Safe Secrets at Christmas

One of many blessings I've received since matriculating into parenthood are new perspectives, including the ability to see experiences, perhaps a second time, through my parents eyes.

In my formative years, Christmas was a time of joy, love, celebration and family. To the later point, a time that pitted father against sons in the eternal battle of keeping presents a secret until they were intended to be opened. I reflect upon the Rollerblade Christmas fondly - it was brilliant really. The only way into our attic was through the access door in my closet! It blew our minds at the time; the clever ol' man essentially hid the presents behind enemy lines. I can still remember the feeling of raising my head into the attic for the first time, fixing the flashlight on never-there-before boxes and looking through the packaging at a new pair of "blades" with black, purple and green laces. We must've pulled ourselves into the attic 25 times during the buildup to Christmas.

Another year, I think it was my TV year, the presents were nowhere to found. We checked Mom & Dad's shower, the trunks of their cars and the attic. Nothing! As Christmas approached, fate shined upon us. There was a shimmer coming from whence a black handle had been previously unremarkable. It didn't make any sense to us, why had a new padlock been installed on the shed? In truth, it didn't matter. The game was on. We couldn't find the key or pick the lock so we did the next most rational thing. We took the double doors (which never functioned properly again) off the hinges and walked right in.

And so it continued. Year after year. Some years we'd win by unearthing the mother load. Other years tilted in Dad's favor.

Then THE Christmas happened. No one quite knows where the idea came from but it was the ultimate in Dad-strategy. Perhaps he became weary of doors no longer working or attic insulation collecting on the closet floor. The one thing we know for sure is he changed the game and forever quelled the Christmas hunt. See, by piling the gifts in the middle of the basement and (sorta) covering them with a (sorta transparent) sheet, he altered the entire dynamic. No longer was it an annual high-stakes winner-takes-all game of Hide & Seek.

What Dad knew was that the prize (finding the gifts) was equally proportionate to the amount of effort required. In what could be described as an escalating arms race, he just decided to drive the amount of effort required to find the gifts down to zero. And in so doing, the prize had no value. Sure enough, we were surprised that Christmas.

Now, in 2018, I have to smile because in my home office is a pile of gifts...covered with blanket.

If experience has taught me anything, I am 100% sure the secret is safe.

Field of Dreams

I’ve got retirement on my brain.

Mostly because my mom retired this year and we just celebrated with her, family, and friends. But…also a little bit because I’ve been planning for retirement since 1996 and been obsessing over it ever since.

Take a trip down memory lane with me. My first ever retirement plan was to hit the Maryland Lotto and retire at (or before) age 30. One needs to reach the ripe age of 17 before purchasing a lottery ticket in Maryland. Oh, I counted those days all the way down to my 17^th b-day. When the day finally arrived, I drove straight to the 7-11 in Damascus and bought as many Lotto tickets as my birthday cash could afford. The money I won was “reinvested” immediately which led to compounding losses and eventually…no more cash. As it turns out, the lottery was not a good retirement plan for me. I haven’t given up on that dream entirely but I’ve augmented it with mitigation strategies including the Virginia Lottery and a career.

  

With Plan B well underway, I’m free to think about the more operational related pieces of retirement. I like to refer to this part of the dream as “FTB” or soccer (f)ield, (t)urnstile, and (b)arn.

1.     Soccer Field: Kinda like Groundskeeper Willy meets Ray Kinsella from Field of Dreams. I'll spend my mornings tending to the (full size) pitch. In my minds eye, it’s freshly mowed, painted and has the professional style goals where the nets are tied behind the goal forming a perfect ready-to-billow canopy.

2.     Turnstile: the Red Sox hold spring training from early February to early March each year (currently in Fort Myers, FL). I’ll spend those 4-5 weeks each year exploring a second career: as one of the ticket checkers at the turnstile gates.

3.     Barn: I want a barn to house a wood-shop real bad. Ha! I’ll build furniture in my spare time.

 
Even more important than FTB though, I hope to be surrounded by friends and family. That’s the real dream. Which is what we did with Mom this weekend. So enjoy the retired life, Ma. You’ve earned it.

This Explains...Something?

One can't understand where they're going without knowing from where they came.  Right?  Maybe?  Something like that!  I come from a long line of able farmers.  The annual Mills garden and subsequent harvest was something to behold.  The young oft delivered gift baskets to local friends in an effort to maintain neighbor relations.

From an early age I exhibited strong agricultural proficiencies.  In this video I demonstrate my aptitude for, as they say, tillin' up the land.  Indeed, a green thumb from the beginning.  During the winter, we would rotate the snow piles to keep the atrophy at bay.  In the late Fall, bunny rabbit uniforms were customary regalia amongst the farmer elite.

Hot Dogs & Stop Saws

I've always enjoyed working with my hands.  I think it's a product of working around the house with Dad as a boy.  I enjoy the satisfaction received whilst standing back and seeing the tangible fruits of my labor.  All too often these days, my efforts culminate into a chaotic torrent of 1's and 0's.

A couple of months ago, I enrolled in a woodworking course at the Eliot School, a nearby Crafts and Fine Arts school.  I took the wood shop course back at good ol' DHS but this Eliot thing is some real-life Bob Villa stuff.

This course is mostly intended as an introduction to the wood shop and the machines that will do the most/least damage: the jointer will undoubtedly do the most damage while the sander is more akin to a massage.  My instructor joked(!?) that the jointer is the most dangerous as it won't leave anything for the surgeon to sew on.  Uh...  Onward!

My project was a Shaker Box.  It turns out many things in woodworking are not much more than a box (think cabinets).  Talk about a valuable skill.  Imagine not having to buy cabinets when you redo a kitchen!  During the course of the project I used, among other things, a planar, chop saw, belt sander, chisel, table saw, band saw, dado cutter, and yes, a jointer.

The first part of our process was milling.  It made me wonder, how many generations ago did my ancestors take our surname?  I don't recall what the other steps were called...couldn't have been that important!  Here's the final product.  Click into my Shaker Box album to watch the step by step progress.

The instructors are entertaining in a dark-cabinetmaker-sense-of-humor sort of way.  They love to tell stories about the time Stinky Steve lost two of his fingers in the Jointer.  Or the time they were nearly impaled by a rogue piece of lumber.  Or testing whether a hot dog will actually trigger the Stop Saw.

Where for art Thou Davio?

These photo scans are like the project that will never end.  The output is quite rewarding though.  You might recall that the girls used to call me "Davio" during my younger years.  At the time, it was terribly embarrassing.  Slightly less embarrassing was "Dennis the Menace."  Anybody up for a game of guess the year?

...look at those dimples in the late High School years!

Life's a Beach

Ali and I rescued Jake in 2007.  Like me, he used to live in North Carolina.  Jake had a bad case of heart worm. His family couldn't afford the treatment and were forced to take him to the local shelter.  The shelter gave Jake the heart worm treatment and, through a relationship with Adopt-A-Lab.org, he moved up to New England in search of a new happy home.  When we met Jake, he was staying at a foster home in Connecticut.

You can take the boy out of the beach but you can't take the beach out of the boy.

This trip to Nantucket is the first time that we've taken Jake to the beach.  Even though it was only 60 degrees, his eyes lit up and he hit that beach like it was an official homecoming.  I don't think I've ever seen him get SO excited SO quickly.  It reminds me of Ali's excitement when we walked into the jewelers to shop for engagement ring diamonds.

I caught this moment on video while Ali and Jake were playing in the surf.  They might have been my favorite moments of the whole week.  My favorite favorite parts are each of his 180's.  And yes, that water is really cold.

Interesting Jake Factoid #1: When we first met Jake, his favorite snack was baby carrots.

Dad's Coin Collection

One of the ways that I stay connected to Dad is through his coin collection.  This was one facet of his dorkier side.  And truthfully, makes me feel a little bit better about the dork that I am!  Ha!

Dad started collecting pennies as a child.  In fact, the majority of his collection is pennies.  I can remember him sifting through his collection of hay pennies and buffalo nickels.  He would always remind us to minimize the contact with the coin by holding it by the edges.  In some cases, we were only allowed to handle the coins with a cloth.

These are some of the coins from Dad's collection.  I'm (slowly) working to scan them to digital pictures.  Once they're all digital, they'll be easier and safer (?) to share.  Thus far, I've scanned the National Coin Album book, the coins that are in individual cases, the 1817 - 1855 pennies, and the paper dollars.

Pretty cool, right?

Recycle Bin Igloos

Do you remember the feeling of a first snow when you were a kid?  I was a geeker for that kind of stuff.  As a child, I can remember rushing to all of the different windows in the house to see who got the best visit from Jack Frost...which did little more than only point toward the mere possibility that the environment could sustain snow.  There was more than one winter where I used the recycle bin to make bricks for an igloo!  Granted, I never completed a recycle-bin-brick-igloo...but the effort was there!

There was a corner near the carport at Needle Drive that used to collect snow at a much faster rate than any other part of the yard.  If we were lucky, the snow would pile high enough that we could tunnel into a few feet.  I swear there's a picture floating around of me as a tyke in front of that snow drift...

For the first time this season, it feels like winter has come to Boston.  I think that dogs love the snow just as much as me.  Snow delivers the additional blessing of covering the goose poo (yep) from our young lad's scent detection device.  Which means, he can go off leash during the daylight!

Warmer weather and rain is in the 10-day forecast. It sounds like the snow will be gone just as quickly as it arrived.  Until then, it's game on!