Heard around the house today

I was walking through the fourier today and I heard Tamara ask Atticus in a very loud voice "Why are you pelvic thrusting all over the house?"

Atticus: "What is pelvic thrusting?" as he thrusts his pelvis forward and backward on the handrail.
Tamara: "Its what you are doing!!"

Startown Landsharks difficult Season

So Atticus was on the baseball team called Startown Landsharks this fall season.  He has played baseball since he was about 4 or 5 and this was his first season in the kid pitch league.  I think it is called Babe Ruth League 10U.

He has played with the same group of boys for about two years now.  This past spring season which was machine pitch we had a pretty good team with a decent record.   This fall has been brutal to the Startown Landsharks.  For one reason or another the kids had a very difficult time focusing as a team while trying to get used to a human being pitching to them instead of a machine.

I don't even know what our record was but I do know that we didn't win a game all season.  Our final game last night was absolutely brutal.  We were up to bat first and went down 3 up 3 down.  The bottom half of the first inning took about an hour and I lost count of how many batters were walked and the number of runs scored.  We went through 3 pitchers in the first inning.

It has been on hell of a learning experience for the kids and the coaches did the best they could (I was labeled a coach and came to all the games that I could but my lack of baseball knowledge really doesn't qualify me to be a "coach") but it was a humiliating season.  I just hope that some lessons were learned and that next season will be much better.

By the way, Atticus played 1st base and Pitcher.  He walked many and hit at least two batters.  Nevertheless he really enjoyed pitching and playing.

Sick Again!!!

I started getting sick again on Saturday the 3rd.  Noticed a little cough.  Now I have head congestion, headache and am coughing up phlegm. 

Getting over Sick

Today is the first day that I have not coughed my head off.  So for the record this sickness lasted about a week.  No fever and no doctor visit.  Just a lot of coughing, phlegm and headaches.

Sick

I started feeling it on Thursday night September 3.  Friday the 4th in the morning I felt terrible and I stayed in bed until about 10.

Saturday the 5th I was feeling a bit better and took the boat to the lake.  Drank only water.

Sunday the 6th went to the lake again.  Drank only water.  Felt a bit better but still a cough.

Monday the 7th felt a bit better still but still the hacking cough. Coughing up phlegm from my chest.

Today still have the cough.  Couldn't sleep.  Plenty of phlegm.

Jet Lag

Trip to India and China.

Left Newark June 28 at 9 pm local arrived in Delhi around 10 pm local the next day June 29.  Checked into the radisson blue in Delhi about 11 pm slept from about 1 am to 5 am.

Arrived in Kolkata June 30 about 9 am did factory tours until about 7 pm.  Slept from 10 pm to 4 am July 1.

July 1 left hotel about 9 rode two hours to visit knitting and dipping factories.  Rode back to Kolkata to visit company headquarters. Arrived back at hotel about 7 pm.  Slept from 11:30 pm to 3 am on July 2.

July 2 factory tours from 10 am to 4 pm. Slept from 5 pm to 8 pm.  Slept from midnight to 5 am July 3.

Another Adrienne Saying

Adrienne sitting in London's bed (becausae she is afraid to sleep by herself in her room) on her iPad talking about the wireless signal:

"Dad, I only have two bars.  We are living like animals!"

Called out

We are in Goldsboro staying the night getting ready to drop the children off for camp tomorrow. The kids of been swimming at the pool and I've been hanging out watching them.

Tamara has gone back to the room to help the girls to go out to dinner. Atticus has been in the pool swimming by himself. He got out of the pool came up to me and said "dad, that is your third beer!"

When the hell did he become the beer police?

Stubborn little ass

Here's the shit that I have to deal with on almost a daily basis. Atticus comes downstairs with about 20 minutes left before we have to leave for school and ask for breakfast.

I tell him that I will be happy to make the breakfast for him. I ask him what he would like. He asked for waffle with chocolate chips placed in each cavity and a chocolate smoothie.

I explained to him that I will not make both those things for him because he will not eat them both.  He insists he will. So then I tell him he can either make a choice or have no breakfast. He storms off back upstairs to see his mother Who comes downstairs and opens the freezer to start making the waffle and smoothie. I told her that I would not allow him to have any breakfast this morning because of his completely unreasonable demands.

His mother did not like the fact that I requested that she not make him breakfast. In my opinion, I think that the fact that his mother will do just about anything he asks her to do his part of the problem.

Hanging with Adrienne

So I'm here at Fort Walton Beach Florida at the Waterscapes resort.  We arrived yesterday morning and the kids have been super active the entire time.

Right now it's about 8:30 PM and everybody has gone upstairs to hang out in the room except for me and Adrienne.

For the past 30 minutes she is been swimming around the lazy river in the reverse direction against the current. She doesn't mind play by herself. Earlier today she was playing by herself under all of the water features.

She usually hangs around everybody else until she's ready to go do something else on her own. Then she'll go and do it and not think a thing about being alone.

The Misery that is Disney - an honest review.

I don't get it....

Disney World... Magical?  Yes it is magical.  The strategy, processes, policies and procedures that have been meticulously implemented to make a visit here a wonderful, memorable and enjoyable experience are truly business genius.   It goes without saying that the majority of people that visit Disney say they have a wonderful experience.  I have friends who visit two to three times per year because they enjoy it that much.

In my view, the weather is great, the facilities are very nice, the service is excellent.  The value is horrendous.

Here is my synopsis based on my previous and final visit during mid-March 2015.  I should report that I understand that during other times of the year it is not so crowded here so some of what I say might not be valid at all times of the year but definitely applicable for the majority of the year.

The good:

• Weather
• Swimming pools
• Service - for the most part
• Watching children experience the wonderment

The bad:

• Everything you do has a line - even the fast passes
• Everything is hyper-expensive.
• You are captive - no choice but to pay ridiculous prices.
• Everywhere is crowded
• Pools
• Hotels
• Rides
• Restaurants
• Buses
• Monorails
• Trams
• Bathrooms
• Sidewalks
• Hallways
• Beaches (you can't swim in the lakes)
• Waiting in line for the Bus - crowded,  long wait especially with hyper kids.
• The maximum wait times for buses is supposedly 20 minutes but we waited over 30 minutes for a bus to arrive to take us from the Contemporary to Downtown Disney.  The bus ride was another 30 minutes. half of which was the bus waiting in line to drop passengers off at the disembarkation point for buses.
• Only buses connect some parks.  So you are going to wait in line!
• If you don't have a fast-pass you can forget riding more than two rides in an entire day.  When we were there the average wait for the most popular rides were 120 minutes.  Fast-pass lines were about 5 to 10 minutes.

I can't help  but admire what Disney has done.  They have created a brand that people value so much that they are willing to ignore all these shortcomings.  I also wonder about those people who return here after one trip.  I assume those people don't know about all the other wonderful options for families elsewhere that are far more reasonably priced with less waiting yielding more opportunities to create a larger quantity of just as if not more memorable and meaningful experiences

I would guess that most people that are happy with Disney must place a high value on the Character experience because this is the only place for that.  You can't go anywhere else that is non-Disney and see, Mickey, Donald, Cinderella and the other Disney characters.  This must be a high value proposition for many.  For me and even for my children ages 11, 8 and 8 character experience has zero value.

In conclusion, Disney is a lot like any other mega-brand.  They have done so well at developing a perception (a picture in the mind) of the brand and reputation that the consumer is completely duped and unaware that there are much better options elsewhere.  Of course this doesn't apply if you think your kids won't have full and meaningful lives without experiencing up close the Disney characters.

Getting NTP Server to work on Asus RT-AC3200 in Access Point (AP) Mode

I just received my Asus RT-AC3200 today and immediately put it to work.  I have a Sonicwall Firewall in my home so my wireless access only needs to be access points.  It just so happens that Access Points with the features I was looking for are more expensive than buying a full blown router so I opted for the RT-AC3200 due to reviews.

After installation and configuration in AP mode I noticed that the date on the router was incorrect and the default NTP pool.ntp.org server was unreachable.  This really was unacceptable because all the log entries had a ridiculous date on them and any time based restriction rules would not work.

The setup page kept telling me that it had not synchronized with the NTP server but did not give any error code or reason it could not connect.

I corrected the problem by simply inputting the IP address of the NTP server (129.6.15.28) instead of the URL (time-a.nist.org) and to connection to the server was successful.  I found the list of time servers here: http://tf.nist.gov/tf-cgi/servers.cgi

I hope this can help someone else.

When will my kids care?

So the kids were out of school for two days because of weather.  Their teachers emailed them assignments for both days.  I worked both days but the kids stayed at home and they did NOTHING.  I got home tonight about six PM and found out all the homework they needed to do.......

Now it is 8:30 and they are maybe half way through their homework and I have had to threaten and beg for them them actually do it.  They don't seem to give a shit.

Very, very frustrating.

Sleeping arrangements

Adrienne is now sleeping by herself in her room and so is Atticus.  It has been about a week that Adrienne has been sleeping on her own.  We will see if it sticks.  

Adrienne has a small cut on her than that interferes with her thumb sucking.  She said she couldn't sleep last night because of it. 

Bedtime Niceties and Difficulties

Atticus still fights going to bed.  He will come up with any little reason to delay bedtime.  Usually he says something like "but I didn't get desert!"  Of course he has been playing for two hours after dinner with every opportunity to get desert for himself but doesn't do it.

None of my kids like to sleep alone yet.  Normally at least two of them will sleep together- usually Adrienne and London.

Tonight I tucked Adrienne in to bed by herself.  First she wanted to read me a book.  She read a book for preschoolers about getting ready to go to bed then a book more age appropriate about Sharks.  She always likes me to tuck her in and I give her a kiss goodnight and tell her I love her.

Tonight after about 10 minutes she came back downstairs and said she needed a back massage.  She said she counted to 40 sheep but couldn't go to sleep.  I offered to go to her room and count with her which she readily accepted.

I tucked her in again and laid down beside her and started counting.  At about 20 she said "Dad, you can leave when we get to forty."

I told her that I would leave when we got to 100 and she seemed to like that.  I think she told me I could leave because she is the type of person that usually thinks of others first and she knew that she had interrupted me so I think she was trying not to inconvenience me so much.

I relish times like this because I know they will not last....

And as usual London announced to me at about 9:00 PM after she was in bed that she still had homework to do... She is a master procrastinator.