Every Kiss Begins With [barrrffff]

Christmas brings out many types of commercials, but the jewelry commercials are by far the most nauseating to me. What bothers me the most is that they all feature some cutesy way for the man to present his woman with the gift:

• Immediately following the breaking of the wishbone, as he "grants her wish"
• Holding up the bag from the store to stop a snowball fight
• Hanging it on a tree at the tree-selling lot
  
• Putting it around her neck while she sleeps
• As part of a yucky version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

I'm sure I'm missing some...

Every commercial seems to indicate that he has fulfilled her ultimate wish, which makes her look shallow and superficial, like a raccoon that's in love with sparkly objects. I bet he's just trying to placate her with money instead of time or affection so he can go play golf each weekend. I mean, really, ladies, if your significant other spent $1000 on jewelry for Christmas, would you like it or think he's a doofus for spending that much money on a bunch of rocks?

...it can only be JAR-ed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's In The Game!

Annika occasionally asks me to play computer games with her, mostly because she wants to play things like Zoo Tycoon, or some of my EA Sports games. A few weeks ago we played some Madden '04 together. I have it set on "Rookie" level, so I usually win big, and I let her play defense most of the time. She's played enough now to actually run the offense, specifically seeking out the running plays, which are given a different color when selecting them. She hasn't quite put together an entire touchdown drive but she's moved the ball.

Another game we play is Tiger Woods '04. She enjoys playing, but I think the most fun part for her is customizing her player. The hair, clothing, shoe, accessory, and tattoo options are so extensive that number of possible outfits is basically unlimited. Usually she hits the links with a braided blonde ponytail and an array of pink clothing. Today she switched from short sleeves and a skirt to a jacket and pants, since it's winter. Then, while playing, she actually holed out a chip from the rough. I missed it at first but confirmed it on replay.

"Dad, it went in the hole!"

The Seymour Militia

I brought Abby to dance class armed with my camera the other day. I quietly entered unlocked rooms and saw many familiar places. My camera died before I could really capture everything I saw, but I still brought home some good old janitorial memories. This will only be meaningful to a handful of people, but here goes...

Miss Holkeboer's old classroom, decked out for dance. I hid a message in drop ceiling there once that commented on Chris Buchholz working while sucking on a lollipop. It might still be there.

Down the "first grade wing" - the old paint job, above the more recent drop ceiling, with appropriate peeling paint, water leakage, and damaged plaster.


The south building boiler room deep sink. I fumbled around in the dark for the light switch hiding under the shelf. I didn't find it until later, but I KNEW it was there. It's still absurdly warm in there too.


Geoff's south building "office," completely empty. This is where we used sledgehammers on the grinder in the dark. I wasn't brave enough to enter "the hole" through the wooden door at the back, as I was fearful of alerting the people working for the church in their office right near the main door to this building. I did see the lower level of the hole, but the pictures were crummy.


The boiler room control panel down the stairs. Loud, damp, and warm down there.


On the wall: the boiler room bunny, which I wouldn't have actively remembered. It felt familiar when I saw it, though.


Finally, the electrical chair storage room, with an expansive coat of white paint, hiding all the ancient messages left by former janitors and those that came long before we did. However...


Peeking out from beneath one of the shelves: STAN IS GOOD!

There are plenty more dance classes to come, so I'll try for more. Remember,

"If I'm Ann-Speyered, I'll work asbestos I can."

Bailando con las Estrellas

The past few years Lisa and I have only made a point of watching two shows - The Office and Scrubs. We've added another to the list now: Dancing with the Stars. We actually find it entertaining and interesting. I think adding celebrities to the mix makes it initially more interesting, but then the hosts and the judges make it way, way better than any other competition. The judges (two of whom have English accents, which always helps) are witty and intelligent, making the morons from American Idol look mean and stupid.

We first got into it a little bit during the last season, and we've been on it from day one for this season. In addition, the girls really like it too, and it starts at 8pm so they can watch a little bit of it some weeks. Each week the couple eliminated (a celebrity and a pro) is determined by the judges' scores and popular voting, so it's not just a popularity contest. That said, we were witness to injustice last night, when one of the better contestants (Sabrina, a Cheetah girl (?)) was eliminated, while the likes of Jane Seymour and Marie Osmond, who are clearly a step below everyone else, didn't even make the "bottom two." Unfortunately, this means that we'll have to endure at least two more weeks of one of 'em. I'm sure they have an army of fans keeping them afloat (well, they must, since they get the lowest scores). Oh, the drama!

College Allegiances

In response to the comments on my last post:

Notre Dame is my school. Even though this is going to be a pathetic year, I can't abandon them. From my perspective, there's no way they're going to beat Michigan State this weekend, but from the MSU point of view, I'd be worried that everything will fall apart this weekend, when they should win, but won't, simply because things are rarely this good for the Spartans (3-0 so far, while U of M is 1-2).

Even though I work at Ferris, I don't identify with their athletic teams or with their student experience enough to care much about their football team.

I have no experience with the University of Kentucky, although since Dan and Rebecca became Wildcats, I notice them now when looking through scores. It was cool for them to take down Louisville last weekend.

And then there's Ohio State - I've been to three OSU football games, courtesy of brother Nick (Ph.D., class of 2007) and two of them were the Michigan game. That means that I've also experienced this: "We don't give a **** about the whole state of Michigan, cuz we're from O-HI-O!" sung with such sincerity by many scarlet-and-gray clad people, where **** represents a variety of four-letter words. It's pure, vile hatred that many Buckeye fans have, not just for U of M, but for THE WHOLE STATE OF MICHIGAN, like the entire place is one big toilet (but not Nick, right? Stay strong, brother!). That means you, fellow Michigander - they think you're scum! I don't necessarily dislike Jim Tressel (the head coach) or the individual players for OSU, but I hope that Michigan obliterates OSU this November, just to ruin the senior year for a bunch of moronic, Bud Light-swilling 22-year-old Buckeye fans.

On the other hand, for every Sunday Night Football game, they always run through the starting lineups (recorded earlier), and each player says their name and their college. The former Buckeyes always say THE Ohio State University. Sheesh.

Finally - Pumpkin Ales can be very good, but I'm never as thrilled as I hope to be. Fall is great, and measuring time by when the Oktoberfests hit the store is fun, but I often prefer quality India pale ales and stouts over the fall seasonals. And Nick, you do tend to have a strong affinity for pumpkin anything. Am I right?

We buy a house tomorrow!

My Team Stinks

There are 120 Division 1-A football teams, and there are four stats that characterize a team's offense: rushing yards, passing yards, total yards, and points scored. Looking at these quantities per game played, Notre Dame's ranks are 120th, 114th, 120th, and 120th. For the season, ND has amassed (-14) rushing yards: overall, they've gone backwards 14 yards when running the ball! Navy has fewer passing yards than ND, but they lead the nation in rushing to compensate. ND has scored 13 total points, and 7 of those were scored by their defense on an interception return! Can they beat anyone this year? (I was going to say Duke, but then I checked and they actually beat Northwestern last week for their first win since 2005). Blah.

Meanwhile, the Tigers are still alive, and if the Yankees could just disintegrate, they'd make the playoffs. It's still possible, but I'm not too confident.

Solution to the Problem of the Week mentioned in the last post: the North Pole is the obvious location, but then there's an infinite number of places to start near the South Pole. Lines of longitude stretch from the North Pole to the South Pole, so they're all the same length. Lines of latitude (like the equator, the Tropic of Cancer, and the Arctic Circle) have different lengths, though - they get shorter as you get closer to the poles. So, if you start one mile north of the line of latitude that is 1 mile around (you're near the South Pole) , you will go a mile south and then do a complete circle when you go one mile east. Going one mile north again brings you back to where you started. You could also start a mile north of the line of latitude that is 1/2 mile or 1/3 mile or 1/4 mile around and still end up where you started.

Finally: I've decided that I like the idea of Pumpkin Ales and Oktoberfest beers more than I actually like the beers. They're fine, and I like collecting their bottles, but there are plenty of other beers that I like better.

The end!

Problems of the Week

At Ferris I coordinate the math department's Problem of the Week series. I get some student solutions (although some of the response is based on the fact that I give my own students little bits of extra credit for solving them). Most of the problems are understandable to the non-math public (well, at least the questions are, but not necessarily the solutions). The latest one is this (the 64th problem since I started a few years ago):

64. You are somewhere on the Earth, which we'll assume is a perfect sphere. You travel 1 mile south, 1 mile east, and 1 mile north, and arrive exactly where you started. Where on Earth might you be? Surprisingly, there are lots of answers -- describe at least two of them.

If you want more, see the link at right.

Anyway - other professors notice the problems as well. One of my colleagues suggested I just post a picture of President Bush. Another professor, from a different department (and whose name I don't know), offered me this today:

How come a mirror reverses images left to right, but not up and down?

At first it may seem like an easy question, but I don't think a satisfying explanation is all that simple. I'm pretty sure I understand it, but it's more subtle than it felt at first. Or, I'm just dumb. Hmmm...

Great Days of Sports

One thing that's great about sports: you never know, at the beginning of any game, whether you're about to see a mundane, run-of-the-mill contest, or a few hours that will go down in history. Who goes to a baseball game expecting a no-hitter? No one, but it sure must be cool to have "been there" yesterday to see a kid with the last name Buchholz throw one for the Red Sox. Last January I almost went to bed, but decided to stay up for the entirety of the Boise State - Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl spectacular. I'm glad I did. Certainly, no one expected much out of the Appalachian State - Michigan game Saturday afternoon. If you somehow haven't heard, here:

Each year high-powered college football teams start their season by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to probable cream-puffs to come to their stadium and get killed (see Oklahoma 79, North Texas 10). Appalachian State was to be Michigan's victim Saturday, but instead U-M paid $400,000 to be the loser in one of the greatest upsets of all time, 34-32, when App State blocked a potential game-winning field goal on the last play, only seconds after they made a field goal to take the lead. We were busy watching Notre Dame get embarrassed by Georgia Tech, so we didn't see it, but then You Tube came roaring to the cause:

First, highlights from the last few minutes of the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_LnLiv99Ys

Reaction from an Appalachian State family at the game. The kid's face is priceless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDFxzAp1Lf8

Following the game, some students and fans from App State back in Boone, N.C. went to the empty football stadium, climbed a fence, tore down the goal posts, carried them to the chancellor's house, and laid them in his driveway. College football is awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-1MOFOYolw&NR=1

Rivalries what they are, many fans from other schools took joy in watching U-M go down. Here's the scene among a group of Ohio State and Penn State fans during the last few significant plays of the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOBjdka9uEw

Next week my Irish, who looked pathetic against Georgia Tech, get to go to Ann Arbor to play a certainly ticked off Michigan team. I'm not expecting much.

Here's one more that has nothing to do with the U-M game. It's the greatest football game prank I've ever heard of. The visiting crowd was told that they would spell out "Go Darby" all together. They didn't. Go look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtuLwWJGnn4

Mas Beisbol

While the Tigers continue their freefall out of the playoffs (leaving me to root for the Mariners to keep the Yankees out) other things happen:

Wednesday night the Rangers pummeled, mauled, destroyed, clobbered, etc the Orioles, 30-3. The Orioles were actually winning 3-0 after three innings, and then gave up 30 unanswered runs (16 of them in the 8th and 9th innings). It's really the worst loss of all time - teams scored more runs in the late 1800s, but baseball then is not like baseball now. In honor of the game, ESPN presented the Top 100 Beatdowns of All Time, complete with links to YouTube clips and game summaries. I especially liked watching Mike Tyson take 90 seconds to defeat Michael Spinks. First Tyson knocks Spinks down, and right after the announcer mentions that Spinks had never been knocked down in his entire career, Tyson just wallops him and finishes the fight. Oh, and you've never seen Secretariat win the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths? That's there too. It goes beyond single games and also encompasses movies, books, entire competitions and individual moments. Yay for sports!

Baseball

If you haven't heard, Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's career home run record a few days ago. It's mostly disappointing to me, with all the controversy surrounding it (steroids and such). It's very different from 1998, when Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris' single season record. That was exciting and I was paying close attention to it, and I even have home runs 60, 61 and 62 on videotape yet. Looking back, everyone was pretty blind to the steroid thing then and we were enjoying the comeback of baseball after the 1994 strike. This year, I made no effort to watch Barry Bonds, although I'll admit that part of the reason why is that we don't have ESPN.

Meanwhile, the Tigers are quickly going down the toilet, although they're still in it. If the season ended today, they'd be out of the playoffs. Meanwhile, the yucky, disgusting Yankees have surged back and would just barely miss the playoffs today. They're only 5 games back of Boston and percentage points behind Seattle for the wildcard spot. All my dreams of a Yankeeless postseason may be dashed. Sigh. No team is all that great this year, actually - based on today's records, no team will win 100 games.

We'll see what happens. And there's only three weeks until Notre Dame plays Georgia Tech!

The End of HP

Hewlett Packard? No, Harry Potter. We've finished the Deathly Hallows, and sadly that's the end of it all (apparently, at least). I've got all sorts of thought and opinions to express, but I'm not even going to start here, except for this one (highlight to read):

Albus Severus Potter is a really awful name.

We'll probably never see a book series with that kind of popularity again. Now that the Star Wars movies and the Harry Potter books are over with, I can't think of any upcoming movie or book release that I would attend at midnight, especially while there are young children to take care of.

Anyway, now that all seven books are out, here how I rank them, as my favorites:

1. Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Half-Blood Prince
3. Sorceror's Stone
4. Deathly Hallows
5. Order of the Phoenix
6. Goblet of Fire
7. Chamber of Secrets

And . . . . . . discuss.

Pixar and Potter

I'm a sucker for Top Ten or Top 40 lists. I'm not addicted, but I'm definitely interested. I've watched parts of stupid things like "Top 40 Heavy Metal Moments" on VH1. Not because I sought out to do so, but because I was flipping channels and found it.

Anyhow, after seeing Ratatouille on the 4th of July, I've now seen all eight Pixar films. What follows is how I rank them, from most to least favorite, based on only one viewing of Ratatouille. Note that I'm not saying which movie is best - there's a big difference a "Top Ten Movies of All Time" list and a "My Favorite Movies List." Here goes:

1. The Incredibles
2. Cars
3. Toy Story 2
4. Finding Nemo
5. Ratatouille
6. Toy Story
7. Monsters, Inc.
8. A Bug's Life
   

Discuss.

And have you ever considered the sheer number of celebrities that have contributed their voices to these movies? I almost started making a list and then realized how long it would be.

Finally: in less than 90 minutes it will be July 21st, and I will be heading to the store that is a center of all-things literary: Meijer. I'll return some pop cans, get some groceries, and pick up a copy of Harry Potter 7, and try to resist reading any before I go to bed. I'll probably fail.

Firefox is Fabulous

Lately, our computer was running sloooowww........aaaaas......mooolassssssessss. We weren't very diligent about virus protection and such things, so I fixed that and cleared out some spyware that was haunting our machine. That didn't make much difference. I contemplated getting more memory. Then, I also installed the Mozilla Firefox web browser, as I've been encouraged to do from various sources in the past. Today was the first day where we've run Firefox exclusively (no Internet Explorer at all), and it's like the problem had never even existed. I'm so happy with it, and it's been a little boost to the mundanity (?) of life, especially since I'm "teaching" an online course right now and it's been driving me bonkers to count the seconds of my life wasting away as I watch the computer sit in a stupor after every mouse click, even to load up stupid things like pages of text. Anyhow, I hope this improved performance continues.

Of course, I remember, my freshman year at Calvin, in 1998, on the dorm computers in the basement, following a discombobulated series of links to grainy images of various things from Star Wars. It took 5 minutes to go through the whole thing and load the pictures, but we thought it was awesome.

And the One shall become Two

I'll apologize now: I'm Sorry.

Since no anti-blog proliferation treaty has been signed yet, I'm taking this opportunity to create another blog. The one you're reading now, which is mikedekker.blogspot.com, will be my own personal blog, where I can rant and rave about sports, movies, beer, math, or whatever.

Meanwhile, all the happenings of Mike, Lisa, Annika, Abby and Jake will be moving to a different blog, which is located here:

handfulofdekkers.blogspot.com

So, if you just want to hear about what's going on in our family, you can stick with that one. The two blogs will always be linked to each other, so they'll be easy to find, but you'll have to adjust bookmarks and such a little bit, if that's something you do. Sorry.

Anyhow, you can venture over there now if you like, as the first family update will be appearing shortly. Cheers!

The Roundup

Another "livin' in the country" event. In the picture below, you can barely see our neighbor's calf, Ground Round. He doesn't belong in the marshy area in front of our house, but he managed to escape his electrified enclosure. Lisa spotted him on our street and called our neighbor Molly, and eventually her father-in-law and I joined her in chasing him around. We actually got a leash and collar on him twice but it came off both times. Lisa, carrying Jake, took pictures. Finally, we managed to surround him and guide him through an opening in the fence and back to his proper home. It was my first cattle roundup. Quite the excitement.

Last weekend we had Lizzy's wedding, in which Annika and Abby were the flower girls. It was one of the nicer and most fun weddings we've been too. The girls loved all of it, especially the dancing at the reception. While they both started to melt down around 9:30pm, they both got a second wind. Eventually, around 10:30, Annika was still out dancing to the deafening sounds of Bon Jovi and Outkast, while Abby had completely crashed on Grandma Dekker's lap and slept through the same music.

Various things...

Lisa, Jake and I attended the 150th anniversary celebration of the CRC at Van Andel Arena (with overflow at Devos Place) today. I'm guessing that it might be the largest CRC gathering ever. We had communion with 12,000 people. The service featured little foil-sealed cups of grape juice, a full orchestra conducted by John Varineau, a huge choir, video cameras on cranes, and a sleeping 11-week old, who can claim he attended the 150th service when he goes to the 200th anniversary service someday. Speaking of, Lisa did well in getting this picture...

Other things:

Annika has a fluffy stuffed dog that she named Mimi. Mimi is also a WebKinz, which is an online version of the stuffed animal that you can play with, buy things for, etc. The online version of Mimi has three status bars, for happiness, health, and hunger. The other day Annika was playing online while Abby was watching, and we called down to the basement from upstairs with a question for the girls. Abby ran to the bottom of the stairs, and with all the earnestness and concern in the world blurted out "Mimi is sick on the 'puter!!!" It was hilarious to hear, and sure enough, Mimi's health was down to 76 out of 100, and she had to visit Dr. Quack to get healed.

Annika and Abby were hitting balls in the yard the other day, when I decided to try and get them taking turns hitting and running the bases. Annika hit first, got a double, and then Abby hit off the tee, so Annika ran from second after Abby's hit, and so on, like a real game. Abby doesn't quite get it all yet, and the next time she was up she ran straight from home to second base, and this was very upsetting to Annika. While I tried to calm Annika down before her turn, Abby continued to run, from second to third, across the diamond to first, and then back to third, which didn't help Annika at all. We gave up on Abby. However, on Annika's next hit, a blast to center field, Annika went around second at full steam and plowed straight into Abby, who was running full tilt in her randomly chosen direction. Basically, Abby got creamed, but both girls went down and were upset. It was pretty much slow-motion to me right before the collision. Abby was crying, and then Annika started too, and when I asked her if she was hurt anywhere, Annika moaned "No, I'm just sad for Abby." We went inside and had some green Kool-Aid.

Finally, and I almost dare not point it out, but the Yankees are 9.5 games out of 1st place, and 5.5 games behind the Tigers for the wildcard spot in the AL. Could we have the playoffs without the Yankees? Dare the baseball gods tease me with the possibility? Of course, we have 100 games to play and the Yankees have currently won six straight and made up some ground on the Red Sox, but let's keep our fingers crossed, OK?

Memorial Day

A very nice Memorial Day - the men (Dad, Greg, me) painted the railing on our front porch, which badly needed it. Meanwhile, the women (Mom, Katelyn, Lisa) bathed, fed, and practiced wedding hair on the children. Later, Annika asked nicely and was allowed to use the digital camera. That led to the following collage of Abby, which I discovered on the computer later that night. Enjoy!

Baptism

Last Sunday Jake was baptized. Many friends and family joined us at church, and the baptism was highlighted by Annika singing "Jacob, Jacob, God Claims You" in front of the whole congregation. She did a great job, we all beamed with pride, and she caused more than a few tears to flow in the congregation. Greg kindly took a digital video of Annika singing and I hoped to put it on YouTube for all of you that are far away to see, but the video is sideways and huge in file size, and I don't have any video-editing software. Lisa's grandpa also took very nice analog video of the entire baptism, and we're glad to have that.

Afterwards, we had 33 people at our house for a party. I spent most of my time on the deck, where I grilled more meat that I ever have before - a dozen hot dogs, 16 hamburgers, and 18 brats. Dessert was a great cake from the DeBoer bakery, which we finally finished three days later. Just for fun, here's a couple pictures...

First, Greg displays the quality ale available at the gathering - Bell's Big Porch Ale, an amber ale brewed for the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island

Second, Mike grills the flesh of many animals:

Meanwhile, Lisa has strep throat (yahoo!). Tee ball is done. Our thermometer read 92 degrees today, although the humidity isn't too bad. Jake is two months old. In a couple weeks, school will be done and it will really be summer. Our neighbors, whose house had a fire last fall (I think it was), had a fire in the dumpster that's in their driveway from the repairs.

An anecdote: Abby comes out of her room, a pacifier in each hand. Mike encounters her in the hallway. She hides them behind her back. "What do you have there?" says Mike. "Little People," Abby outrightly lies. She'll be 3 in July!

Country Living

Life continues, out in the country:

Our old strawberry patch is coming along, even though we haven't done a thing for it this year. We're not planting a garden since we're hoping to move. The riding mower is frequently in use (although I had to jump start it with my car when I first got it out this year - I didn't even know that could be done). Between mows, the dandelions are blooming like mad, much to the delight of the girls (by the way, there's nothing cuter than a 2-year-old Abby in a ponytail running barefoot through the yard). I could make the huge list of birds that are around, but I'll spare you (the hummingbirds showed up, too (sorry about all the parenthetical comments (here's another!))).

Our super-gardening neighbors have added livestock to their life, too, with three goats and a baby cow. The goats are named Pam, Nicole and Rebecca, while the cow's name is Ground Round (guess what he's for!). However, with the livestock also comes a fully armed and operational electrified fence. Fortunately there's a buffer consisting of their garden and the road between our property and the fence, so the girls won't accidentally run into it - apparently it's a very unpleasant experience. Meanwhile, the dirty starlings built a nest under the cap of our propane tank, which I eventually had to clean out. They had laid eggs, and I broke one getting them out, but then the girls and neighbor Leo made off with them. Annika eventually dropped two of them and Abby simply squeezed hers too hard, but Leo still had his 30 minutes later. A different day we found and chased a two-foot snake along the edge of the house, and later Abby and I found one on the road while taking a walk with Jake.

Phew! We'll miss all this if and when we move, but we won't miss being so far away from everything.

In non-country related news, we've been watching a lot more TV lately, since we're always trying to pass the time dealing with Jake before bed. It makes me pine for better cable, in order to get more sports, since you can watch that even with blaring static on, if that's what's necessary to calm Jake down. Besides that, I've seen more American Idol and Dancing with the Stars than ever before. Personally, I think DwtS is more entertaining, and Annika loves it. That said, here's a preview of coming attractions...
Annika's dance recital is June 2.

Six weeks down

Quickly, stuff that has happened:

Annika and I started tee-ball. My semester ended. I went to a math conference, heard some good speakers, and hob-nobbed. Meanwhile, Lisa bravely took the girls and Jake to Chicago for Lizzy's shower. Today Lisa went back to work and I had my first day alone with Abby and Jake. Jake is sleeping some longer chunks, but not anything we'd call "through the night" yet. When taking a calm, broad look at everything, we're mostly doing well. Catch me at the right moment, though, and I may eat you.

Pictures:

First oriole of the year!
Annika took the following two pictures. The first one highlights Jake's awesome complexion.

Truly, Abby does not always look like a ragamuffin. She actually cleans up quite nicely. Thanks for looking! Baptism is May 20, and you're all welcome to join us!

I Love YouTube

Before I get to that, a few quick things:

The surgeon has pronounced me healed, for the most part. All my stitches were subcutaneous (inside!) and I just had some strips of tape that initially held my incision together on the outside, but I peeled those off and everything looks good. I can bound up the stairs two at a time now, and pick up Abby. She was pleased.

Jake had his first "all-crib" night with no time spent sleeping in the cradle in our room. It went OK, although he had a long stretch of restlessness where he couldn't sleep on his own. Otherwise, he's coming along, and he's already 4 weeks old.

I only have two weeks of the semester left, but then Lisa has to go back to school until the end of her year, which is in June.

I'll get more pics of everyone up soon.

Now, YouTube: initially I always thought of Nick and Beth when Youtube came up, mostly because Beth's boss, Paul Robinett, is a "Youtube personality," to say the least. Also, while in Columbus with N & B over Dad's birthday last summer, we all made a video-card for him that prominently featured Annika and Abby and posted it on YouTube for him to see from home.

But now most of my YouTube activity comes through links provided by column writers on ESPN.com, who can easily post a link to just about any event that's ever happened, because someone posted the video on YouTube. I mean, why describe the final play in the career of the cockiest high-school basketball prospect ever - a slam dunk off an alleyoop from himself followed by throwing the ball into the stands and getting ejected - when you can link to it instead? It's nice to know that any sports play of signficance that you missed from the night before (or 20 years ago will be there on YouTube in no time - even the recent incident at a Red Sox game featuring a foul ball, two fans, an oufielder, lots of spilled beer and a flying piece of pizza (hi-larious). Oh, and go see Bo Jackson score a 99-yard Tecmobowl touchdown on a play that takes up an entire quarter. The fun . . . is endless!

And here it ends.

I Profess My Love For...

As of late, like I've said previously, life has been sheer chaos - I'm recovering from my surgery, our house is in perpetual disarray, we're all adjusting to life with a son and brother (Abby is taking steps backwards in the world of potty-training), Jake had his worst night last night, resulting in little sleep for Lisa and me, and then today was Annika's birthday, which involved Chuck E. Cheese (a blackhole of chaos).

Parenthetically: Annika pulled one of the biggest stunts ever, today, on her birthday. We were busy dealing with multiple things upstairs, including trying to figure out something to do for Annika's birthday. At one point she was in the basement trying to feed cat food directly to Tate (the cat). Later, Lisa's grandma called to wish Annika a happy birthday, and when I went to the basement to give her the phone, I found every square inch of the basement, including couches and ledges, coated in cat food. Annika had taken it upon herself to evenly distribute cat food all over the place, to the point that you couldn't walk around without stepping on it. Needless to say, we were totally floored, and underwent a long cleanup process. End parenthesis.

Halting the complain-o-rama, here's where I profess my love, for . . . radio static. I'm generally pretty worthless when dealing with babies after bedtime, because working for 30 minutes to get the kid to sleep alone for 8 minutes reeeeeallllllly aggravates me when I should be sleeping. But, in a small moment of determination, I decided to take Jake at 10pm and let Lisa go to sleep for some period of time, in hopes that I could at least last until 11pm. Jake was OK for about 5 minutes, and then started the "I'm gonna be crabby for undistinguishable reasons" routine, so I fell back to an old gimmick that I used with Abby a lot: turn the stereo to 87.5 FM and crank up the static. The result was almost instantaneous relaxation on Jake's part, followed by some snoozy snoozin', while I watched TV with the volume up just enough to hear over the static. More than two hours later, he's in bed, and I haven't heard him stir yet. Most importantly, I made it through some time late in the day with my son without resenting him or myself, and that feels like a lottery win for me right now. Now it's 12:18am and I'm going to bed. PEACE OUT!

Appendectomy

Clearly it wasn't enough to be raising a 2-week-old, selling a house and dealing with snow in April, so my appendix went on the fritz. I woke up at 2am Saturday morning with abdominal pain, and after no culminating flu-like event occurred and the pain just got worse, we headed for the ER around noon. Once some pain medication kicked in the weekend got relatively easy for me, at least, as I pretty much laid around, slept, went through surgery and had my appendix removed, remembered nothing of it, watched TV, slept, ate, and eventually went home. Life for everyone else around me got more complicated, though.

I'm planning on heading back to work on Wednesday, and I'll only have missed one day of teaching. Annika's spring break is over then, too, so we'll have those logistics to deal with as well. I've been appreciating my Vicodin today, but hopefully things will start to heal up so I can return to normal soon and life can start to even out.

A few weeks ago we had a nice routine in our life, but since Jake was born it's been serious chaos. Here's looking forward to some normalcy (in 2008?).

Jacob David

Our apologies if this is the first you hear of this: Jacob David Dekker was born at 8:39am on Friday the 23rd. He came in at 6 lbs, 9 0z (Annika and Abby were 6-10 and 6-4, respectively) and 19 inches long. We reached the hospital around 5:30am that morning and he popped out in no time (yay!). Everyone's doing really well, and we wanted to get some pictures out for those that aren't near Grand Rapids. We look forward to talking to you if we haven't yet, and Jacob looks forward to meeting all of you too!

That's a yawn!

Change of Season

It's transition time, from...

Winter to spring (hallelujah): in the past few days the snow is melting away, unveiling daffodils, daylilies, and other perennials that are poking through the turf. I spent some time today cleaning up dead plants from last year, while new stuff comes up from underneath. The birds are back too: I have recently seen my first robin, red-wing blackbird, grackle, super-blue bluebird, and killdeer of the year. Also, the neighbors started their maple-sap boiling operation, so the neighborhood smells like roasted marshmallows.

Eastern Standard Time to Eastern Daylight Time: it's amazing how that little change can make the whole day feel different. The girls have gone to bed late each night so far.

Pre-Spring Break to Post-Spring Break (at least for me): now I'm thinking about the back half of the semester, which will involve more exams, a math competition, conferences, a baby, planning for the summer, selling the house (maybe?), tee-ball, etc.

The worst sports time of the year to the second best (behind October's baseball playoffs and football): no single sporting event appeals simultaneously to both my mathematical and sports interests like the NCAA Tournament does - 64 teams, each with a seed, in a single-elimination tournament, and all the history of 15-seeds beating 2-seeds, no 16-seed ever beating a 1-seed. I love filling out brackets for the ESPN competition (which I'll never win), and this year I put together a couple probabilistic methods using random number generators for determing possible outcomes of the tournament, which I'll use to fill out 4 of my 5 ESPN entries (for the 5th one I'll use my gut). I can explain it at length if you're interested.

Kindergarten Visit

Sorry about the lack of a haircut picture. Lisa says it's not as dramatic as you might think, and it's been growing back a bit already.

Mostly, we've been dealing with snow, schools, and illness here. We got positively piled upon by snow the last week or so, and that led to possibly the worst drive up to Ferris that I've ever had, getting the minivan stuck in our driveway, and thankfulness for a paved driveway and a snowblower. Just today Annika got over a wicked ear infection that perforated her eardrum and woke her up into weeping and screaming the past few nights. It was quite unpleasant, but today she's substantially better. Meanwhile, I'm on spring break.

Annika's kindergarten class is having a "Mystery Reader" each day this month, and the first one on Monday was me! As the mystery reader, even Annika didn't know I was coming. I read "Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon," got to participate in the "Tooty Ta" song and then watched them play the "Thumbs-up" game, where nearly everyone in the class puts their head down and a thumb up, while a select few go around and push a thumb down, and then those with thumbs down try to guess who did theirs. Abby got to hang out in kindergarten too, and more-or-less participated in the game - see below, she's in the crowd. She loved it, but also showed that she's only two and not ready for kindergarten yet.

That's the deal here. Less than four weeks until the due date.

Haircuts and Mike's Important Sports Opinions

Yesterday I got what is possibly the shortest haircut I've had in my life. The barber (in Big Rapids) cut it, but after I wanted it shorter and he thinned it out it was remarkable. I didn't really realize it until I got home. It's not quite a "Greg haircut" but it's short enough that I can't even part it. Plus, my cowlick is pretty obvious in front. Fortunately, Lisa said she liked it.

Other than that, we're mired in the worst sports time of the year - post Superbowl, pre March Madness. The NBA, the NHL, and college basketball are all in full swing, but in the NBA and NHL way too many teams make the playoffs, so I don't have any desire to watch anything until the postseason, and college basketball is all about the gigantic tournament - playing a slew of games just to see who gets into the tournament isn't terribly interesting either. Calvin-Hope basketball is always worth paying attention to, I suppose. Spring training is starting up, too, but the regular baseball season is what's more interesting. I didn't watch the Daytona 500, but I do wish that I'd seen the end. Anyway, here's looking forward to "Selection Sunday" and the chaos of a 65-team single elimination basketball tournament.

Cold Weather Update

Consider this a P.S. from my last entry:

Even though Annika has finally recovered, there's been no school Monday and Tuesday due to the cold. The past two days, around 7am, my thermometer (with the remote sensor on the north side of our house) has read -20 and -22. I don't know if the sensor is affected by wind, so there's part of me that doubts those temps a little bit, but I do know that I've never seen a temp that low on the thermometer before.

With all the illness and school and church cancellations, the girls haven't so much as been outside the house since last Wednesday. I'm supposed to take them and two cats to the vet this morning, though.

The Blizzard of 2007

Well, that's the heading I saw on the news this morning. We got lotsa snow the past few days, and the thermometer read -5 when we got up this morning. There were reports of at least half a dozen pileups on the highway involving 20 cars or more. Overall, the timing was pretty decent for us - a Saturday and Sunday, so work schedules weren't ruined and I didn't have to decide whether or not to take "the drive" up to Ferris. It does come on the heels of a week-long illness for Annika, who has finally gone back to normal today. She should be ready for school tomorrow. Lisa was home Thursday and I stayed home of Friday, so the girls haven't even gone outside since Wednesday. Neither has our minivan. We couldn't go sledding, but I am hoping for a good sledding opportunity before winter's over, since Annika is starting to enjoy it more this year.

Abby said "Holy cow" the other day, out of nowhere, and having indoctrinated her with Finding Nemo, has been saying "DoyaDoYaDOYA?" too. It's funny. Oh, and she likes to sort her food - see below. She does it with Froot Loops too.

Eames

I coveted last Saturday night. Lisa and I went to the Christian Learning Center auction at Calvin Christian Middle School, an event that I used to open up the school for back when it was at Seymour and I was a janitor there. We got a couple of kid-sized wooden lounge chairs, and I snagged a $25 Lowe's card for $20, but, to my mild disappointment, we didn't take home the most prized item of the night - a Herman Miller Eames Lounge and Ottoman.

Grandpa Ribbens used to have just such a chair, and I recall quite fondly sitting in it at their house on Lake Michigan. I remember that all the air in the cushion would woosh out when you sat on the ottoman. Then, Saturday night, among all the other items on stage, there sat a sparkling new Eames Chair. I looked it up on the evening's program and first mistook a different chair - item #21 - for the Eames. The supposed retail value of item #21 was $800. I mildly entertained myself with thoughts of bidding on it. However, when #21 came up, they rolled out a nice office chair, not the Eames. Going back to the list, I found the Eames, #73, with a retail value of ... $3995. It would have been incredibly irresponsible of me to bid on it, but Lisa said I could go for it. I set a limit around $700-$800 for myself, but when bidding started, the auctioneer went down to $500 to get the first bid, and in 15 seconds the bid jumped to $1000, so I never had a chance. A few minutes later, a half-nerdy guy and his wife in their 40s quietly stood there looking wealthy, made it suspenseful, and got my prize for $2300. Oh well. Maybe someday (or not).

January's Latest

Above, see Annika and Abby pouting together since I wasn't going to let them want any of the funny parts from Finding Nemo, like we did the night before.

Pretty soon after school started again in January, we made huge strides in potty-training Abby, with the help of our daycare provider, too. We're pretty much done with diapers, except at night, but even then she wakes up dry about half the time. It's hardly been perfected (three accidents before lunch today), but given that we weren't pushing it much before, she's doing great.

Annika's still doing well in kindergarten; Millbrook and Ferris are fine for Lisa and me, respectively.

No bites on the house this week. It's kind of weird to know this huge change is probably coming up before next fall, but we just don't know when for sure.

Just over two months until baby 3.

Lisa made some spectacular chocolate chip cookies the other day.

Abby finally seems to be healthy, after nearly two months of a cold, multiple doctor's visits and antibiotics, and then an eyelash stuck in her eye this past week that actually resulted in a trip to Urgent Care to get it out. Sheesh.

Mostly, life's just goin' on. And can't think of anything witty to end with.

House For Sale!

Here we are, bracing for another radical change in our lives - selling our house and moving further into Grand Rapids, to get Lisa and the girls (eventually "kids") significantly closer to school, hopefully before next fall (if not much earlier). I think it's a change that we will definitely benefit from, even though my drive to Ferris could be considerably longer, depending upon where we find a new home.

So, we've been cleaning up, doing projects that make us say "Well, we should have done that two years ago," purging our house of unwanted stuff (which feels good), and mentally prepping for the process of selling and moving.

Looking for a new house is more fun, and although we haven't gone to see anything yet (since our house needs to sell first) , it's been exciting to peruse the internet, especially when one location you're considering is the Greatest Zip Code of All Time, 49507.

If you're interested, here's our house listing online, which just went up yesterday:

http://public.grar.com/public/pubrecn.mac/start?MLS=G583541

The "realtor description" is a little cheesy, but I think the pictures turned out pretty nice. Our first showing is Saturday(!).

Inside Jokes

Aren't inside jokes great? They're very exclusionary, if that's a word, but ultra-fun nonetheless. Guys are particularly adept at it, especially with lines from movies. Annika and I have a set that are our own, albeit they're mostly lines spoken by Dory in Finding Nemo. At any time, feel free to brighten her day with lines like

"Are you my conscience?"
"Hey there grumpy gills"
"Mr. Bossy"
"Do ya? Do Ya? DO YA?" while getting increasingly closer to her face
"Dude? Duuu-uude? Hey, Dude!" (that's Crush, the sea turtle)

It's most funny when she brings them up out of nowhere at all. Lately, while driving in the car or sitting in the kitchen, Annika will say "Hey Dad - Nationwide is on your side" in a low, chanting voice, which of course comes from the Nationwide Insurance commercials.

In other news, the semester starts next week, Lisa and Annika have started school already, and we're into trimester number three of Operation: Dekker Male.