Son’s Guitar Recital

Here’s what he looked like a few years ago shortly after he got his electric guitar.
Rock on.

Caribbean Photoblog: Grand Cayman

In Grand Cayman, we avoided the overpriced ship-scheduled shore excursions and chartered a small-group catamaran snorkeling tour with Captain Bryan’s:

Our boat and group (only $35 per person):

The typical cruise-ship offering (more than $75 per person):

Kissing a stingray (7 years’ good luck!):

More pictures in the extended entry…

Caribbean Photoblog: Jamaica

Before too much more time passes, I figure I ought to finish the photoblog of my wife’s and my Caribbean Cruise. On our fourth day (September 6), our ship docked at Ocho Rios, Jamaica.
We took a bus deep into the jungle at the top of the mountain range:

And put on our safety equipment:

So that we could “zip” three miles down the mountain through the jungle canopy on zip lines, fifty feet or more in the air:

The last traverse was 600 feet long:

After getting a few souvenirs we returned to the ship and enjoyed a gorgeous, lazy sunset as we set sail yet again:

Next stop: Grand Cayman.
Previous entries: Part 1, Part 2.

Caribbean Photoblog – Days 2 and 3

Our second and third days of the cruise (September 4 and 5) were spent at sea, where we saw flying fish (click for larger):

… And enjoyed the natural beauty:

More beauty:

And our room steward made these cool origami towel-animals each night:


Coming tomorrow soon: zipping through the Jamaican rainforest, swimming with stingrays and eels in Grand Cayman, and comida autentica mexicana in Cozumel…

Caribbean Photoblog – Day One

We departed Galveston, Texas on Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas at 5:00 PM on Sunday, September 3, 2006. A few hours later, we were well into the Gulf of Mexico and enjoying the first of many lovely sunsets (click for larger):


More to follow in the coming days…

The Instamatic

One of the benefits of moving from time to time is the opportunity to go through old boxes of stuff. Last year’s move unearthed an old box of pictures that I took with my first camera, a Kodak Instamatic 44. I had great fun going through the old pictures with my kids, including showing them some pictures of places that still exist (the Dinosaur statues in Glen Rose, for example, which they have seen in person several times).
Tonight I scanned the first few of what I expect to be many. I’ll do a bigger post on the camera itself someday (I also have pictures taken with a Kodak Disc camera — a film disc, not a digital disc and my mom’s old Kodak Retina).
Your humble author, making himself the center of attention even then:

A successful fishing trip at Lake Lavon:

Colorful Colorado:

Photoblog – An Afternoon at the Pool

On Sunday, I gave my wife some quiet time for Mother’s Day by taking the kids down to our neighborhood pool. It’s a nonprofit, open-membership community pool, and I’ve been on its Board of Directors for 2 years now (we were members for several years before that). It happens to be called The Texas Pool on the Creek. Can you guess why? (Click for larger).

Board membership entails lots of maintenance work, especially as the opening of swim season approaches (we open May 27). One of the benefits of board membership is free access to the pool throughout the year. We drained the pool this week for some maintenance work, and began refilling it on Sunday. The kids have a great time running and sliding down the deep end slope into the slowly rising waters:

And tormenting each other (humorously):


It was a very good day.


(Do the pictures look too blue? I haven’t mastered Photoshop Elements yet).
If you live in the Dallas/Plano area, we still have plenty of memberships available, and you can register online. Check it out.

Between the Wheels

You know how that rabbit feels
Going under your speeding wheels
Bright images flashing by
Like windshields towards a fly
Frozen in the fatal climb
But the wheels of time
Just pass you by

– From “Between the Wheels” by RUSH on Grace Under Pressure
It’s a recurrent theme around here: how quickly time passes us by.
I can’t believe it has been almost two weeks since my last posting. My silence last week resulted from a much-needed vacation in the one other place as close to my heart as Texas: Colorado.
We traveled with some good family friends and went skiing at Wolf Creek, renting a nice house in Pagosa Springs. During the first two days, we enjoyed temperatures in the high 40s to low 50s, with well-groomed snow — a bit slushy, but otherwise perfect for some fast skiing. Our second two days we received 40 inches of new snow, and had a cold but fun time plowing through the untouched powder.
We got back late Friday, but I didn’t feel like touching the blog over the weekend. So here I am, rested and presumably ready to dive back in. But I remain strangely unmotivated. Where is my muse? In Colorado:

Good News For Aging Men

According to this report, men in their 50s are more satisfied with their sex lives than at any other time in their lives except their 20s. On a scale of zero to four, men reported satisfaction as follows:
20s – 2.79
30s – 2.55
40s – 2.72
50s – 2.77
60s – 2.46
70s – 2.14
After giving this just a moment’s thought, I realized that one little word explains this: kids.
Seriously. Most people start their families in their late 20s or 30s. Before a guy in his 20s settles down, there’s likely some fun on the dating scene. But once you find “the one,” nothing tops the excitement of the courtship, honeymoon, and early years together without kids.
After the children appear, you find that both of you are a bit more tired, a bit less attentive to looks or clothing, a bit more prone to headaches and irritability, and less likely to enjoy the less-frequent sex. As the kids get older and more independent, they continue to invade your space and their schedules become more demanding.
Once the kids leave the nest, it seems that one of two things happens: (1) husband and wife fall in love all over again and experience some really great time together, going at it like newlyweds, or (2) husband, now financially successful and confident, dumps the old bag for a trophy wife 20 years his junior. (Two of the four commenters over at Science Blog tend to confirm this latter point). In either case, the man is likely to be more satisfied with sex than at any time since before he had kids.
[THWACK]
Ouch! That was my wife taking a swipe at me for the “old bag” comment. For the record: she in no way resembles any sort of bag (unless it’s one that’s sleek and fashionable and will never go out of style…)
(Hat tip: Instapundit).

Rose Bowl 2006

We got this picture today from my [Aggie] father-in-law:

(Explanation for readers unfamiliar with Texas football. Aggies are alumni of UT’s big in-state rival, Texas A&M University. Their slogan is “Gig ‘em, Aggies” and many of their shirts usually depict the Texas Longhorn with broken horns. This is a nice show of in-state solidarity by a respected rival).
Update: What a fantastic game. Final score — Texas: 41, USC: 38.
Hook ‘em Horns!!!