Les Jones

Natalie is home

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | East Tennessee, Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

It seemed like Natalie was about ready to come home this morning, but the tests and test results took longer than expected. She’s finally home now.

Funny thing? Last night Natalie wanted to come home more than anything. Tonight when it was time to leave the hospital she didn’t want to leave any more. She liked it and was having fun. East Tennessee Children’s Hospital is a great hospital with a great staff. We’re fortunate to have it. Many thanks to everyone who works there.

Natalie is in the hospital, but OK

Monday, November 16th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 6 Comments |

Melissa admitted Natalie to Saint Mary’s tonight. Natalie was sick yesterday. She felt bad, slept a lot, and had a high fever which went down with Tylenol or ibuprofen, but then would spike right back up.

Melissa took her to the doctor this morning at 10:30 and never came home. She stayed at doctor’s offices all day and then they finally admitted Natalie to the hospital. She had a kidney infection and wouldn’t drink or eat and she hadn’t peed since 11:00 AM.

I went over there after work. While Melissa went home to get some movies and clothes and overnight things I stayed with Natalie. She got an IV, which was no fun. I promised Natalie I wouldn’t let anyone do that to her unless I knew it would help her.

She was very upset for about an hour. All she wanted to do was get the needle out of her hand and go home. Poor kiddo.

Eventually she started calming down. Finally she had to go peepee. After that she ate and drank. Melissa brought her “Ruby and Max,” which she loves to watch. Melissa’s spending the night with her and I expect they’ll both be home tomorrow.

Photo by Margaret Wood. Hard to believe Natalie looked like that just a year ago. She’s lost the baby fat and has Shirley curly hair. They grow up fast.

Katie and Natalie visit the Sunsphere

Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | A&E, East Tennessee, Home Life, Quotes | Permalink | No Comments |

Katie was out of school for Veteran’s Day, so Melissa took her and Natalie out for a big day in downtown Knoxville. They went to the Veteran’s Day parade, ate at the re-opened S&W Grand nee Cafeteria, and went to the observation deck of the Sunsphere. Katie declared it the best day ever.

P.S. This Metro Pulse article about the Sunsphere is incredible -Did a 14-Year-Old Kid Help Design the Sunsphere? The kid’s design used a doughnut-shaped elevator wrapped around a central support and the elevator turned as it ascended. Wicked.

Bryce Thomas is an architect of 45 who lives and works in Seattle. He sounds modest and unassuming on the phone. Son of businessman/lawyer Perry Thomas, Bryce grew up near West Hills. In 1978, when he was 14, his parents took him on an “adventure” vacation trip to Seattle. He was awed, as most teenagers still are, at his first sight of the Space Needle, the theme structure for the 1962 World’s Fair. “The Space Needle in Seattle is very slender, very graceful,” he says. He’d heard his home town had a fair coming up, thought it needed a theme structure like the Space Needle. Talking with his parents around the dinner table, he proposed what he thought might be an appropriate design for it.

He drew a picture that impressed his father. It’s labeled “Basic Sun Globe.” He still has the drawing of it he made in July, 1978. The globe is made of “gold glass,” mounted on top of a very tall stalk, accessible by an elevator. A note, in a child’s hand, specifies, “Globe contain[s] Restaurant and Observation area. If possible use as a source of solar energy [for] operation.”

His father was impressed, and mailed the diagram to the World’s Fair authorities. They heard nothing for two years.

“I was shocked the day I went to get the newspaper,” one Sunday in 1980, Bryce says. “On the front page there was a picture of this Sunsphere proposal.”

The World’s Fair had hired design firm Community Tectonics in 1979, several months after receiving the boy’s drawings, and they’re credited with the Sunsphere’s design.

In June, 1980, Bryce received a letter from George Siler, the fair’s executive vice president, who did acknowledge the kid’s plan. “As you can imagine, we receive lots of suggestions from people about the Fair,” Siler wrote. “Many of them are impractical or not in keeping with our objectives. Yours was a notable exception. In fact, you submitted one of the best ideas we have received. Your Sun Globe is innovative, well conceived and very much in accordance with what we think our World’s Fair ought to contain.

Katie and Natalie - first time bowling

Saturday, November 7th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

Melissa wanted to take the girls to do something different today. So to the bowling alley they went. Now we’re playing Wii bowling at home.

Guess where my three year old thinks I work

Monday, November 2nd, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

My wife tells me that when they drive by Home Depot my three year old says “Look. That’s where daddy works.” I’ll have to explain the difference between work and hobbies one day.

The kids love it when I take them to Home Depot and Lowe’s. They sit on the riding lawn mowers and play kitchen in the cabinetry department.

Miley Cyrus voted worst celebrity influence

Sunday, November 1st, 2009 | A&E, Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

Our kids watch either DVDs or the Disney channel, which is where Miley Cyrus lives as Hannah Montana.

The other night I told my wife that Miley Cyrus acts like a 46 year old divorcee with six kids and a couple of orders of protection against her exes. Gal is on her way to being wizened and hard at the ripe old age of 16. The celebrity life has not been good for this child star.

MSNBC - Worst Celeb Influence? It’s Miley:

Cyrus, who easily took the title with 42 percent of the vote, has indeed been less than stellar in the role-model department: pole dancing, a probably racist photo, an oversexed photo shoot.

She’s no saint, but still, how she managed to top the runner-ups is mystifying.

Britney Spears (27 percent) took the No. 2 spot. That’s right. Britney Spears — the same woman who forgets to wear underwear, married K-Fed, slams junk food, smokes cigarettes, divorced K-Fed, shaves her head, attacks cars with umbrellas, lost custody of her children, starred in a reality show, makes-out with Madonna and dances half naked at concerts. This woman is somehow a better influence than Miley Cyrus.

Wait until Cyrus turns 18. Flashing her vajayjay to photographers Brittney Spears-style will be the least of her coming out party. I’m thinking Lindsay Lohen-level breakdown. Here’s hoping someone in her family steers her to a better direction.

Selena Gomez was voted best celeb influence.

Selena Gomez (”Wizards of Waverly Place,” also on Disney) is awesome. Fresh-faced, kind, optimistic, and without a hint of cynicism.

Katie’s first school bus ride

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

Katie rode home on the bus for the first time today. Melissa was waiting for a plumber, so she called the school and had Katie take the bus. Worked out great. Katie thought it was fun. Glad to know we can do that when we need to.

Night of the Living Raccoon

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 3 Comments |

View From the Cumberlands - A raccoon uprising?

I was going to comment on all the raccoons I’ve seen dead on the road the past few days. Since Friday, it seems that raccoons are sprawled across double yellow lines and half-in, half-out of roadside ditches everywhere. I don’t recall a time when I’ve seen as many dead coons on the road as in the past few days. Then there comes this story from Florida, about a pack of raccoons mauling a woman.

Oddly enough two weeks ago our cat Felix walked through the catflap with a big wound in his left thigh. We suspected a raccoon, based on a similar, previous wound and raccoons getting into our garbage cans. I’ve seen raccoons here in the daytime and caught them on the wildlife camera at night.

A week later we found a dead raccoon in the yard. What’s up with this crazy raccoon summer?

P.S. We took Felix to the vet. They advised letting the wound (originally a couple of inches across) heal on its own. That sounded crazy, but we kept applying Bactine and gave him the recommended hydrotherapy, washing the wound with warm water every night. After a week he’s almost healed and none the worse for wear.

Bonus! -  Adorable Katie and Felix pic.

Touchy-feely art

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 | A&E, Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

This article - Struggling Museum Now Allowing Patrons To Touch Paintings - brought back a memory.

Seven or so years ago I took my mom to a Rodin exhibit in Knoxville. I think her sight was starting to fail even back then and I noticed her reaching out to touch the sculpture.

She did it again, running her hand over the statue’s face. “Uh, mom, you’re not supposed to touch that.” At some point a person at the museum noticed and told her she couldn’t touch the Rodins. Mom acted sheepish and didn’t touch any more sculptures.

Looking back it’s clear she was suffering from the beginnings of macular degeneration. She’s almost completely blind at this point, and has been for some time.

Now I wonder if she was beginning to succumb to vascular dementia, too. People with dementia decline over a long period of time. It’s hard to recognize, especially in the early stages, and it can happen so slowly over so many years that you barely notice. And of course you don’t want to believe it is what it is, because it’s painful to think about.

It was only a few years ago that I had to admit mom’s mind was getting cloudy. It was less than a year ago that it became perfectly clear to everyone that something was really wrong. Even then we blamed it on medication, thinking that she’d be back to her old self once she got out of transitional care and got off of sedatives. It’s only been six months or so since we all finally admitted that mom wasn’t going to be her old self anymore and would need someone caring for her for the rest of her life.

3 year old Natalie wants to grow up

Thursday, October 1st, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

This morning 3 year old Natalie told me she didn’t suck on her fingers “no more.” Tonight she was drinking strawberry milk from a sippy cup and she called it a baby cup. All the sudden she’s self-conscious about what big girls do and what babies do.

I think she wants to be more grown up, like her big sister Katie, who just started kindergarten and turned five. Some mornings Natalie goes to elementary school with Katie and mommy for breakfast. She likes talking to the big kids. She wants to be in elementary school, too. On the other hand, her teachers tell me she likes the fact that preschool is her school now that she’s not in Katie’s shadow.

The kids have a back and forth relationship with growing up. On the one hand they want to be big, but being a baby is nice. Saying they’re big is fun, but being a baby is fun, too. When do you decide you want to grow up?

Book party

Saturday, September 26th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

Natalie is three. She can’t read yet, but she likes playing book party.

This morning when I woke up she pulled two books off the shelf for her. “Daddy, this is my book. It’s called, uh, Letters. And this book is mine. It’s called, uh, Cousin Bunnies.”

She gave me my novel off of the nightstand and told me I could read it. It was called Ghost Brigades, but I decided I needed to make up a name for it, so I said “My book is called, uh, Bob Dylan … Flies to the Moon … to Fight Ninjas.”

Tags: bob dylan

Rain barrel sale in Knoxville October 3rd

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 | East Tennessee, Home Life | Permalink | 4 Comments |

Join the City of Knoxville October 3rd from 9AM-3PM at West Town Mall parking lot for a Rain Barrel and Compost event.

Cool. I’ve been wanting some rain barrels. The ones in the pics have brass spigots at the bottom. I’ve got a couple of places where I could put these below downspouts and attach a regular hose or soaker hose to the spigots to water dry areas.

Capacity is 80 gallons. Price is $40, which seems reasonable. Cash or check only.

Happy Fifth Birthday, Katie

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 | Home Life, Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

Happy birthday, sweetie. That’s you and your cousin Tristan in Kentucky.

Your mom and dad love you, kiddo.

Do you want Uhura or Captain Kirk?

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 | Food & Drink, Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

With the kids and my mom and everything that’s been going on in our lives the last few years we haven’t been entertaining much. Two weekends ago we invited some folks over for Sunday dinner and realized something.

Our glass collection had broken and dwindled to two drinking glasses and two tumblers from the last set, four Burger King Star Trek glasses, a stack of red Solo plastic cups, plus a drawerful of sippy cups for the toddlers. So out we went to buy a set of glasses.

Now Katie and I have piggy flu, too

Thursday, September 17th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 2 Comments |

I’m official as of yesterday’s doctor’s visit and Katie is official as of this morning’s doctor’s visit.

Melissa isn’t official, but she’s been tired and achy and she has the same ear infection as Natalie and me. I keep kidding her, telling her she’s in denial. She asked Katie’s pediatrician about it. He told her if she didn’t have a fever she didn’t have the flu. Then tonight she got a fever, so we’ll see.

When I saw our family doctor he went ahead and wrote Melissa a Tamiflu prescription, so we’ve got that if she needs it. Katie is now on Tamiflu. My doctor and Natalie’s pediatrician thought we wouldn’t benefit from Tamiflu, because we had been sick too long. You need to start taking it within 48 hours of the onset of fever.

So we’re hanging in there. Natalie seems to be fine now. I’m still under the weather, but today is the fifth day. It should be over soon. With any luck the Tamiflu will keep Natalie and Melissa from experiencing the worst of it.

Tags: swine flu

Natalie has swine flu

Monday, September 14th, 2009 | Home Life, Photos | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Melissa just got back from the doctor and tested positive for swine flu. That’s the bad news. The good news is the doctor thinks the worst of it is already over.

Natalie was sick last week with a temp of 104.5, so Melissa took her to the doctor Thursday. At that time they tested her for swine flu and she came back negative, but mentioned that sometimes it’s hard to detect early on and that she had the symptoms. We kept her home from parent’s night out and declined some invitations to make sure she got some rest and that we didn’t spread anything.

I’ve been sick since Saturday with fatigue and flu-like aches, though my fever hasn’t run nearly as high as Natalie’s. I stayed home today and will likely stay home again tomorrow. If this is swine flu it isn’t nearly as bad as the regular flu Melissa and I had two winters ago. Knock on wood.

Anyhoo, here’s looking forward to Natalie feeling better. Here’s another Natalie picture I like.

Natalie has the curliest hair you’ve ever seen. Melissa put some straightener in her hair and took this picture. Within a couple of hours of being out in the humidity her hair curled right back up. Natalie’s three and has  never had a haircut, so it’s sort of amazing when you see how long her hair really is.

When we wash her hair it looks very dark, darker than Katie’s, even. It’s just the ends that are light and make her look very blonde. Looking at old pictures I was blonde in preschool and only became brown haired later.

Tags: swine flu

Katie’s soccer team picked their name

Friday, September 11th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Like Melissa said, you’d expect a kindergarten girls soccer team to be the Lady Bugs or something. Nope. The name they picked is The Red Vampires.

Four year old Katie’s names for the eight children she wants to have

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Stephen, Joe, Samuel, Caitlin, Caley, Shine, Isabella, and Bon Jovi.

I have no idea where she learned the name Bon Jovi.

Katie, you’ll appreciate this more in a couple years

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

Katie’s elementary school is closed the rest of this week due to flu. She was glad, but she’s still in kindergarten. In a couple years she’ll really be jazzed by the idea of getting to skip two days of school.

Crap. A smash and grab robber stole my camera bag

Friday, August 28th, 2009 | Home Life, Photos | Permalink | 5 Comments |

Tomorrow is Melissa’s 20th high school reunion. Tonight we went to South Doyle for a pre-reunion football game. It was a nice night until we left the game and discovered someone had smashed out the Honda’s window and stolen my camera bag.

They got the 18-55mm kit lens, the 50mm 1.8, the 70-300mm (that one really hurt), plus a really excellent polarizing filter, and some miscellaneous camera junk along with a Carter’s diaper bag I was using as a stealth camera bag.

The good news is I had the camera, the new Nikon AF-S 35mm lens and the external flash around my neck taking pictures at the football game, so I’m not totally dead in the water. They also ignored the radar detector, a Streamlight flashlight in the opposite door, a CB radio under the seat, or a Victorinox SwissTool and other stuff in the glovebox. Melissa didn’t have her pocketbook tonight, so we didn’t lose any money, credit cards, drivers license, etc.

It sucks, but at this point in my life I have insurance and money. In my twenties I had a car broken into once when I had neither. I found out about that break-in when a park ranger hiked into my backcountry campsite the first morning of a three night backpacking trip and asked “Do you own a red Toyota?”

We reported it to the police. I put plastic over the window in case it rains. Saturday I’ll go get three estimates. We’ll get the window fixed, give the police the serial numbers of the lenses, curse the SOB who did this, and move on with our lives. If the police recover the lenses or catch the guy who did this I’ll consider it a miracle.

I want to replace the 70-300mm lens as soon as we get the insurance money. The other lenses I’m not too worried about. Life goes on.

NEXT MORNING: The camera bag was a Carter’s diaper bag. It wasn’t technicool black nylon and wasn’t emblazened with “Nikon” or “Lowe Pro.” It’s what I call a stealth camera bag. However, it might have looked like a big purse, which could have given the thief the idea to steal it. Here’s a picture of it from a trip to the Smokies last winter:

We were trying to remember if we set the car alarm and we’re pretty sure we did. If the alarm is set and you unlock the door with anything but the alarm fob you have five seconds to either put the key in the ignition or press the unlock button on the alarm fob before the alarm sounds. If the alarm didn’t go off when they smashed the window it would have gone off in five seconds after they unlocked the door.

So most likely they just had time to grab the bag. Then the alarm went off and they ran. That would explain why they didn’t take the radar detector or anything else (Melissa realized this morning that her checkbook was in the console between the seats), and why the glove compartment wasn’t even opened. Score one for alarm systems.

Random question about temperature and sleeping

Monday, August 24th, 2009 | Home Life, Science | Permalink | 3 Comments |

I’m trying to figure out why I run warm when I sleep at night, but cold when I nap during the day. What’s up with that?

I took a nap Sunday afternoon. I did what I usually do when I nap, which is to put on some socks and a long-sleeved t-shirt to stay warm. Sometimes I’ll wear pajama pants if I’m really cold

Here’s the weird thing. When I go to sleep at night I’m never cold. Just the opposite - I have to make sure it’s cool enough for me to sleep. I program the thermostat to drop the temperature a few degrees before bed time. If I’m still too warm I’ll turn on the bedroom ceiling fan.

I recall from freshman psychology that there’s a relationship between sleep and temperature. Your temperature drops a little at night and rises when it’s time to wake up. The professor told a story of a guy who couldn’t wake up in the morning no matter how loud he set his alarm. It turned out his temperature was unusually low in the morning, so he set an electric blanket on a timer to warm himself up before the alarm sounded.

I’m sure that some of the times when I’m taking naps I don’t feel well. That would explain being cold on those occasions, but not others.

Any ideas on why my sleep thermostat is reversed during the day?

Why isn’t my brand new Bosch dishwasher drying the dishes?

Thursday, August 20th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 1 Comment |

The dishwasher we almost replaced last year started acting up again. It was 12 years old, the racks were barely staying in place and it was falling out of the countertop. We decided it was time to buy a replacement.

We already knew we wanted a Bosch because of the incredibly quiet operation. Once it was installed we were disappointed that the dishes were coming out wet.

Here’s what we did to get dry dishes out of our Bosch.

How the Bosch condensation drying works

Unlike most dishwashers Bosch dishwashers don’t have a heating element. There are a number of advantages to this system:

• Greatly reduced energy use
• No heating element to melt plastics
• No steam is vented to the outside of the unit
• Eliminating the vent eliminates a weak spot in the soundproofing, which is one of many reasons a Bosch is so quiet.

The Bosch depends on condensation drying. The interior is stainless steel. Besides being good-looking and hard-wearing, the stainless interior dissipates heat. When warm, moist air encounters the cooler stainless interior the moisture cools, condenses on the stainless steel interior, and runs down into the bottom of the dishwasher.

Tips for getting dishes drier

The hot water provides the primary heat source for drying the dishes. (There’s also a small internal water heater that boosts the water temperature before it enters the interior.) Run the faucet on the kitchen sink on hot until it produces hot water. That made a big difference for us.

You might also want to increase the temperature on the household water heater. We had turned ours down after our first child was born as part of childproofing the house. Now that our kids are 3 and almost 5 we turned the water heater back up a few degrees to the normal setting.

Use Jet Dry or similar rinse agent to help reduce surface tension and make the water run off of dishes. I use Jet Dry and set the dispenser to 2. Hard water requires higher settings. If your dishes have streaks you’re using too much rinse agent; dial it down.

Set the Bosch for Opti-Dry - “A sensor system detects the presence of a rinse agent and measures its level in the dispenser. It also adjusts automatically the final water temperature and wash cycle for best results.” Consult your manual, but this is how I enabled it on ours: With the washing machine off, press and hold the Cancel button. Power on the dishwasher. Press Cancel to change the 0 on the display to 1.

So how well does it dry now?

Now that we use those tricks we have no problems with water on dishes, glasses, silverware, pots and pans, or hard plastics. Soft plastics that can’t retain heat such as Ziploc containers or Solo cups will still have some water that we shake off or blot off with a towel. It’s a small price to pay for the whisper quiet operation and energy efficiency of the Bosch. Sometimes I’ll open the dishwasher to load a glass or plate and be surprised when I realize the dishwasher is already running.

Previously

• Speaking of Appliance Heck
• Random Thoughts on Toilets, Tables, and Dishwashers

Tags: bosch, googlebait

Sugar prices surge to 28 year high

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 | Economics, Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

Sugar rush could push price to 30-year high:

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sugar prices are poised to hit 30-year highs on a perfect storm of huge Indian imports and tight supplies, and the rally may not be enough to stimulate larger output as a credit crunch grips top producer Brazil.

The benchmark spot sugar contract in New York scaled a 28-year peak this week of 22.44 cents a lb and refined sugar futures in London charged to a record high as weak monsoon rains in leading consumer India stoked talk of hefty imports in 2009/10.

After hearing about this I bought 30 pounds of sugar when I was at the grocery tonight. Why not? It only cost 16 bucks, the price is poised to increase, sugar keeps for years, and now it’s one more thing I won’t run out of anytime soon.

Tags: buy it cheap and stack it deep, inflation

Children’s toy and clothes sale this weekend in Knoxville

Thursday, July 30th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Sacred Heart Children’s Clothing Sale kicks off Friday starting at 9am and running until 5pm. Saturday is 1/2 off everything and runs from 8am - 12noon.

Lots of great bargains on good quality, clean clothes and toys brought in by the mothers. My wife frequently finds outfits from Gymboree and similar for 10-20% of the original price. She’s on the committee this year and helped them with their computer setup.

Conversation about the Jonas Brothers

Sunday, July 19th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

FOUR YEAR OLD KATIE: I like the Jonas Brothers
ME: Well, that’s a pretty good song.
FOUR YEAR OLD KATIE: Did you know the Jonas Brothers are cute?
ME: They are?
FOUR YEAR OLD KATIE: Uh huh. They’re very cute.
ME: OK.

Tags: conversations