Monthly Archives: November 2006

Soccer Man

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Max’s 2nd year playing AYSO soccer was a really great one. Last year he sort of ran around and tried, but had very little skill or assertiveness. This year was a major change, helped in no small part to his great coach Ryan, and having buddies he already knew on the team. And like Matt has written, the overall goal of ‘exercising’ has taken root – I think his coach spent a lot of time doing fun warmups with the team. Very similiar to last year, Max got a goal in the 2nd half of the very last game – a huge high.

Hair by Max

Coach Ryan, Ian, Miles, Max, Ben and Asst. Coach Tyler

Team Spirit

A Question of Paternity

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Lately I have been wondering if Toby has pulled a fast one on me in that Max may not be my son. Over the last couple of months he has begun exercising on his own a lot. It started off with push-ups but has progressed. He does push-ups before AWANA meetings so that he can win at the games and he does push-ups before his AYSO soccer games so he can run fast. While visiting the Neinhuis’s for Thanksgiving he found a set of 5# dumbells and did curls and presses in front of a full length mirror. If it was just the exercise, I would be very pleased. But it has gotten to the point where he has become the health police in the family. Last week, I was having a grilled cheese sandwich and he told me that my muscles were going to get small because I was eating white bread. Someone (I suspect Toby) told him that white bread is not as good for you as wheat bread. He will only eat the brown bread because it has vitamins for muscles. I could even overlook this white bread thing as just some brainwashing by his mom or my dad. But this past weekend he decided he didn’t want to eat sugar any more. Now this is not something that any son of mine would ever do. He didn’t want any pie, he didn’t want any whipped cream. He didn’t even want any soda. What is the deal? The final straw occurred when we were at Denny’s for breakfast on Saturday and he didn’t want any syrup on his pancakes because syrup has sugar in it!!! I don’t think any progeny of mine could ever eat dry pancakes when syrup was available. (I got some honey packets and convinced him that honey doesn’t make muscles small, it was almost difficult.) On Sunday morning, as I was getting Lucy out the door, Max was doing sit-ups (crunches, really) in the living room while waiting for us to go out the door. I know he is my son, but where is he getting these wacky ideas, especially about our friend sugar?

Kid Talkies

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Max is now enjoying answering the phone. We are trying to teach some etiquette, so it’s not just, “What? Who is this?” I guess it must be rubbing off on the little Miss, because she handed me her toy phone this morning, after saying into it, “Just a minute please.” Max and I were reading our children’s story Bible, about Moses. The Hebrews were hungry and complaining in the desert, and Max piped up, “This is where God sends them some mayonnaise!”

Project status : Stairs

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I would never have believed it would take 3 people 2 whole days to get 1 set of stairs into the project. But it would have been nearly impossible without the help of the “StairMaster”, Greg. He whipped everything out and got all the stringers correctly cut. We found out that the way the bathroom was configured on the plans (toilet or sink in the area under the stairs) would not work for anyone over 4 feet tall, so we are working on alternate configurations. Uncle Mark diligently worked on shear-paneling the walls.

Working on the landing

Working on the landing

Demolition in the house

Demolition in the house

More demolition

More demolition

From above

From above

A peek inside

A peek inside

Uncle Mark, hard at work

Uncle Mark, hard at work

Book Review : Code To Zero, Secret Sanction, Between Hell & Texas

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Code to Zero by Ken Follett

2.5 / 5 – This book was told in flash back about the early space program and an amnesiac scientist. Format : Electronic download from Netlibrary played at fast speed.


Secret Sanction by Brian Haig

3.5 / 5 – This is the first book I’ve read by this author, and I intend to search out more. The main character is an Army JAG lawyer sent to Kosovo to investigate a massacre allegedly committed by Army Green Berets. The main character is irreverent and very funny. Format : Electronic download from LAPL played at fast speed.


Between Hell and Texas by Ralph Cotton

3.5 / 5 – Book #2 in the ‘Fastest Gun Alive’ series. This book is the reason that I started doing these book reviews. I had read the first book, Gunman’s Song and knew that there were more that I wanted to read. However, I forgot the title and author, and kept thinking it was Gunslinger something, and so I couldn’t find anymore books by this author. I decided that I wanted to keep track of the books I read so that I could get other books that I liked. Eventually, I just browsed through all the books with g-u-n in the title and got the author. It was worth the effort. This book is an excellent follow up to the first. Format : Electronic download from NetLibrary played at fast speed. Current listening : Sarah: Women of Genesis by Orson Scott Card and Brotherhood of War 07: The New Breed (Brotherhood of War) by W.E.B. Griffin.