Images by John 'K'
Life as seen through my lens…
Can you see the light at the end of the tunnel yet?
Posted by on November 29, 2008
It’s been a little while since I last did one of these – work and family life keeping me busy (as always)… so here’s a little update.
The economy is a mess, petrol (gas) is at its cheapest in over 4 years, and the world is heading towards a recession. At the same time life goes on. Our youngest daughter switched from basketball to join the high-school color guard. It’s something that her friends had been pushing her to do for some time, and so after some discussion and the passing of money to the school (as unlike basketball there’s a fairly sizable outlay for color guard) she joined the Amador Valley High School Color Guard for their 2008 performance season. When she joins in she’s good – she can spin and throw a flag with the rest of them, and as far as I am concerned she has a better sense of rhythm and placement than some of the other members of the troop (I’m her dad – I’ve a right to be a bit proud of her!).
So here’s the problem – she’s also fairly recently got a new boyfriend, and as with many young adults looking to find out who they really are, she’s become almost single-minded in her pursuit of her new love. She’s done what she can to be with him at every opportunity, up to and including lying not only to us (her parents) but also to her boyfriend’s parents, and her color guard teammates and coaches. She’s put her relationship above everything else, even to the point where her best friend (who sponsored her joining the guard) felt betrayed as a result of her actions. She was missing practice sessions to be with him, and lying to all concerned so she could do it. We’ve tried reasoning with her, we’ve grounded her for lying, we’ve removed her car privileges for repeatedly lying. After much heartache from all concerned we might at least have managed to make her realise that what she was doing was wrong, but her mind still seems focused on one thing.
We got her back into practice somewhat late in the season, and the band and color guard went on to score their highest ever competition score in the WBA championships that were held last weekend. The band and guard parents also organised a couple of special events for the senior members of the band and guard including a full sit-down banquet on the morning of the final. Photos are in the usual place – they put on an amazing performance, and deserved to win.
Anyway – she turns 18 in a little under two weeks but we’re still working through the aftermath of (and fallout from) her earlier behavior. As parents all we ask is that when she’s off somewhere that she let us know if plans change, but even after everything she’s been through she doesn’t seem to be able to manage that one simple request – it’s driving us crazy. She’s still lying to us, and when she’s not with her boyfriend she either hides away, or she makes it perfectly obvious that she doesn’t want us around. We had all sorts of ideas for things to do for her birthday but she wants none of it, so we’re going to go with her wishes and late suggestions and try and show her that despite recent events we do still love her.
All we hope is that she sees that how she is acting is hurting those who love her, and no matter how much love is there, some wounds can be very painful.
I know things will work out in the end – we’ve 2 daughters who have popped out the other side of this growing up phase as special women ready for the most part to face the world and we are proud of them both. The other two are making their way along the tunnel and will (sometime soon I hope) emerge from the other end as wonderful women that we will also be proud of. I just hope that there are no further mishaps along the way thought.
Another year older…
Posted by on October 18, 2008
If you’ve checked in to look at my space since the last time I’ve written an update you might have noticed a couple of photo album additions. About a month ago (on 20 September), Livermore Airport held their annual "open house". It is listed as the 11th busiest airport in California, and they play host for a variety of craft. The day was a free event, with many pilots showing off their aircraft, and also included a demonstration "rescue" by a coast-guard rescue helicopter. It was a wonderful opportunity to get some photos, and I took full advantage of that (as you can see here)! Talking to some of the owner/pilots there, it was clear that they all shared a pride not only of their craft, but also of the facility, and for a small airport it is very well equipped.
While we were there, my wife purchased a few raffle tickets, and on Monday received a call to say she’d won not one but two prizes – a $25 gift voucher for Oakland A’s stuff (we don’t follow baseball, but I’m sure we can put it to good use for something), and for a flight in a Cessna. She hasn’t decided what she’s going to do with that yet, but I’d love to be on hand with my camera if she chooses to use it for herself. 🙂
On the Sunday before my birthday we were flicking around the TV channels and stumbled on a broadcast of a concert that happened last year from a band that my wife and I still enjoy from our earlier years. It was a recording of a concert played by the band Genesis and was filmed in Rome. With a big screen, multi-speaker sound system, and armed with a drink or two, we sat and watched and re-lived some old memories (we’d seen Genesis a few times while in England).
The following weekend saw me get another year older. I’d sowed very few seeds as gift ideas in the run-up, but my daughters here got me the one thing I really needed (a new wallet as my old one – also a present – was starting to fall apart). In fact they ended up getting me two as they couldn’t decide whether I’d want brown or black. They also got me a couple of silk ties, and given I only wear a tie about twice a year now that’s me set for the next 12 months. 🙂 My wife, feeding off the previous Sunday, got me all the Genesis albums, remastered, in 2 boxed sets. I say all but there’s a 3rd boxed set to come – it’s not available yet! My elder two daughters (at the suggestion of my wife) got me the game Spore. Someone has described the game as… "Spore is like crack… only slightly more addictive" and they are right. I spent the next week glued to the game, bringing a variety of life forms up from single celled organisms to races capable of exploring the universe. I’ve found earth, and even met Steve in the center of the universe (get the game and play it and you’ll understand!). A sad moment came early during the week after my birthday when I received a card from England, sent by my brother-in-law, but written in advance by my sister (God bless her).
As a part of my present from my wife, when we went to watch the fleet week air displays in San Francisco last week, we had preferential seating right by the edge of the bay at Marina Green. The day was beautiful – clear skies, no fog, warm – and the nearly 5 hours of acrobatic flying over the bay, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge was spectacular – so much so that I took over 1200 pictures (and only had to throw away 6 because they came out badly!). I’ve posted a "small selection" 🙂 here.
Anyway – life continues – I’m another year into mine. We continue to work through issues with our two youngest daughters (one who spends more than she earns and is now on a recovery plan, and the other who seems unable to follow simple instructions to let us know where she’s going to be and to update us if plans change and who as a result went 2 weeks grounded and without transport). Back in England, thanks to the coordination of my wife and the ongoing efforts of our eldest daughter and her husband, our house is now ready for occupancy, and this weekend will see a new family take residence. …and this afternoon will see us at the first competition for our youngest daughter since she started Color guard for her senior year (after 3 years of basketball). No doubt I’ll have more to say on that (and possibly the odd picture or two 🙂 ) later.
It says a title is required, so here you go…
Posted by on September 9, 2008
I woke up at 3:30 this morning unable to sleep and since it’s been a couple of months since my last update and I’m still struggling to drop off at 4:30, I thought I’d try and send myself off by doing an update. 🙂
The last couple of months have been "different". My wife is involved in the girl scout movement here in the US (she was a girl guide leader in the UK too), and as a result she was off helping out at girl scout camp over the summer, which meant she was away from home for a number of weeks at a mixture of training and actual camp sessions. My youngest daughter was also involved in this as she volunteered to be a camp counsellor so she could get her community service credits towards graduation. My wife also found herself travelling back to the UK twice so she could spend some time at our house in the UK, working to get it to a state where it could be sold or rented after the daughter who had been living there for 3 years since we moved to the US had moved out (I could type pages on this but I won’t as it’ll just stir up problems). As a result, I spent a lot of the summer focused on work and keeping our home in the US ticking over.
It was also strange as my 2nd eldest daughter turned 21, and this was the first time we’ve had a significant family birthday when my wife and I couldn’t be with the birthday girl on the special day – seemed very strange. My wife and I celebrated 25 years of marriage since I last did an update – we made the most of a few days between her various trips and had a lovely evening out with the two youngest girls followed by a fun night as my wife and I stayed at a very nice local hotel. We’d had the trip to China earlier in the year as an early celebration without knowing the challenges we’d face getting some time around the actual date, and in hindsight that was a wise move, but the folks at the hotel did a wonderful job in making us feel special for the night. 🙂
Being left on my own a lot during the past 2 months (both daughters here are out and about a lot themselves between work and friends), I found myself with time to reflect on many things, including the death of my sister earlier in the year. The fact that she was no longer with us registered at an intellectual level at the time of her death, but emotionally I blocked it out and built a wall around it, but being on my own so much over the past couple of months found those walls tumbling down and the built up emotion from her passing, combined with the fact that I was missing my darling wife led to some very tearful moments in those quiet hours at night, and have also led me to a clearer appreciation of what I have with my wife.
During the past 2 months we had another sad loss in the family – my wife’s aunt passed away. She was the only other family we had in America, and lived 7 hours drive form us in a small town between LA and Palm Springs. She’d been struggling with illness since her husband passed away a couple of years ago, and her passing was a blessing really. There was a family service in the town where she passed on, and between camps and trips back to the UK we were able to go to the service to wish a dear sweet lady a fond farewell.
After her 2nd trip back to the UK, and so we could spend some time together before everything returned to a "normal" work/school routine, I took a week off to be with my wife after she got back from her second UK trip. At the end of the week we went camping in the hills above a nearby lake for the weekend. The kids didn’t come: one didn’t want to – the other would have loved to but she was involved in band camp as a result of switching from basketball to color guard for her last year in high school, so it was just my wife and I. We went with a group of people from the town we live in, and had a wonderful time. We took our bikes with us and cycled around the lake (well most of the way around it!), spent some wonderful time in the company of some new friends, and ended the trip playing Frisbee golf (which was great fun). Thanks to the weather, camping here is such a different experience to what we were used to from the UK, and I’m sure we’ll be doing it a lot more as a fun way to get to see more of the spectacular landscapes here in California.
We made the most of a lovely sunny Labor day and spent the day on Pescadero beach south of Half Moon Bay – a wonderful way to see the Summer off… and now Summer has gone, we’re into Autumn (or Fall), school is back in full swing, the leaves are turning red and gold and have already begun falling, and the nights are drawing in. Hopefully we’ll get some rain soon, as we desperately need some to replenish the water reserves. Also, now the cooler weather will be settling in, I might actually get back out on my bike more (cycling in 100+ degrees is no fun, as I found out the second time I cycled the full length of the Iron Horse Trail and back in 110 degrees of burning sun while my wife was back in England!!) – I’m still determined to get my fat lazy butt up Mount Diablo before the end of the year, but it’s looking like a much more daunting challenge now than it did at the start of the year and I am woefully out of shape for it.
I should also say thanks to my eldest daughter and her husband who have been doing what they can to help us organise our house back in the UK – it’s much appreciated.
Well this has done it’s job – an hour later and I’m now feeling like I might actually sleep again if I go back to bed, so apologies for rambling – I’ll try and be a bit more coherent next time. 🙂
On the trail of the iron horse…
Posted by on July 13, 2008
With my wife and youngest daughter away at girl scout camp, and my elder daughter almost comatose(!) in bed after a night out with friends, and having done the laundry and dishes, the more adventurous part of my mind took over yesterday…
I enjoy cycling, and near where we live is the southern end of the Iron Horse Regional Trail. It’s a stretch of paved trail that follows the path of Southern Pacific railroad between Dublin and Concord. We’ve previously cycled part of the trail, venturing out as far as San Ramon before turning around and coming back… that’s the thing with this trail – it’s a single path that goes from A to B – no loop, so always in the back of your mind is the fact that however far you cycle out, you’ve got the same distance to cycle back…
Anyway – so with some free time on my hands, and with the weather nice and sunny, with a slight breeze and not too hot, the more adventurous (or you might argue more stupid) part of my mind said "..so why don’t you hop out on the bike and see how far down the trail you can get?"
Right there was the problem – a challenge. It wasn’t "see if you can make 30 or 40 miles", but "see how far"… So I loaded up with drinks and a couple of Cliff Bars, and after getting an acknowledgement from my daughter to the fact that I would be out for a while, I started off on the ride to the ride (we live around 3 miles from the trail’s southern end).
It started out easy enough – for the past couple of months (since I got a new bike) I’d been out most evenings doing about 10 miles a time (including some hillier rides), so getting out to San Ramon seemed like a breeze. I carried on through Danville, resisting the urge to stop and grab something to eat and check out an exhibition at the Danville Station Museum. Riding through Alamo, nature got the better of me and I had a brief 2 minute stop to use a restroom at a local gas station just off the trail.
Having lightened my load a little (!) I carried on up into Walnut Creek. At this stage, a little short of 20 miles in, I ran out of drink, so I stopped off at a little strip-mall off the trail and replenished my supplies. I was starting to flag a bit, but I knew that the end of the trail was only 6 or 7 miles. I’d already done 20, so another few wouldn’t hurt that much… surely?
Re-energised after a drink, I set back off, and rode the rest of the trail through Walnut Creek to Concord. I must say that the north end of the trail was very much a non-event. Just a walk-through gate between the trail and the road (it stops/starts on Marsh Drive in Concord – just off of Highway 4). No park, no benches, no rest area, no big map – nothing. Well – almost nothing. There was a small box attached to the fence where you should be able to pick up a small map leaflet of the trail, but this looked like it had been empty for some time.
From home to here was 27.69 miles, so I had the same to ride back. I took a couple of minutes break, had some drink and ate my cliff bars. Refuelled a little I set back off on the ride home. I took it a little slower and steadier this time. I knew what I was in for, and not having done this length of ride since I was a teenager (and based on how I was feeling after riding all the way out) I knew there was no way I’d get back if I cycled back at the same pace.
As I cycled steadily back, I kept an eye on the distance travelled, and as I hit 50 miles let out a bit of a celebratory shout. A 50 mile ride is no small achievement in itself (especially at my age and state of fitness)… but I still wasn’t home, so on with the ride.
As I hit the end of the trail, I had two choices for how to get home… either go the way I came (which involved a number of busy road crossings), or take another route that ends up skirting the side of the big sports park in Pleasanton as it nears home. I chose the latter – much more pleasant, and there is a good amount of shade from all the trees in the park.
So… a little short of 5 hours and 56.52 miles after heading off, I climbed off my bike and proceeded to collapse into the nice soft couch in our family room – exhausted, but feeling very pleased with myself for having managed to ride the whole length of the trail, twice! (the trail itself is measured at 24.47 miles end to end). Needless to say, this morning I awoke to all sorts of aches, but it was worth it! Something tells me I might spend a bit of time in the hot tub today! 
I took a few pics with my cell phone on the way back (mainly to prove I did it!) – see here.
Happy “Multi-function day” ?
Posted by on June 21, 2008
This year found us with Father’s Day landing on the same day as the birthday of one of my daughters. At the same time, because of the actions of one of my other daughters, my wife found herself back in England having to do a load of unexpected work to our house back there. As a result, last Sunday was a bit of an odd day as it was not easy to really get into the spirit of anything. My one daughter was upset because she was having to share ‘her day’ with Father’s Day, plus her mum wasn’t going to be here. My other daughter here was not in the best of moods because she was being ‘forced’ to be with her family (or at least the part that was here) while her friends were off doing other stuff without her, and so trying to make something of the day was going to be an uphill struggle from the start.
For the weeks leading up to last Sunday, we’d been trying to work out what to get my daughter for her birthday. We finally settled on either a new phone, or an iPod. As fate would have it, a week before her birthday her previous phone died, so the decision was made – a new phone! We popped round to the local AT&T store, and after some time considering the various models, she settled on a nice new red Blackberry Pearl with a bunch of accessories. Phone, camera, internet capable, can act as a GPS navigator (with optional service), works as a music player (and with a 2GB card hold around 500 tunes), and all in all a very nice phone in a very compact package. My phone (coming up for 4 years old) was overdue for an upgrade, so I opted to get the grey version for myself. Needless to say we made the salesman in the store very happy. 🙂
The next day, I took my other daughter in and we upgraded her phone too. Her old phone had started randomly freezing up on her (I blame it on overuse!), and so we took her to the same store and got her something a bit more up-to-date – not as expensive as the ones we got the day before, but still after accessories and the like was up in the $200 bracket. Now AT&T own the baseball stadium in San Francisco, and the following Sunday (birthday/Father’s Day) two of the local teams were playing a game there, so we were given 4 free tickets for the game. Having never been to a major league game before, I thought it might be fun just to go for the experience. The week passed, and it became obvious that neither of my daughters were really keen on the idea, so I gave them options to back out and do something else (it’s not like the tickets had cost us anything), but they didn’t.
The day before her birthday (as we were off to the ball game on the day) I took my daughter shopping so she could choose a few extra things for herself – we ended up with a new mouse and headphones for her computer, and some clothes. These were duly stashed away and wrapped so she’d have something to unwrap on her birthday.
The day came, and so Sunday morning we all got up, exchanged cards and presents (more on that later), loaded up with some supplies, and drove over to the BART station to take the train into the city. All around us were Giants and As fans – clearly the game was going to have a good turn out. We got to the city, walked the few blocks between the BART station and the stadium in the late morning sun. With fans from both teams walking down the road with us exchanging friendly pregame chatter, we approached the stadium. As we walked in, we were each given a free metal water bottle from the home team, and we made our way to our seats.
The stadium was clean, well maintained, and the crowds were friendly and eagerly looking forward to the game – a much different (and nicer) experience to the last soccer game I’d been to back in the UK. Pregame there were some kids and dads activities out on the playing field, and then after a few minutes the game started. All I’ll say at this stage is that baseball is much like cricket from the viewpoint of understanding/liking it. If you understand the rules and have been brought up on it from an early age it’s clear that people love it. If however you are a stranger to the game, they both have the same level of appeal (which is not a lot!).
We sat through about an hour of the game before we all decided we’d had enough. My youngest had decided this as we’d walked into the stadium. My other daughter hit her threshold at about the same time I did, so we got up and headed for the exit, happy that we hadn’t paid for the tickets. At least we can say we’ve been to a major league baseball game now, but we probably won’t be doing it again any time soon.
So we walked back to the BART station, stopped for a late lunch on the way, and then came back home. A little later in the day we headed back out to go see a movie. The "birthday girl’ chose, so we ended up seeing ‘Sex and the City’, which was an altogether better movie than I was expecting it to be. We’d had to convince the other daughter to come with us as she was still in her "fed up because she couldn’t be with her friends" mood, and when the movie finished, she was in even more of a mood as it had reminded her of her recent split with her now ex-boyfriend. Her reaction to the day as a whole had clearly irritated her sister, and so on the way back from the movie theatre you could have cut the air in the car with a knife.
When we got home, birthday girl went straight to her computer to tell her side of the day’s events to her on-line friends, and the other daughter stropped off to her room. A few minutes later she emerged again. She’d recently stared seeing (and expressing an interest in) a new guy, and as she was now upset she wanted to be with him (it’s around 11pm at this stage and I have work the next day). She wanted to go round to his place, but I said no – if she sees him, he comes to us, and doesn’t stay long either (as it was late). About 5 minutes later he arrives, and her mood instantly changes from upset to happy and playing around, and they continued for around the next hour and a half with no care for the rest of us until I decided that enough was enough and asked her to show some consideration for the lateness, the others in the house, and requested that the guy leave.
So lets look at the day in hindsight… The one daughter was fed up because she wasn’t able to do what she wanted on this day, and at the end of the day managed to put myself and my other daughter on a guilt trip just so she could get her way and be with her new "friend" for a while. ‘Birthday girl’ was upset because she didn’t get a birthday cake and because her mum wasn’t there for the day (we were saving a cake for when her mum gets back here), and because neither of her sisters back in the UK had managed o get a card in the mail to her to be here for the day. Add to that she didn’t really want to go to the game, and then her sister’s reaction to the movie in the evening also upset her. And then from my perspective I had to navigate the complex moods of two teenage daughters, and at the same time not show disappointment that no-one had managed to put a little thought into getting a fathers day present for their dad (and also no cards in the mail from the daughters in the UK). Having said that, at least my eldest did think to send an e-card to ‘birthday girl’ and I, and there’s some stuff coming back from the UK being hand carried by my wife – more than the other UK based daughter did.
All in all the day was a bit of an odd one. Sure we tried to do stuff to make it nice for dad and daughter, but that didn’t really work out, and if I’m to be perfectly honest, it’s a good job that my wife was back in England and not here, as her threshold for tolerating this sort of thing from our kids is much lower than mine, and the day may well have ended up very ugly much sooner. Was I wrong to expect better from my daughters? Have I screwed up as a father? Who knows….
Oh – if you’re interested, the A’s beat the Giants 5-3.
Images by John 'K' 