Family Slider Program

A few weeks ago, my youngest turned 13. Our first teenager. I was discussing with a group how many teenagers we’d one day have in the house at one time (6, Lord help us). It reminded me of a tool I had built several years ago. The tool allowed me to see the ages of each of my kids on a timeline and then slide the whole group along to see what their relative ages are. I dusted it off and added some extra features to make possible for anyone to load their own children. You can load in your kids and see what combinations you’re going to be dealing with as they grow up. You can also click the “Load Demo Data” button to roughly see our situation.

Baxley Family Slider

Valuable tools from a marching band career

The days have been getting cooler lately, so I’m getting back to walking the mile or so from my office to the parking lot rather than taking the bus.  During the summer it gets so hot that by the time I make the walk I’m drenched in sweat and not very nice to be around.  But these cool days make for a great 15-20 minute walk to the car to unwind at the end of the day.  Yesterday I wanted to go ahead and make the walk, but 15-20 minutes seemed like too long.  How could I make the walk go faster?

Walking across campus I thought back to my days in the Marching Illini.  Our director, the incomparable Gary Smith, used to say that the quickest way to move a band around a crowded college campus is to march it there.  Nothing makes people get out of your way like 350 brightly dressed college students accompanied by a 30 people banging drums, and being led by someone in a ridiculously tall hat and carrying a large mace.  It even worked marching through Columbus, right through a crowd of Buckeye fans and into the stadium.  I wondered if my own walk to the car could be helped by this marching mentality.  Sure I don’t have the presence of a full size band, but maybe the music alone would keep me going.

And it worked great.  I popped on Street Beats 1994 and started off.  In no time I found myself stepping in time to the cadence and measuring my steps so I hit the line every 8 steps (marching bands often take 8 steps per 5 yards for those of you not in the know).  I was flying through my walk, and when I got to the end of the 4 minute song, I started it over and kept on going.

The one caution I would give to other people wanting to try this is to remember that you are by yourself and listening to music that no one else can hear.  You don’t want to start calling out “Go Illini, Beat the Hawkeyes” or yell out “Big White Spats!” at any point during your walk.  As I was nearing the last third of my walk, the parade cadence ended and the pregame show started.  For a second I considered doing a quick step run on to Revised Entrance #3, but then I remembered that my marching career was 20 years ago and I’d likely draw some stares as well as make myself totally out of breath.  And when Patriotic Medley came on, I had to physically stop myself from doing an Ankle Knee step at one point.  Obviously old habits die hard.

So the end result of my experiment was a success.  I shaved a few minutes off my walk, raised my heart rate a little, and relived some old memories.  Now I just need 349 friends, a cape, a hat and some big white spats and I’ll really be flying!

Relationship Half-LIfe

My wife and I have now been dating or married for half my life.  Calculate your relationship half-life with “The Relationship Half-Life Calculator”.  It seems like just a moment hon 😉

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Date your relationship started:

Andrew and Andrea “On the Ice”

For those few of you that I haven’t told about this, my brother Andrew and his (now) fiancee Andrea headed down to Antarctica in October for 6 months “On the Ice”. We’re so proud of them for taking this leap and letting us follow along. They’ve been cataloging their adventures on their blog, but I’ve pulled together some of my favorite pictures here.
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Answers to 10 Common Questions when you tell people you’re having your 6th child

1) Yes, we know what causes this and we quite enjoy it. 😉
2) The first three are the hardest, after that, it just gets louder.
3) No, we don’t own a bus, but we’re thinking about it.
4) Nope, no twins!
5) Were still looking for a ninth man for our baseball team if you’re interested.
6) Girls are definitely harder.
7) Bunk beds!
8) Who can really say when a job is done.
9) Why yes, we are Catholic
10) No, I’m not joking! 🙂

Maintenance

There’s birth, there’s death, and in between there’s maintenance.

— Switters
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins

Citizen Kane

I just got done watching Citizen Kane for the very first time. Sure I knew what Rosebud was the whole time, so maybe I had extra sympathy for Kane from the beginning. But I wonder how many of use spend our whole life looking to find that one thing that can make us loved by everyone and thereby make us happy. When what we really want is to return to a simpler time. The pure joy that you hear in young Kane’s voice as he played in the snow at the beginning of the movie points to the joy of the simple things in life.

I think that we should all take the lessons of Kane to heart in that no matter how many things you collect, remember that the simple things in life can give you the most joy, but don’t wait until your dying breath to realize that and live it. Oh, and don’t wait 32 years to see this movie!