07:00

On Monday evening, the Grizzlies beat the Thunder. Fans in Memphis were ecstatic. Fans in Oklahoma City dejected. Despite being a basketball fan, I couldn't have cared any less about that part of the world that particular evening. But the basketball world moved on. So much more moved on that evening. My world did too. But it could have come to a crashing halt, while the rest of the world moved on. One of the sad facts about life !

Earlier that day my wife called me while I was away working at a client site a stone's throw away from home. She recounted the most recent minutes of her day that sent my heart racing, my head pounding, and my body into furious perspiration. When I hung up, I apologized to the client that I had to go, packed up my things, and drove to meet up with my wife and daughter at the Urgent Care.

Not too many minutes before that phone call, my wife had pulled our baby daughter, 19 months old now, out of the communal swimming pool, where all alone, she had been flapping about desperately trying to find anything to hold onto and bring herself up above the water. Her head, and the rest of her body, was under water, with only the crown of her head peaking above the water and her arms flapping about.

It appears she'd probably just fallen in not too long before. In an evident panic, she pulled her out of the water, calling her name frantically. Not sure what to do, she tried to make her throw up, hoping any water she might have swallowed would come up and out. Instead, our daughter, fought her back, shouting " 'top it mummy, 'top it" when she could finally push her mum's hand away. "Top It" is her way of saying "Stop it".

After that moment of panic she carried her back to our apartment to call the doctor, before calling me. In all that time, I could hear our 19 month old chatting about in the background going about her own business like nothing at all had just happened. Kids are amazingly oblivious !!

Kids, also, too easily have a knack for slipping the attention of their parents, even when parents pretty much have them closely under watch. This was one of them times. She was with my wife getting the laundry done just outside our apartment, down the hall, in an open room just past the swimming pool.

The swimming pool is completely fenced inside an area that also has two BBQ grills, a half dozen or so reclining sun lounger beds, and a common room, that are all only accessibly via a wide, 5 foot high, heavy wooden gate, that needs you to reach over the top to release the latch on the other side of it. Its not an easy gate to open for even my two older kids. Certainly my 5 year old can't, but my 7 year old has kinda figured it out, but she still needs to jump, pull herself up, and hang onto the gate, and feel her way about to find the latch and lift it to open the gate.

The gate is held to the supporting wooden fence by the kind of springs that force the gate shut again once somebody walks through and lets go of it. Once you're outside that area, and are about 5 foot or shorter, you would not be able to see the swimming pool on the other side of the wooden fence. You cant see through, the way you would a chain-link fence. And I think that's a good idea, because its less tempting to little kids passing by.

As my wife was loading the laundry into the washing machines, our 19 month old was right next to her, singing audibly enough to herself. The very moment she couldn't hear her, she turned to her side to realize that she was no longer there. She looked down the 3 halls that converge into that open area that the laundry room, without a door, also opens into. No sight of her. She quickly checked into the nearby gym whose door was open, but she wasn't there either. She ran back to the apartment, while calling her name out at the top of her voice, thinking she might have started to make her own way back home, but she wasn't there either.

The swimming pool area was the only place she hadn't checked, even though all logic suggested it was way too hard for our daughter to find her way inside that area.

And that's where she found her. In the pool, alone, flapping wildly under water. The gate had been shut behind her too. Its hard to imagine how she got past the gate, apart from maybe someone had held the gate on their way out so that it doesn't make that loud sound when it slams shut. And maybe because of that, it hadn't been latched in place, by its own weight slamming it secure. Cant think of any other way.

Either way, she found her, probably like half a minute after she noticed she wasn't singing by her side any more. She said it seemed like a lifetime. That was probably the reason why she was more just a little shaken up and quickly forgot the experience and got back to singing to herself. The doctor at the Urgent Care confirmed that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her. She couldn't hear any water in her lungs, so she'd probably just gotten into the pool not too long before my wife found her.

We are now getting one of those toddler leashes I see parents have their toddlers on. And I don't mean that to be funny at all. I'm dead serious.

Laying in bed that night, I couldn't imagine how parents go to bed the night after losing a child. I know one family that lost a 4 year old to a swimming pool accident years ago. I know two families that recently lost young children to sickle-cell anemia. I don't know how they went to sleep that night, or any night after that. The very thought of it made me sick in the stomach.

I couldn't even bear to bring myself to look at my daughter's photos hanging on the wall and around the house that evening, cause my mind just kept on telling me that those could have all just been now a memory I was looking at that.

But I did fall asleep, thanking the Lord for answered prayer, because he did watch over our child in an oh so evident way that day.

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She loves to sing

2013-01-31T17:10:00.002-08:00

I heard that the Red-Eyed Vireo sings more than 20,000 songs in a day. That's gotta be a true definition of a songbird. One of my daughters might just be another.

My middle daughter, now 5, loves to sing. She sings all day long, any time, any place, just as long as she's not consciously engaged with anything else. Sometimes, its the singing that she's consciously engaged with.

She sings in the bathtub, she sings in the car on the way to school, on the way from school, on the way to church - especially on the way to church, at the dinner, in bed. She sings in the swimming pool, at ballet class, while out shopping or on a play date. She sings during commercial breaks while watching TV, and at the airport as soon as she's welcomed her grandma off of a flight. Basically, its everywhere.

Mind you she mostly makes up her own songs, just as much as she sings a song she's learned. Sometimes she sings out of tune. A lot of the time, she's out of tune. She's got a deep Sade-like voice and but at the same time tries to hit Mariah Carey-like highs.

My older daughter, 7, isn't much of a singer. Matter of fact, she doesn't really sing that much at all. Although she'll occasionally hum a quiet tune to herself, she's more of the kind that engages her creative side through drawing. She, more than anyone else cannot stand her sister's singer, even though much to her credit, she tolerates it a lot. She never tells her sister to stop, instead quietly complaining to her mum or myself how her sister's constant singing is "soooooooooo so so so so tiring" - in her own words.

The other day in the car, she cracked into another song she was making up along the way. I was at a red-light and from a quick glance in the rear-view mirror I caught my older daughter roll her eyes and slump in her chair finally resting her chin in her hand in a resigned "oh boy, here we go again" manner.

I smiled.

My 5-year old proceeded to sing for what seemed like forever, while everyone else kept quiet and let her be. At the end of it all, there was a brief silence, as we didnt know if she was going to break out into another song again or we could start up conversation, but she was done. It was a little bit of an awkward moment, because I think she was expecting reaction from us.

Well, she got it. My 15 month old broke out in ecstatic applause, to which my middle daughter eventually responded "Thank you Amani. You are so nice"

It was the funniest thing, and the rest of us couldnt help but burst out in laughter.

We couldnt tell if he applause was because she was glad it was all over, or she was genuinely well entertained by her sister's singer, or she was simply being pleasant. Either way it brightened the mood of my 7 year old who was in a sullen state.

The laughter and good cheer would be broken up minutes later when she started to sing again.

No applause followed that time.

But like the cheerful spirit she is, it didnt make a difference to her, because she always continues to sing whether or not anybody is listening or you like it or not.

The Name is Blue .... JetBlue

2012-11-21T03:21:00.001-08:00

I never imagined that it would take a red-eye flight for me to find the time to post again. I got my 5year old slumped across my lap, my 7year old against the window, and across the aisle from me, the Mrs and our 1year old that has finally fallen asleep. She's been that kind of child with restless energy that makes passengers hate having to sit around adults with young kids, despite our best efforts to keep her entertained and engaged within the cramped confines of coach class on an A320 aircraft. Mission Impossible!

With them asleep I've found time to blog again. If only i could get online inflight - some airlines now offer the service (for a fee of course), but not our flight - then i would have access to my hundreds of posts sitting in draft that I've never gotten round to posting. The majority of them are stale by now and i should probably just delete them.

Are any of you the type like me that cant sleep on a flight? It doesn't matter the length of flight, the time of day, eastbound or westbound, or how tired i am before the flight, i just cant get myself to sleeping on a flight.

I once kept myself up till about 1am. I'm a last minute packer, unlike my wife who starts to pack a couple of days before. She hates me for that! Anyways, i started to pack at 1am, was done at about 2am, went to bed, was awake by 6am and out the door soon after to catch my midday flight from London Heathrow to LAX. My fantastic idea was that i would be so worn out that I'd fall asleep on the 10 hour flight. I was so wrong. It was the biggest traveling mistake i had done. I was so wasted, i spent the whole time jostling with myself about my seat dying to find some level of comfort enough to couple with my obvious tiredness to fall asleep but it just didnt happen.

Much as i love to fly and am a huge aviation enthusiast, i had never been so happy to get off a plane. My family who were waiting for me on the other side of clearing customs and immigration welcomed home a near complete cranky me. The excitement of seeing them again after several weeks kept me from being real moody long enough to get home and drop dead asleep.

Since that flight a couple of years ago, i never bother with myself. I go about my day as normal and just expect to stay awake the whole flight through as i am now.

The older two girls were over the moon when we told them we'd be going on holiday during the Thanksgiving break and we'd have to catch a plane to get to where we're going. Its been 4 years since we flew together, a flight my now 5year old was too young to remember a thing about. Our7year says she remembers bits and pieces. In that time its been one thing or another that has had me flying on my own and leaving them behind at the airport has always been a teary time for them. Yes, and me, whom they wouldnt make it any easier on. Wanting to fly again has been something high up on their wish list, especially my older daughter who has picked up on my own enthusiasm about all things aviation.

So we land in New York at about 5am, a little over 2 hours from now, and have close to a 3 hour layover before our connecting flight to Pittsburgh where we'll spend the Thanksgiving Holiday with friends. I'll take that time to upload this post, assuming i do get the time.

By the way, i never do get why the lavatories in a plane clearly have a "No Smoking Allowed" sign and then at the same time the airline provides one of those little ashtrays that you pull from the door, right below the no smoking sign. Doesnt that really defeat the purpose or do airlines leave them there for the sake of good ol days?

Happy Thanksgiving all, wherever you are spending yours, and to any readers that dont necessarily celebrate this very American of holidays.

Stay blessed.

A fascination with light

2012-10-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

Her latest fascination .....

.... light.

More specifically, anything that glows or shines in the dark. She'll breakdown into a crisis of sorts if anyone of us takes the flashlight away from her in the dark before she's done exploring with it. She goes ballistic if anyone turns on the lights in the room to render her flashlight useless.

Her fascination with the light makes me wanna capture a jar full of fireflies for her.

I know that would make her day.

Come to think of it, that would probably make everybody's day at home.

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1st Birthday...so soon

2012-10-06T00:26:00.002-07:00

Kids grow up fast.

Babies grow up even faster.

My zero-year old turned one today. It seems like its been a very fast one. Every milestone her older sisters marked as babies growing up in their first year, she broke by leaps and bounds. Whereas her 7 year old sister started to walk on her first birthday and her 5 year old sister started to walk the week she turned one, she took her first steps alone at 7 and a half months, and was walking all over the place at 8 months. It felt like she literally skipped the whole crawling phase, which in itself she started to do pretty quick, as she did with learning how to sit firmly, pull herself up to standing along furniture, and all that cute new movement stuff babies do the first time, that make you shout out to everybody else to come see.

Our only explanation is that its probably because she's got two older siblings around that pace her growth.

She's gone from this ...

and this ...

to this ...

and this ...

and ...

and sometimes some of this ...

and a whole lot in between, that have brought us to ...

Happy 1st Birthday mi pequeño. Daddy loves you very much. As do your mum and sisters. It's been an amazing first year.

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I'm still here ....

2012-08-23T22:08:00.003-07:00

... but whatever happened to my time I cant explain. Well maybe I can but a lengthy post about all sorts is probably not something y'all want to read about.

Apart from not owning my own time, I'm good though. Still living and breathing and doing well, just in case you wondered whatever happened to him, and all glory and honor to God for that.

Meanwhile, the kids started the new school year on Monday, and what a blessing thats been, having them back to routine in their life. They are in bed by 7:30pm, which is bitter-sweet for me coz some days i get home barely 30mins before they get to bed and i'm out the house 40mins after they wake in the morning for school.

Our 4 year old started elementary school, so she's in school now with her 7 year old sister. Even though she's in Kindergarten, whose part of the school is segregated from everyone else, she's still super excited to be in the same school with her sister. So are we. Its only one school run now. That in itself is a relief. Last year for instance when one was in Elementary School and the other in Preschool, it was dropping off the 1st grader at 8am then the preschooler at 12:30pm, then pick up the 1st grader at 2:15pm then the preschooler at 3:30pm. Terrible.

She's almost done with her first week in a new school experience, and all she talks about is who she played with and who she sits next to in class and what color her friends schools bags are. When i ask what did she learn in class if at all anything and she says "i dont know, all the teacher does is speak in Spanish and i dont know what she's talking about" - hello, thats pretty much the point mija. Its called Spanish immersion coz all your instruction will be in Spanish. But we just realized she thought they would be teaching her Spanish in English, and not that everything would be in Spanish. I found that amusing.

Hey, look at that, i've actually written a post, and all i'd meant to do was say hey, i'm still here, i'm still good, hope you are too.

Take care y'all. God bless. Stay good.

"Dear tooth fairy ...

2012-07-13T00:01:00.001-07:00

...My tooth ------->

Send me a letter. What is your name. This is youres [sic]."

The "yours" or "youres" as she spelt it, is a strawberry she left behind for the tooth fairy. She also arranged a little bed from their doll house for the tooth fairy to take a nap if she needed to, and the most interesting - to me at least - she set up a toilet, taken from their doll house too, just in case the tooth fairy really really needed to go.

The Tooth, the Strawberry, the Bed, and the Toilet

At 7 years old, I kind of thought any kid would be past the whole tooth fairy thing, but from the evidence of this, not likely. She'd been wiggling her loose tooth for over a week, and I'd try every night to pull it out but it just wouldn't let, much to her disappointment.

Earlier this afternoon, she called me to excitedly tell me how her tooth had literally fallen out all by itself after she wiggled it with her tongue. Her joy was uncontainable. She started to spend the money she was expecting the tooth fairy to drop off tonight, on things she's been wanting to get, inexhaustibly listing aloud all the things she wants to get with that money. I clearly still have a ways to go in educating her about money !!!

Not really sure if she expects some kind of windfall, or the things she rattled off earlier today on the phone were one of many she intends to get herself once she gets some money from the tooth-fairy, but either way, from the short note she wrote and her evident excitement, it appears 7 year olds still believe in tooth fairies.

Our 7 year old showing off her short note written to the tooth fairy, whom

she's expecting, with much excitement, about coming over tonight

Just wait till your daddy gets home

2012-06-25T23:43:00.000-07:00

Today my wife invoked that all too terrifying phrase that a lot of us grew up familiar with - "Just you wait till your daddy gets back home." Our 7 and 4 year old daughters had driven her crazy the whole day with their repeated misbehavior.

I grew up with old school African parents, so when mum said "Just you wait till your father gets home", we were petrified at the thought of him coming home from that evening, and the rest of our day, however short that was between when she said that, and him coming back home was the longest, most miserable ever.

The strange thing though, is that my dad was never the ass-whupping kind. That was always my mum. My dad was the kind that would give you "the talk" and leave you feeling absolutely foolish and useless about your very purpose and existence on earth. He hardly ever raised his voice, never pointed fingers, never touched us at all. He remained completely calm, almost diplomatic about his talk. That was very scary. He'd go on and on, and he had our full attention. I guess we kinda waited for the grand finale ass-whupping to follow after that, but it never once came.

Mum on the other hand quickly realized that giving us the talk hardly ever worked. She'd line my brothers and I up side-by-side, or just have you stand in front of her if it was you alone that got into trouble and she'd let rip about why she was so mad. She'd be loud, gesticulate a lot, pace around us, twist our ears around asking if they ever heard her or not, give us the occasional smack upside our heads or the back of our heads while she went on and on. And yet she'd have our attention for all of 5 minutes before our minds would quickly drift to other thoughts. I think the smacks upside our heads were to get us to tune in again coz they were more irritating to me than anything else.

About 30 mins into the lecture, or however long it was - it always seemed to be forever - we'd tune in again when she wound up with a "Do you understand?"

Like the dummies we were, we'd all answer "Yes" and be caught out when she asked any one of us to explain what she'd just said.

It happened more often than not, and we'd hardly really ever know everything she'd just been talking about, except that she was mad as hell about whatever we'd done that had gotten us lined up in front of her in the first place. I'm sure that had played a large part in her skipping the lecture and just giving us an ass-whupping instead.

Maybe its when she thought an ass-whupping wouldn't beat any sense into us is when she told us "Just you wait when your father gets home."

Sometimes I think that the wait for my dad to get home was worse than the ass-whuppings that were over and done with in a couple of seconds.

We are not particularly old-school. We don't mete out any ass-whuppings. Thus far we've found other effective ways to discipline our kids. They do get away with it far less often with me than they do with their mum, and she either knew that would right freak them out - which I hear it did coz they were on their best behavior the rest of the day leading up to me coming home - or telling them to "wait till their dad got home" is just one of those things mother's instinctively do to defer punishment to dads. I don't know. Maybe mother's can help me out here and tell me.

Taking a leaf from my own old man's book, I sat them down in front of me and had them explain what they thought they had done to make their mum so mad, then explained to them why they were wrong, gave them a bit of a lecture about something I really cant remember now, but they felt horrible enough about what they'd done, that when I was through with them they burst out of the room sad-faced to apologize to their mum.

I should have set up a camera first, like they do in interrogation rooms in the movies, just so that I remember what exactly I said that was so effectively. Oh well.

After the hugs and kisses from mum, they had their dinner, she denied them any chance of watching television, and had them go to bed before 8pm, which in the summer when the sun's still up outside at that time, was depressing in itself.

Would love to hear what everybody's most effective punishment has been and if you're consistent with it or if it all depends on the "crime" and if its any different with your sons compared with your daughters.

Good night y'all !

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Daughter's Dance Recital

2012-06-24T23:10:00.001-07:00

Hey y'all. Back again, if only for a moment. It's just been like that lately - not enough time in the day to go around!!, But anyways, hope y'all been good.

My 4 year old's been into dance and craving for her moment to get on stage before a crowd and dance ever since her older sister got her moment about 2 years ago. She quit soon after that to try other things, but my 4 year old has loved dance that much that she's been asking to sign her up for a new year.

Anyways, here's a video of the moment she's been craving for, at her dance studio's annual end of year recitals.

"How To Believe"

Daughter's Dance Recital

Watching baby grow

2012-05-01T01:19:00.001-07:00

Hey blog world, how you been? You alright there, coz I've been good. They say time flies when you're having fun. Geez is that true. Two months now since I've been able to post, but its been all good. In the time since my last post I've barely been able to find the time to do any blogging. I got like 15 posts in draft. Being a dad all over again is one of the most amazing things ever. In all honesty I've just been enjoying having a baby around too much to find the time to post.

In that time, I've watched my daughter discover her hands, and have her fingers - all the 8 that she could fit, take residence in her mouth. If she was not gazing at them in sheer wonder she was chewing away at them, till her arms were dripping with her drool.

It makes me laugh when I realize how much she didnt have control of her hands. You know when babies try to reach out for something they really want bad, but they just cant get their hands to go where they want. It's right there in front of them, like a foot from their nose, but just cant direct their little hands to grab a hold of it. She no doubt still has a long way to go in developing her finer motor skills. She's better at it, but when she cant get control of those little hands to grab anything they go straight back into her mouth or they rub her eyes in the cute little way, cute little baby hands, rub cute little tired baby faces.

Then she discovered her feet and her toes, and till this day it never ceases to bring a smile to my face when I watch her reach out for and pull them to her mouth.

She learned to lift her head up while lying on her tummy - a handful of seconds at first, then much longer. Now we lie on our bellies opposite each other, chin on my hand staring at her, and she'll lift her head to look at my face, and remember those hands that she didnt have control of - well they'll reach out and explore my face.

Then she rolled over from her back to her belly and back again. That was cute. Still is, except when its time to change her diaper. Why wont babies keep still during a diaper change when they've finally figured out how to roll over? Especially when its a dirty diaper not just a wet one. Nasty.

She learned how to sit. I grabbed my camera every now and again and captured her attempts to sit. At the beginning she'd flop over in a heap, so those videos would last all of 2 seconds. She held her back steady with time and the videos got longer, and now she's nailed it. I put them together in the video below.

Learning how to sit

And just like that it seemed she had become so "grown". We had, we have a sitting baby now. She's a whole lot more. She's no longer immobile. Nope. Gone are those days when we'd sit her down wherever we wanted her all sat up, and she's stay put, banging away at toys. Now she moves all over the place.

First she pulled herself with her arms while flat on her belly, like a Marine in boot camp training, belly-crawling under barbed wire with rounds flying overhead. It was slow and labored, and she'd usually tire out quick and lay her head down after moving only a half foot or so. Then she learned to use her little feet to push her along while she dragged herself with her arms. That got her a few more feet.

She had this really funny thing she did for a while, where she'd lay on her belly, arms slumped alongside her body fingers pointing backwards to her feet and her head laid down to the side, then she'd dig her feet into the carpet and try to give herself a push, expecting to get some forward movement out of it without using her arms to drag herself along. Helllooooo !!!

When she finally got up on all fours, she did that thing that that African lizard does. I forget its name, someone remind me. She seemed stuck in one spot, but she'd rock, or maybe more like wobble, forward then back, lift one arm to go, but then her knees would stay in place, then she'd rock back again. Her head would bobble up and down while she was trying to get some forward motion going, but for a couple of days it never seemed to happen and she'd just drop back down to her belly and drag and kick herself along.

Two weeks ago I was away on a work trip for half the week. The Saturday night I came back home she moved forward 3 steps. She collapsed in a heap when her 2 sisters, mum and I all broke out in jubilant applause. I think the reaction she got out of us shocked her into losing her stride. But I almost missed that. I was going to push my return to the following day because I didnt want to drive at night from San Diego, but the overwhelming urge to sleep in my own bed instead of another night in a hotel was too great and I drove back - and not too soon enough, else I'd have missed that.

Last week she got the crawling thing all figured out. In just a week.

Two days ago she started to pull herself to standing. Two bruising days of falls and bumps. Nothing harmful, but the shock of being up on her feet one second and then the next down with a thud on her bum, then on her back, then the floor welcoming her head was a little too much for her initially and she cried some.

She takes her falls on the chin now; no more tears. She positions herself again - sometimes she goes round the spot in circles trying to get her positioning right, which I find absolutely funny, almost like a dog chasing its tail. Anyways, she positions herself again, and pulls herself to standing. And if she takes a tumble again, she just does it all over.

We could all learn a lesson from that. We just cant give up when we want something bad. The first couple of failures are frustrating, but we just got to dust ourselves off, forget the pity-party, learn from what we did wrong and get on with it again.

Today, she started walking along the furniture while holding on tight.

When she falls asleep at the end of the day, like my wife said, and I admit it too, I actually miss her being awake.

I watch her sleep. Yes, I watch her sleep. Am I the only one that does that? Any other parent ever watch their babies sleep? When she naps during the day, I'll just stare at her, I think lost in amazement. I'll watch her sleep for the longest time, before planting kisses on her face and those cute little dimples on the knuckles of her hands before leaving her. I've done that with all my kids when they were babies. Heck, I even do it with my wife. Just watch them all sleep. Is it just me ?

She's 6 months old now; turns 7 months this weekend and my wife cries when she watches her do all that she's been doing, coz she thinks she's growing up a little too fast before her eyes and she still wants her to be a baby.

They grow up way too fast. So where have I been the last two months ? I've been watching my baby grow and enjoying every minute of it.

Take care y'all. And love and enjoy being around your kids.

When time is of the essence to Spongebob

2012-03-21T18:44:00.000-07:00

My two older daughters were playing some console game on the TV this afternoon - A Spongebob Squarepants game no less. I personally cant stand Spongebob anymore, and they long out grew Spongebob a while back, thank God for that, but this is some sort of educational game that teaches them Math skills, so I'm good with Spongebob if he can find a fun interactive way to teach them Maths.

In the middle of them trying to beat one of the levels that required them to capture the appropriate numbered barnacles to complete the number sequencing quiz within an allocated time, I overheard my 4-year old tell her older sister

"C'mon, hurry up, time is of the essence."

So I stopped and asked her if she knew what "time is of the essence" actually means. And she said,

"No. Not really. All I know is that the game keeps telling you that 'Time is of the essence' and if you dont hurry up and finish the quiz after it says it the third time, then you got to start aaaaaaalllllll over again, and all your trying and trying and trying is gone just for nothing!"

About 10 minutes later, after a couple of further failed attempts, and long after her sister had abandoned the game to her to go do her homework, she turns around a little frustrated and says

"Daddy, I think 'time is of the essence' means I really got to hurry up because time is important."

And with a final sigh, she adds "I dont wanna play this game anymore" and heads off to find something else to play with.

She might have walked away from the game having only cracked 6 levels, but far from feeling sorry for not completing the math quiz that had probably gotten a level above what she can reasonably do at her age anyway, I was still well pleased with the fact that she'd figured out what "time is of the essence" means on her own, without much of a clue from myself.

I guess I have Spongebob Squarepants to thank for teaching my kid something useful afterall !

The "Brushing My Teeth" Act

2012-02-15T23:40:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me the other day that my 4 year old cant really work a toothbrush as well as I might have thought she should while brushing her teeth. Much as she does a fairly good job with brushing her teeth, it's actually amusing watching her fidget with turning her toothbrush around and getting it places it should. Sometimes it doesn't! Either its my 4 year old, or all 4 year olds really still have a bit of motor skill "mastering" to go.

Lately, she's been making a big deal outta brushing her teeth. She literally wants an audience whenever she's brushing and will kick up a ruckus if neither her mum or myself respond to her calls to "...come watch me brush my teeth." So we gather round the bathroom while she goes about squeezing the toothpaste onto her toothbrush before she goes about the business of brushing her teeth.

Have you ever watched someone do something that makes you want to take away from them and do it for them instead so you can all hurry-up along and go about your other business? That's what watching her squeeze that toothpaste onto her brush feels like.

But I guess its something she's proud that she can get done fairly well enough, so we give her audience, watch patiently as she squeezes the toothpaste out, brush her teeth, rinse and finish up with an "..AHHH" then flush her teeth in the mirror to see just how clean they are and finish up with her tongue running along the front of her upper set of teeth. Applause, applause, and more applause, and bless her little heart, she's goes on off her way, well pleased with her world.

I don't know how much longer this little act will last, but its been going on 4 days now, morning and night, and we're just rolling with it.

At least she takes great pleasure in her dental hygiene. Or at least, thats the way we chose to look at it.

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Superbowl Sunday

2012-02-04T23:56:00.000-08:00

Superbowl Sunday's here again. The last 3 years we've been throwing a Superbowl party at home and have family and friends come around to watch the game. About a quarter of them pay less attention to the game and more to the commercials.

That might sound a strange thing, especially if you're used to watching a soccer game without any commercial interruption. America's different though, and during the Superbowl, the commercials are as much a "tradition" about the game, as the half time entertainment. Last time I paid attention, it cost $500,000 per second of advertising space during the game. That was 2 years ago; have no idea how much that 1 second is worth this year. You can imagine the quality of the commercials then if a company is going to pay that much for advertising. You better deliver a memorable message during your handfuls of seconds of advertising to make it worthwhile enough for me or anyone of the several million people tuned in to want to buy whatever it is your selling. For that reason, the commercials are usually great and some just watch the game for the commercials.

This year we hadnt made up our minds whether or not to host another Superbowl party, but that decision was taken out of our hands earlier this week when family started calling to "say hello" then just before hanging up they'd say "...so we'll see you guys this weekend, right?" implying they assumed we were naturally going to throw another party and have everyone around for the game. Now we are.

By the way, something I want to ask those knowledgeable - how do they pronounce the name "Umeniyora" ?

I know for sure that the name "Kiwanuka" is not pronounced "Key-Wan-U-Ka". Its "Chi-Wa-Nuka", and said a whole lot faster than the football analysts on TV say it. We dont put a strong emphasis on each syllable. So I've been wondering if the way I hear them pronounce Umeniyora is the right way, seeing that its another African name they wouldnt have been familiar with by any stretch of the imagination. I cant say that it bothers me that much because I long realized that I'm not a native speaker of hundreds of languages whose names I struggle to pronounce myself anyway.

Nevertheless, its great to know two key players on the New York Giants' awesome defense are African (or Americans with an African heritage) and no bit-part players either, so we're sure to hear Mathias Kiwanuka and Osi Umeniyora mentioned a couple of times, their African names twisted and all, despite the best effort of the football analysts (the making an effort is an assumption by the way!!)

Odd numerical fact, before I leave - the American public is expected to consumer 1.2 billion chicken wings while watching the Superbowl - enough, its said, to go around the earth's circumference twice. Who keeps these kind of statistics anyway?

Have a great weekend y'all. And for those paying any attention to the Superbowl, enjoy the game.

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A Christmas Pictorial

2012-01-05T20:53:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year all. Hope its been a pleasant and blessed one for y'all. I wanted to post about Christmas, but thought I'd do it a little different and post a pictorial instead to share a little bit of my Christmas.

The kids always look forward to bringing a Christmas tree home and decorating it. We've usually struggled to find an appropriate place for our Christmas trees, but our new apartment had a corner build just for one!

The Mrs every year buys a couple of pieces of Christmas decorations, usually during the sales on Boxing Day, when stuff comes down to as low as a buck. She then saves them for the following year. This year though, she got herself something she's always wanted to have before Christmas, the Nativity collection you see at the front of the fireplace. It took us a couple of days to have the girls understand that they were fragile pieces and not toys meant for them to play with. Still we'd occasionally find their dolls, Lego pieces, farm animals, and so on, that they'd added as part of the nativity !

'Twas the night before Christmas

One day, when the girls are all grown up, can read and discover this blog, they'll find out that - you guessed it - daddy's the one that drank and ate the milk and cookies they put out for Santa the night before Christmas, thank you very much.

They drew him a picture and left him a little note and gift too. I plead the fifth about what happened to the gift, but whatever it was had something to do with their mum. Uhmm, that's not really pleading the fifth is it ?!

The Mrs, my mum and I were up till 4am that night, wrapping presents and cooking for Christmas lunch. We had family round for Christmas lunch, about 20 of us in all.

A bright and sunny Christmas morning.

It's hard enough to wait for Christmas day at their age, let alone wait to open your presents on Christmas morning, so we let them open one present each before having breakfast. Cant remember the last time they ate their breakfast so quick.

She eventually got it open with help from her sisters

Grandma was pretty chuffed about what she got from the girls; a wood carving that read:

"If I Knew Grandchildren Would Be So Much Fun, I Would Have Had Them First"

"Mummy, mummy, Santa got Daddy 'Angry Birds' " - that's what they call the iPad 2, I got for Christmas. They've since spent countless hours trying to crack levels that need more strategic thought put into it than just letting the angry birds go crashing into obstacles. It cant be an addictive game though, that much I admit.

PS: Thought just crossed my mind - any followers with an iPad or iPhone, would love to FaceTime chat sometime. Now that would be awesome.

One of my brothers in Kampala called on Skype on Christmas Eve, and we were able to video chat with family back in Kampala, who being an 11 hour timezone ahead of us were having Christmas lunch while it middle of the night for us. He's got an iPad, but since I didnt know at the time I would be getting an iPad for Christmas too, I used my "junky" old faithful laptop (still use it more than the brand new laptop assigned to me at my new job). My mum's been here since just before the baby was born, so it was great for her and us to see and talk with family in Kampala.

Now here's the funny bit about this. Every time they'd pass the iPad down to the next person to say hello, all we'd see was their ear. On this side, we kept telling them to face the camera so we could see them. Except for my brother that started the call and one sister, every other one of my cousins, our youngest brother thats just finished high school and my dad (he's excused with reason - he missed the bus on the technology superhighway. Its his age you see!) kept on showing their ears. I didnt get it !!

It later occurred to me that since they could only hear our voices and not see us - like I said, my old junky but faithful laptop is just that. Its old and it doesnt have an in-built video camera. Anyway, they couldnt see us, so they kept treating my brother's iPad as some kind of gigantic phone and putting it to their ears to speak, instead of facing the iPad itself and letting its camera capture video of them so we could see them while they speak.

True story !

Lastly, here's a short video I took just the other day before we brought down our Christmas tree - this is what happens when your mum thinks it'd be a fab idea to put you under the Christmas tree like you were a gift or something. Well, you are, but not in that manner, if you know what I'm saying.

Hope you all enjoyed your Christmas. And here's wishing you all, a truly blessed New Year once again.

SANTA's on Speed Dial

2011-12-23T02:51:00.000-08:00

Ever noticed everyone's phone number in the movies is always a 555-something number? Hollywood that is - I'm not aware if there's a standard in Bollywood or Nollywood or as I've recently come to learn now exists, UgaWood. Area code 555 doesnt exist, except in Hollywood, and I think it also serves a secondary purpose reserved for that kind of plonker that will hear the number and think to himself "I'ma go ahead and call Halle Berry right this minute here. Yeah, I'ma do that." You muppet, all you're going to hear the other end of the line is "Your call cannot be completed as dialed ..." C'mon man, you're never going to get Halle Berry on phone.

I thought of using a 555-number to mess around with my kids' little minds. This time of year they are more cautious about being naughty or nice. It's that threat of being on Santa's naughty list and missing out on Christmas presents that puts them in check. A little while back I told them I had Santa on speed dial, so he's only ever a simple press of a button away on phone and I'd have him on the line letting him know how naughty they've been, so be sure to check those lists twice and have their names on the naughty list.

Knowing that calling a 555-number wouldnt work with my a-little-smarter-than-I-sometimes-think kids I needed another plan that would sound a lot more real while I was on the phone around them. The risk of them hearing the "Your call cannot be completed as dialed ..." error message would straight blow away the authenticity of my "Santa's speed dial" story and the one easy excuse I've got to have them on their best behavior for at least a month.

Daughter #2 is old enough to recognize the word "SANTA" even though she cant read much else yet. So I took my phone and their mum's and created a "SANTA" entry in them for a number I still remembered for a phone in a server room located in the basement at my old job that nobody's ever around to pick up. I should've added a profile pic to the SANTA entry, for maximum effect, but I'm only just thinking of that now - 2 days shy of Christmas. I've showed them that when I hold down the "0" button, "SANTA" pops up on the screen and they hear the phone dial. It rings for a while before eventually going to voicemail.

I told them that Santa's busy wrapping presents, crossing-checking his lists, and making sure everything's ready for his busiest night of the year when he delivers presents, that he doesnt always have time to answer the phone, but he sure does check his voicemail.

I had them wrapped around my finger.

The result has been nothing short of hilarious for the most part.

Today after finding herself in another spot of trouble after I'd repeatedly asked her to behave herself without response, I told Daughter #2 "That's it, I'm sick and tired of you not listening. I'm calling Santa right now"

She immediately collapsed to the ground, wrapped her arms around my leg and pleaded "Nooooo, nooooo, Daddy, please NO. Dont call Santa. I promise, I will behave myself soonly."

"Soonly", I think was her combination of "Soon" and "Quickly" in the heat of the moment.

I did end up hanging up the phone, and feigning how upset I really was with her, but inside I was really dying of laughter. After asking her once again to behave herself, and her promising she'd never be naughty in the world ever again, I quickly (soonly !!!) excused myself and went to have a good laugh in the bedroom.

How I wish I could continue with this after Christmas.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone. Enjoy yourselves, and do stay blessed.

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Away ... 208 miles away

2011-12-19T23:09:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in my little room in the only Inn in this remote town - a three & a half hour, 208 mile drive away from home. Its remote. Very remote. No hustle or bustle of Los Angeles. There's no traffic - heck there's barely any traffic lights, just a handful of stop signs. I realized yesterday after driving out here, that strangely enough I missed the traffic on L.A's freeways - the jams are absolutely annoying to be stuck forever in, so I must have been straight outta my mind yesterday to be missing that.

I'd forgotten what it was like to drive on an isolated highway, in complete darkness after sunset, and only the occasional distant light of another small 5-street town.

On the other hand though, I liked the wide-open spaces - but only momentarily. I'm so eager to get back to Los Angeles and hopefully I dont have to come back here. My new employer (havent gotten round to blog about that yet !!) sent me out here to a client site for a two-day installation job. If ever there is motivation to complete everything within the two days I was given and not leave myself in a situation that would need a return trip, then its the very thought of having to make this trip again.

Here's a few shots to give you an idea how remote I'm at.

Sunrise in the middle of nowhere

Deserted highway

Middle of nowhere, for real

The client's site

Meanwhile, being out here close to the California-Arizona-Mexico border, the Inn service is very basic. I got back to the Inn from work at about 7:45pm and the Inn's dinner service was over. I drove around the little town looking for any place that sold food - a restaurant, a diner, a fast-food, but there was nothing. I found a small store next to an abandoned gas station, that didnt really have much of anything worthwhile to eat. I left with a Kit-Kat and orange soda pop. That made up the whole of my dinner in middle of nowhere tonight. They best be serving the complementary breakfast tomorrow morning or I'ma find somebody's horse and eat it !

Being this close to the Mexican border, the majority of the programming on television is US Latino channels and a handful of channels from Mexicali, Mexico. There's the usual ESPNs, ABCs, NBCs, and what-nots to watch, but there is something about the tele-novelas on Latino channels that got me watching one after another after another after another. It seems to be all they screen.

And what is it about telenovelas and beautiful women? There's not an ugly one in any of the ones I've watched yet and I've watched quite a few already. Ah well, enough of this. Time to get myself into bed. Cant wait to get back home.

Meeting Mike Roe..."Again"

2011-12-08T22:16:00.000-08:00

A little over a year ago, I wrote a post about a soldier that I met in Columbus, Ohio, at the airport, called Michael Roe. You can read the post here. We were heading to the gate to catch the same flight, but our destinations were worlds apart. We chatted briefly and I learned he was deploying for another tour of duty in Iraq. I was honored to speak to someone, like himself, who place themselves in harm's way for this country's sake. Long after our flight had landed and I was waiting for my connecting flight, I realized I never did find out the unit he was serving with, so I was never able to keep track thereafter of how they were doing or when they were coming home or anything else.

Anyways, I found out very recently, in the oddest of ways, that he made it back home safe. How? Well, for those of you that haven't gone to the post yet, but still want to know how, then just go to the post right here, and follow the comments. The answer's right there.

Although I havent met Mike Roe, in person again - that's Michael, actually, not Mike - I'm glad to have made contact with him again, and to know he's back home. In reality, him and his girlfriend are the ones that found me and made contact !! I found out too, from himself that is, that he served with the 225th Brigade Support Battalion (225 BSB), based outta Hawaii.

If you happen to read this Michael - and even if you don't - Welcome Home.

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