"Wonderful Memories For Your Children"

In my earlier post regarding our backyard ice rink heartsinsanfrancisco was kind enough to leave this comment:

When I lived on Christmas Lake, Excelsior, MN, my kids used to go out on the ice with snow shovels and brooms to make a skating rink. It's great that you were able to make it so smooth. You're building wonderful memories for your children.

Right. Last weekend the kids had a few of their buddies over for a friendly game shinny hockey. Since there was an equal number of boys and girls they chose to form along gender lines and engage in their own little battle of the sexes.

What the boys didn't consider is that the girls are older (and bigger) and that I am their coach. Which means they have repeatedly heard my mantra, "The puck belongs to you. If the other team has it, take it from them!"

All three of the girls show a strong propensity for defensive play and aren't afraid to "mix it up" if necessary. About half way through the game I observed a mad scramble for the puck deep in the corner. During the melee, one of the girls lost her balance and went a little high with the stick.

This was the result.




The offending player offered several apologies and willingly served a two-minute time out. Luke was treated with a few kisses and a cup of hot chocolate. Afterward, he managed to finish the game, this time with a helmet.

Wonderful memories indeed.

Pachelbel's Canon from Hell

My Lucky Day

Yesterday I was blessed with the good fortune of visiting with a uniformed public servant representing our local law enforcement agency. I was traveling across town for a mandatory meeting and was very near my destination when the officer was apparently alerted to an error in my motor vehicle operation and thus made an urgent attempt to notify me of my oversight. Her need to address me was so great that she employed a series of rhythmically flashing lights to in her attempt to gain my attention.

Once she had safely pulled me aside she approached my automobile and inquired about my schedule for the day and questioned my attention to detail. She administered a quiz on the local migratory customs and provided me with the information I was missing regarding the velocity with which one may legally travel on the adjacent thoroughfare.

In her assiduousness, she also alerted me to the fact that the thin plastic document indicating my permission to operate a motorized transportation device had exhausted its validity on the anniversary of my birth. I acknowledged that I was not aware that my certificate was out of compliance and informed her that the permission granting institution had not availed me of that fact via postal courier, as is the usual convention. She confirmed that the notification practice had ceased some time ago.

After reviewing her electronic records and establishing my status among the otherwise law abiding, she sent me on my way. And fortuitously, did not charge a fee for her services.

Skate Away

I have been waiting all winter for enough snow and cold air to take this picture. I orginally put the rink up in early December. Back then we had about one week of cold weather so we were able to skate a few times. Then it got warm and we didn't get to use the rink for almost a month. Thanks to the plastic liner I was able to keep much of the water contained and as a result we had ice a week before the city rinks. However, last week the temperature dipped enough that we were able to maintain a solid sheet of ice. Sunday night we got about 6 inches of snow that will hopefully stick around for a while. So, if you're in the area, stop by and have a skate.

Hot Enough For You?

Usually, the kids and I like to make a snowman in the front yard every winter. So far, this is the best we've been able to come up with this year. He might have been bigger if it weren't for the selfish snow-hogs in Colorado.

Thanks to Al Gore, Minnesota has had one of the warmest and dryest winters on record. And it's not just us, temps in NYC reached a record 72° over the weekend. In fact, until the last 24 hours, the only thing even close to cold winter weather we have had this season was during the week in December when our furnace went out.

Maybe my parents were right, by leaving the door open too long I am heating the whole neighborhood.

Blogger Pissed Me Off

While I was happily enjoying the dulcet tones of Mr. Billy Idol, I was wooed by Blogger to switch over to the NEW IMPROVED BETA VERSION!!! Blogger promised me it was the best thing since the self-flushing toilet and that by making the change my life would improve in untold ways. What could be better.

So I switched. And then I found out that it was fraught with a number of "known issues" (not to mention all the unkown ones) not the least of which is that only other Beta users could leave comments.

What!?!

This was KNOWN and still Blogger suckered people into switching leaving them not knowing the known unknowns until you decide to make them known. Known knowns, unknown known, known unknowns...Enough of this Donald Rumsefled crap! The whole point of blogger is to develop imaginary friends and allow them to leave pithy comments on the inane things you have to say. How can this happen if one of the known issues is the inability to leave comments.

I got so damn mad I didn't speak to blogger for several weeks. I'm still a bit surly but I'm slowly getting over it.