No Leaf Unturned

We had a huge pile of snow in the beginning of November, but after a couple of weeks, the storms stopped coming and the temperature climbed above forty and the snow melted away and revealed to the world the shame that is our yard.

Covered with leaves.

Yes, we didn't manage to get all the leaves raked up before the snow fell. We have no excuse except we really don't care. Well, I don't care. Cheryl really wanted the yard all cleaned up before the snow covered it up, but there weren't any 'volunteers' so the job didn't get done.

It would've been nice if the snow had just kept it covered up all the way through March. Procrastination is my middle name!

But it didn't. So Cheryl made the request for assistance, and the kids went out this afternoon and got it all raked into piles and the piles were put into bags and the bags were placed on the front porch so they could be moved streetside on Collection Day.  Friday.

It was nice to get it done. It will be nicer when it gets picked up.

Man Cave Closed for the Season

It's going to be a very odd winter.

I shut down the third bay today, after finally getting it all cleared out and then moving Serenity in there. With the Subaru inside, there's no room to do any woodwork or anything else; all the workbenches and tools have been broken down and stored elsewhere.

The loft is completely stuffed with all my junk.

And I have very little room to do any auto or wood or metal or electrical work.

But that's OK because I'm supposed to be working on the basement anyway.

And my cars have promised not to have any issues this winter.

Or else.

So I have no more Man Cave.

No retreat.

No happy place.

I'm expecting my stress level to get very high by the end of the year.

So don't be surprised if the next missive you receive from me, is in crayon.

Black Friday

I didn't realize that today wasn't a regular workday until the afternoon, when I checked the company calendar and found out that both Thursday and Friday are paid holidays.

My brain doesn't work too well these days.

At least I avoided any shopping today! But I did actually go into work and dial in to the normal Friday afternoon meeting WebEx, which consisted of only myself and one other geek engineer who hadn't checked his calendar. Boy, did we feel stupid!

But we actually got some work done, so I suppose that's not a bad thing.

Afterward, realizing I didn't need to be there, I went over to Costco to get some fuel for the car, then went home and worked on the garage.

And in the evening, Cheryl and I watched the latest episode of Foyle's War, one of our favorite BBC series.

We are Thankful Today

We are so thankful today.

We have good friends, good food, good health. Notwithstanding all the things in our lives that aren't going quite the way we would like, we have so much that it is impossible to be dissatisfied with what we have been given.

We are thankful for family.
We are thankful for friends who want to share this day with us.
We are thankful for the providence of God that allows us to have all this good food.
We are thankful that we live in a country where we can worship God.

And we are thankful that at the end of the day, we can go to sleep without worrying about tomorrow.

==

Pre-Thanksgiving Pie Prep

Pecan, Apple, and Pumpkin.

Isn't that what Thanksgiving is all about?

We spent the evening working on the pies we'll be taking to the Shapin's house tomorrow for Thanksgiving. I am hoping to eat some of each ... but with all the food we're going to have, it's difficult to know just how much room is going to be available for dessert.

After the chicken and the mashed potatoes and the stuffing and the string beans and the sweet potatoes and the cranberry sauce and the bread, there might not be any space left in the ol' tum-tum.

If only there were some snow on the ground I could shovel in-between courses! That would help burn it all off.

But all our snow has come and gone, and now we are only left with cold air.

Which isn't enough.

Perhaps flapping my lips would burn off some of those extraneous calories. I'm good at yakking. I could go on for hours. Unfortunately, the caloric conversation rate for conversation is appallingly low.

Maybe I'll have to run laps around the neighborhood instead.

More Movies!

We just did a Daddy-Daughter date last night and watched a movie, so tonight, although it's not a Daddy-Daughter date, we're watching another movie!

We got Iron Giant a million years ago when it was on VHS. We almost wore the tape out, watching it over and over again because it is such a good movie!

Then we let someone borrow it a few years back, and we haven't seen it since.

Until Deb decided to buy it so she could watch it with her boyfriend.

Unfortunately, her boyfriend wasn't able to stay long enough to watch the movie (although he was able to join us for some snack food), so we all watched it as a Family Night event instead.

It's still a wonderful movie.

Daddy-Daughter Date

Now that Deb is dating someone who works a movie theater, she seems to be seeing a lot more movies.

She's already seen Interstellar and Big Hero 6, but tonight she and her father (me!) went on a daddy-daughter date to see it. Big Hero 6, I mean. Not Interstellar. That movie is just too long for me to sit through.

But Big Hero 6 was a very good movie. Sad in places, exciting in others. But definitely worth the time spent in the theater.

Gonna hafta get this one on DVD.

Happy Birthday, James!

Everyone around here is getting so old.

It's an odd feeling to have nearly grown-up children still hanging around the house, even the ones who have a  plan and are making it happen. James is another year older, six months past graduation, and he's doing what he wants to be doing and making plans to continue his dream(s). He's not going the standard route of college-then-career; he's got a vision and needs to work and save up some money to make that dream come true, so he's been diligently working and putting away the money and patiently waiting for the day when he can start the ball rolling on the next phase.

We have always told our children that going to college is a choice they will have to make, and that choice depends on their vision of the future. We are not forcing them to go into college immediately after high school, and we are constantly cautioning them to be financially wise concerning debt load, but we are also reminding them that the college degrees (mostly) provide the higher incomes, if that is at all a factor in the career decisions.

Adam has a vision of being a writer; he also is passionate about language, the creation of language, the syntax and semantics of language, and could have a wonderful future in linguistics. But it seems his true passion is still writing. Not sure where he gets that from.

James has a vision of going to Germany and (possibly) studying Art in one of the art schools there. (I suspect it would be advantageous to study German first, but he doesn't have the same passion for languages as his brother.) He also wants to create videos. If you want a sample of his work, go take a look at his YouTube channel. His logo/intro is quite amusing!

Deb wants to be a mom. She loves kids. Gets that from her grandmas. And she wants to be an editor, career-wise. Again with the writing.

Mary is a bit of a wild-card, since she's still in the early stage of high school. She's got some very strong ideas of her future, but there is still a lot of room for adjustment. I admire her passion for missions, her love of music, her outgoing nature, and her endless optimism. She laughs a lot, kind of like my sister Jeanne. Even when we're driving together, she laughs, especially when she makes a minor mistake. Being in the car with her is hilarious!

But today is James's day. He rolled another year. In celebration, we went out for dinner (Thai!) and then to the Symphony to hear The Firebird. (We snagged his best friend Nathan to go along with us, at least for the food, which was a good thing since we didn't have time to run our leftovers to the car, so Nathan took them home.) The first part of the concert was a commissioned piece by Avner Dorman called "Dialogues of Love", which was in three different languages (Hebrew, German and English). It was ... interesting. Somewhat discordant, experimental. After a short intermission, which was spent trying to convince Deb that the second half wouldn't be quite so "boring", we enjoyed the non-ballet version of The Firebird. With cue cards on the video monitors to explain what was going on if we had been watching the ballet.

Then we went home and ate ice cream and opened cards and presents!

Ruby Pumped!

It worked!

We jacked the car up and pumped the tires "in the air", and then dropped 'em back on the ground -- and they seem to be holding.

James says he's going to take it for a test spin later on, but for now, it's held up nearly all day long and no leak. I suppose that means that breaking the bead doesn't mean that the tires or rims are no good; it just means they have to be re-pumped.

Which is good. A friend of mine, who owns a tire store, quoted me over $100 to repair/replace the rims on the Subaru because they're aluminum alloy.

Yikes!

Ruby-smacked!

James was so annoyed by the snow yesterday that he decided to skip work today. Called in and said he wasn't coming. I don't blame him; he has a long way to drive, and when the roads are as bad as this, it's nothing but stress.

And the snow is still falling.

And it took me an hour to get all the cars cleaned off.

After work, I stopped by Costco for dinner -- the schedule is kind of crazy today, so there's no time to cook anything -- and then stopped by the old workplace to pick up the Christmas wreath I'd ordered from the Boy Scouts.

Ruby (the red Subaru) was sitting in the garage with two flat tires, both on the passenger side. That's weird. When I asked Deb about it, since she had driven the car to school today, she said she'd taken a sharp turn and slid into a curb. No damage to the car, but the impact was enough to pop the beads on both tires and let all the air leak out.

Luckily for her, the air lasted long enough to get home.

I'm hoping to take care of that tomorrow.  Tonight, Cheryl and I are going out grocery shopping. It should be interesting, especially with the amount of snow/slush in the parking lot.

A Snow Day

First snow day we've had this season. And it's a tad too early for my taste, given that it isn't even Thanksgiving. But one doesn't argue with the weather.

The snow keeps falling. And falling. And falling. There's a foot or two on the driveway; I haven't bothered to try shoveling it until today, just barely managing to brush off the cars every morning when everyone leaves for work/school. Why bother cleaning off the driveway when it's just going to keep coming? Besides, it's the really dry snow so it's relatively good traction even on top. If it was getting close to freezing, there'd be slush and that's an entirely different equation insofar as traction is concerned.

I still had to work today, but did my working from home. Can't say that much got accomplished, but probably more than would get done if I'd braved the roads to try to get to work. Too much worrying about the traffic can be such a distraction!

Deb was in a "mood" this afternoon, so we watched the original Back to the Future and I was amazed (again) at the language in that movie. Still don't remember it being so caustic when we first saw it back in '85. But the rest of it is still funny. Although the contradictions still bother me.

James got home in a very bad mood because the windshield wipers weren't doing their job of keeping the snow off. Around here, they have to be replaced every year because we go through such temperature extremes and the rubber dries out in the summer and then the snow / ice cakes up on them in the winter and they're useless. So I pulled some out of my stock from last year and they should work fine for the rest of the season. Not sure if they'll still be good in the summer.

Cleaned off the cars again, while I was out there. This is getting ridiculous. I don't even bother with those snow brushes, the ones that combine a scraper with a brush. I just broom off the cars and call it good. The snow is so light and airy (since it's only 20 degrees F) it just brushes off anyway. Haven't had to scrape the windows much this season, maybe once or twice.

Pre-Pre-Playoff Game

Another Saturday, another playoff game.

I don't know what's gotten into this football team. They keep winning. It's just not fair! All of us in the Marching Band are tired and ready to move on to other things.

We have a Christmas concert to work on! Give us a break!

But so long as the team keeps winning, we're going to be there for them, marching in the field and trying to maintain the team spirit. Kind of like cheerleaders on steroids. Or sugar.

Today it was very difficult to maintain the spirit.

It was cold, very cold. So cold that one of the kids actually fainted after coming off the field. Luckily, there were two doctors right there who were able to take care of the situation.

Deborah was in tears at the end of half-time. She could not feel her fingers or her toes. She was not able to play her flute because she couldn't push enough breath across it. So her friend Sabrina unselfishly gave her some regular gloves (with actual fingers on them - the flute gloves don't cover fingers, obviously) and we stuffed hot packs into them, put a cup of hot apple cider in her hands, and told her to stay on the side of the stadium protected from the wind. She was OK in ten minutes.

But it was not fun for the Band. The stadium seats were covered with ice and we couldn't scrape it off. For some reason, perhaps because aluminum is a relatively soft metal, the ice held firm. So the kids sat on the icy bleachers with blankets or the edges of their raincoats beneath them, and toughed it out. And tried to play their instruments when the Director told them to. And tried to maintain spirits.

It evidently worked. Because the football team crushed their opponents. And the other team was supposed to be tough! But our team was playing ferociously, pushing the ball downfield when it was theirs, and blocking like crazy when it wasn't.

Final score: 31-14.

If we keep this up and win again next week, we're going to the State finals.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Band-wise.

The Game and The Crucible

Due to the football team's proclivity lately for winning, we had another game today. Which meant that Marching Band was there. Which meant that we were there.

My pit crew team arranged to have a tailgate party before the game -- actually, as we were trying to get all the front-line carts set up -- so it was kind of chaotic. At one point, the guy who had brought the grill asked me to watch it for him, as he had to run inside the school to watch his daughter compete in the swim meet.

So I had to watch the grill and oversee the pit crew operations.

After the carts were out and set up, we put our folding tables in the trailer and stacked them with the food we had brought. Hot dogs, chili, chips, cookies, soda - the usual tailgate fare (I think -- we are not a tailgating family). And we ate. And got stuffed. I had 3 chili hotdogs, which was far too many for me, and then it was time to go out to the field and get the Band ready to go.

It was a good, evenly-matched game. Lots of back and forth, lots of exciting moments. The score stayed tied for most of the last half, and then our team won by a single field goal, 17-14.

We were happy.

Especially after clean-up. When we could go home and relax for a few minutes before heading down south to another high school's production of The Crucible.

I hadn't seen a production of this play since my own high school days (back in the Dark Ages); we'd read the play in one of my classes -- I don't remember which one -- and we'd gone to a professional production of it. But it had been far too long for me to remember any of it. So it was almost as if I'd never seen it at all.

And it was a very good production at this high school.

Deb's friend Sarah (at whose high school this was) knew quite a few of the cast, so she probably had more fun than we did, from a social standpoint. But we were able to enjoy it for the play that it is. Although "enjoy" might be the wrong word. It is a strong play. It is highly offensive at times. And it is difficult to walk away from it without wanting to do something about the blatant injustice of it.

Personally, I was taken aback by the amount of language in it. I'm perhaps too prudish to thoroughly enjoy a play with that much use of expletives (and I'm not talking about the modern expletives that wouldn't have even been considered for use in a play like this; I'm talking about the common, nearly ubiquitous expletives that most everyone takes for granted, so much so that they don't even garner a PG-13 rating anymore). It bothered me that they were being used in a high school play.

I still remember Mrs. Jones' sixth-grade class back in Richmond, Virginia, when the class read aloud a play which was in some kind of "Weekly Reader" magazine. (I thought it was "The Red Badge of Courage", but am not really sure since my memory is not what it used to be, but I remember very clearly the very last part of whatever play it was.) She had asked me to read the part of the protagonist because I enunciated clearly and loudly. And everything was fine until we got to the final line in the play, when the protagonist utters two expletives.

And I couldn't do it.

And all the other kids in the class knew I couldn't do it. They knew I was one of those goody-goody kids who went to church and didn't cuss or cheat or steal or anything.  And they were just waiting to see what I would do. They were ready to hear the teacher get on my case about it. Finally, Mr Goody-Two-Shoes was going to get in trouble!

And I was confused. Why would Mrs. Jones, that nice Baptist lady (who prayed with us before sending us off to lunch), make me say those bad words?  How could she do this to me?

(And why was it in a Weekly Reader magazine? That's another question which was never answered satisfactorily.)

So for the first time in my life, I pretended not to know how to pronounce a word. A simple word. A word I'd read many times before. A word that scared me. Because only bad people used this word.

I said the line. Dully. Flatly. Monotonously. Badly. As if I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it meant.

"Dan you. Dan you."

And I turned bright red.

I don't know if Mrs. Jones noticed. But I do remember one of the other boys noticed. A nemesis. A bully (at least in my eyes). One of those cute, blond boys who had been told all his life that he was handsome to the point where he believed it was his God-given right. And all the girls believed it, too. I can still see his face in my mind's eye, the look on his face as he smiled with that certain smile that said, Ha! Not so smart, are you?

I wanted nothing more than to run outside for recess and forget the whole thing. But I never did. Not after forty years.

Funny how the mind works.

I enjoyed The Crucible. It's not something I'm likely to ever see again, unless someone I know is in it. The things that happen in that play are immutable and horrifying. And it gives one such a desire to go back in time and knock some heads together.

Especially when one realizes that one of Cheryl's relatives was actually there.

Old Cars

There's a reason I buy old cars.

Actually, two.

For one thing, I enjoy working on cars, fixing them, keeping them in running shape. Given enough time and opportunity, I'd spend hours every day taking them all apart, bolt by bolt, cleaning them all up and then putting them all together again, shiny and brand-new. One of these days, should I live long enough, I want to have a car or two I could drive over to the local car show and pop up the hood and show off all the little sparkly metal pieces and have people admire it and say what a nice, clean, beautiful piece of work it is.

Until that day occurs, I have a driveway full of old, rusty, beat-up, mostly-functional cars.

Which brings me to my second reason.

So long as there are teenagers in the house, teenagers who drive these cars hither and yon, I'm going to keep old cars around.

Because if the cars get dings and scratches and bumps and cracks, I don't care. It doesn't bother me if they don't look like they just rolled off the assembly line. And I'm not going to take them to the shop to have some artiste waste time and money (lots of money!) trying to repair cosmetic damage.

It just ain't worth it.

Naturally, I'll make sure the cars are safe to drive. Tires properly inflated, wipers functional, engines running, transmissions working. But body damage is not worth a moment's concern. (Other than slapping a quick coat of paint on it to keep oxidation from turning little dents into huge holes.)

Teens make occasional mistakes. Cars suffer the consequences.

Teens learn from their mistakes. Cars can still operate with dents.

So when someone (who shall remain nameless) backs out of the driveway in the morning with a little less caution than is necessary and accidentally hits one of the other cars, leaving a nice little dent on both vehicles, I'm not going to get all upset about it. I'm not going to make them pay for it. I'm not even going to bother to fix it. Yet.

I figure the best reminder to be more cautious, is to let them see that damage every day when they (once again) pull out of the driveway and get onto the public roads.

And when I'm finally ready to do something about it, they'll work with me to fix the dent, to bend a little metal, apply a little putty, sand and shape and buff and polish until it's impossible to tell there ever was a dent. And maybe that experience will help them understand a little of why we have to be careful.

But I will remind them all - frequently - that we aren't just cautious because we want to avoid piddly damage to cars.

We are most cautious because we wish to avoid damage to people.

And I ask them to imagine the consequences of inattention when pedestrians are involved. When other children are walking in our street, in front of our house, on their way to the bus stop, on a cold, dark morning. These children - and their parents - are relying on us to make sure there is nothing in our path before we send three thousand pounds of automobile rolling across the ground.

We mustn't disappoint them.

The Joys of Suburban Life

So it's mid-morning and I'm working from home, feeling lousy because of a virus or something, and there's a knock on the door. I run up the stairs from the basement, huffing and puffing all the way, open the door, thinking/hoping it's a magical package from FedEx or Amazon or NewEgg which I never ordered, but instead there's this nicely dressed guy with a big smile on his face and a business card held in his hand.

Says he's the "Compliance Officer". The guy in charge of going around the neighborhood and making sure our grass is the right height and our cars are parked in the right place and our houses aren't falling into disrepair. And I always wondered what all those Association fees were paying for.

When I heard "Compliance", I thought he was going to talk about my car, the one I'm still working on, the one that still doesn't have a plate because it's not registered. But - no. He wants to talk about my trash bin. 

It's been sitting outside, on the side of the house, since Friday when the trash was picked up. It's empty, not heaped high with refuse. It's just sitting there, dark brown and horrifying, reminding the neighbors that occasionally, we throw out garbage.

It's sitting there because there's no room for it in the garage. Because I'm trying to rearrange the contents of the garage in order to find the room to move the cars inside. Which is going to require some major overhaul of the basic structure of the third bay (my shop!).

I should feel lucky to have a third bay to put my car in. Instead, I'm feeling put-upon because this yahoo is coming to my front door complaining that my empty brown trash bin is sitting outside rather than inside my garage where it belongs.

A couple years ago, the City put a warning sticker on my car (yes, it's been under repair for a long time now!) because it was sitting in my driveway, not hurting anyone, but also not moving. Apparently, there's a law against non-moving cars in driveways. That infuriated me. The car is not a rust-bucket. It is not dripping oil all over the place. It is not an eyesore.

It just doesn't move. Yet.

OK, so I can understand why the City doesn't want a bunch of derelict cars sitting in people's driveways. It reduces the value of the houses and the neighborhoods, and the last thing the government wants is to reduce the value of people's property! How else are they going to keep those property taxes so high? (Oddly enough, we found that property taxes actually don't go down when property values go down; for some reason, they only go up.)

But if the car doesn't look like a derelict, why do they care?

And why does the neighborhood care if my little brown trash bin is sitting on the side of my house?

I wonder if they're going to come after me for all those un-raked leaves.

                        *                         *

Parent-teacher conferences are always a wonderful time for those of us with wonderful children. We don't have any issues or complaints, so we usually sit around and chat with the teachers about non-stressful topics.

Except tonight.

Tonight, Deb was all excited because her boyfriend's father was going to be there, and she wanted us to meet him. Not for the sake of meeting him and getting to know him as a person; no, she wanted us to meet him so we would allow her to go over to her boyfriend's house to "hang out". So we would approve of him as a chaparone.

Unfortunately, even if he is a nice guy, it doesn't matter. He and his son live by themselves in an apartment. There are no other females in the place. That is an inappropriate situation for a young teenaged girl.

I met him. He is a nice guy.

But it doesn't matter. I will not approve of her "hanging out" at his house, unaccompanied by other women.

And maybe someday she'll understand.

A Family Date

There's nothing like the prospect of dinner with the family to send a young girl's heart (and mind) into complete chaos.

By "dinner with the family", of course, I mean that her boyfriend will be having dinner with the family. And she'll be forced to put on her best display of familial affection and cooperation while trying not to look too affectionate towards the people she would trade in an instant for another moment or two in his presence.

We're not fools. We've been there before. We assume you remember as well, those of you who have survived adolescence. Giddy hearts, frantic mood swings, desperate thoughts and despairing days when your whole world walks on the narrow ledge between utter happiness and complete desolation. It is difficult to watch someone else go through it, knowing that whatever advice or counsel you may provide will be dismissed, trampled, and forgotten before the words have even escaped your lips. Youth knows all, sees all, understands all, and has no need of the pitiful mumblings of the aged, decaying minds of we adults -- at least until the next crisis occurs. We understand this and simply stay out of their way, resigned to standing on the sidelines with the cup of hot cocoa and the blanket, ready to blot the tears if necessary.

But it's hard to stifle the laughter. It's like watching a comedy routine.

So. The boyfriend came to dinner tonight.

Deb couldn't find enough to do, and she really tried to help, but she was far too nervous and excited to be of any use. She simply got in the way in the kitchen, which didn't help her mother's mood; and when urged to go find something more useful to do, she hovered too long near the door anxiously awaiting her guest, which didn't help mine.

The boyfriend arrived - finally! - which gave the poor girl something to do besides pace in front of the door. We (the family) welcomed him to our humble home, bade him sit, be refreshed, take a load off; we attempted to engage him in polite conversation, but he had no ear for it because he was not there to see us.

While the cooking continued in the kitchen in spite of whatever assistance Deb could offer, Mary and I fled to the store to get some additional supplies (e.g. french bread) so escaped for a time, but we eventually had to return. Given the storm clouds which had been hovering overhead (Cheryl's head), we weren't sure what cataclysmic scene we might find. But everything was reasonably calm. There were no broken dishes or spilled beverages. There was food on the table.

And the dinner was excellent. Spaghetti and meat balls, salad, string beans, the aforementioned bread. The conversation was interesting, although inane at times, owing to the frenetic nature of some of the participants. I was a bit disappointed that the two young people were not as hungry as the rest of us, but chalked that up to major hormonal distractions. Oh, well, that left more for the rest of us!

Afterward, we played some Monopoly (which, owing to the rather poor concentration on the part of the "couple", I unexpectedly won) and ate ice cream and read books and watched something on Netflix. By the end of the evening, the "couple" was sitting comfortably on the couch (near Cheryl) and I was thinking of how nice it would be to just go to bed so as to recover from the weekend.

Ah, slumber. Last refuge of the hormonally-deficient and physically decrepit.

We'll see him again, I think.

Dating at Last

We knew it was coming. We thought we were prepared.

We were half-right.

Deb went out on her first official "date" tonight. I don't have a shotgun, though, so I wasn't able to greet the guy out on the porch while cleaning it, as I had always imagined. Instead, he parked across the street and she ran out the door to meet him. And they drove away to watch a movie and then grab some dinner.

We'd met the young man a few days ago when he came over to "hang out". Nice kid. Quiet (mostly due to nervousness, I suppose). No tattoos, no piercings. But blond. Colored blond. Hmmm... As if there wasn't enough blond around here anyway, what with all these Dutch people hanging about.

Well, this will be an interesting adventure!

Are We Done Yet?

The High School football team is doing very well this year, and I should be happy about that, but I'm not. Because the Marching Band has to perform every time the football team plays now, and they are putting the games in the middle of my Saturday, and that kills the whole day.

Today was our first official playoff game, and while there was a thought in the back of my mind that it would be wonderful if the team lost and then the Marching Band season would be over and we could go back to our normal lives, the reality of the situation was that we knew we were going to beat the other team. We were playing very well, and they were not.

But before we even got around to starting the game, there was all the preparation for the Marching Band.  Pit Crew, in particular, since that's my responsibility, began their work at 11 am, pulling out the carts for the front line instruments (marimbas, xylophones, electric bass), setting up the podiums and the marked-off area in the stadium, loading all the equipment we need to take over there, helping the kids load their instruments.

We check a lot of things as we're setting up: gas for the tractors (which pull the carts), tire inflation, gas for the generator (which powers the electric bass while on the field), and a host of other things. We thought we caught everything. But sometimes things just happen.

Like the tractors didn't want to start. It was cold; the batteries were supposedly charged; but the starters whined a few seconds and then stopped. It sounded more like an actual starter-motor issue to me, but we were able to get them both started with the help of a portable battery charger.

Then, on the way over to the stadium, one of the tires blew out. Not "went flat", but "blew out", so that it was just a piece of shredded rubber wrapped around an aluminum rim. We didn't have time to change it out on the way; we performed the pre-game with the blown-out tire, and then I ran back to the trailer and grabbed a spare tire/wheel so we could fix it before half-time.

And another battery charger. For the wireless speaker system.

See, the band directors sit with the band in the special, marked-off "band section" of the bleachers, directing them with peppy tunes throughout the game. They use a wireless speaker system. I'd checked the system prior to heading over to the stadium. They indicated "fully charged". So we put them on the cart and took them over to the stadium. We didn't find out til they started using the system after pre-game that the batteries were actually not fully charged.  In fact, they were practically dead.  So while I was back at the school getting the spare wheel, I also grabbed the charger unit for the portable speaker system.

Since there is no electrical outlet right near the spot in the stadium where the band sits, I had to "borrow" the generator to charge it up. Which meant we couldn't use the generator for the show. Which meant I had to run around to the backside of the stadium and turn on the field power (because there is an outlet right on the field itself) so the electric bass player could use it for his amp during the half-time show.

Whew! By half-time, I was ready to go home and call it a day. But then the game got exciting.

And we won.

Which means we get to do this all over again next weekend.

Oh, joy.