Ultranormal

Author: Kevin Lawver

  • Lacking Bandwidth

    Verizon’s high speed EVDO stuff hasn’t made it down here, so I’m stuck at dial-up speeds for the next week. So… there won’t be a whole lot of blogging, but the Sidekick works, so I’ll be updating my Twitter page fairly often, so check that for updates.\
    It’s morning in Mississippi, and it was a rough night for the Lawvers. Max had a little too much excitement (and ice cream, and one too many road meals) and spent a good portion of last night throwing up. Jen handled most of it, and is now snoozing on the couch, but it still made for an interesting evening.\
    The boys woke up early because we’re still on EST instead of CST, and now Max is playing with the camera and we’re watching The Goonies. Breakfast is around the corner and then hopefully, we have a day of not doing much ahead of us (and maybe a nap).

  • In Mississippi

    We made it. Today was fairly short, although with a lot more rain than yesterday. There are lots of funny stories about the boys sleeping on a hide-a-bed, adventures in dining (Leatha’s BBQ in Hattiesburg, MS: Best pulled pork on the planet Earth, and this is from a guy who’s tried a bunch in a dozen different states from pig pickin’s in the Carolinas to pork sandwiches in Austin – and yes, it was as good as promised – planks of plywood for the floor, large women in mu-mus and the best Southern home cooking I’ve ever had).\
    But, I’m tired, my back hurts and there’s lots of family time to catch up on, so that’s all for now. But, we’re safe, happy, fed and tired.

  • Road Trippin’

    We made it through day one! We made it through the first leg of the trip just fine. Brian had a couple “I’m two” moments, but really, they weren’t bad at all. We stopped just three times, two potty breaks and a break for lunch outside Roanoke.\
    The stats for today:

    • 590 miles
    • 10.2 hours
    • 2 10 minute potty breaks
    • 1 40 minute lunch break
    • Even with the breaks, we “averaged” 57 miles per hour. Take the breaks out and we averaged 64 miles per hour. Not bad considering a couple bad wrecks that caused some delays, and hitting “rush hour” in Chattanooga. The traffic was manageable all the way down, and the boys were little angels.\
      We even mostly missed the rain. We raced it the whole way and got caught a couple times by some light showers, but never anything horrible – just enough to clean off the windshield.\
      We’ve eaten dinner, the boys are in their jammies watching cartoons, and I’m recharging the laptop (the cigarette lighter power adapter can’t quite put out enough juice for the macbook pro, I guess), and checking mail (and writing this).\
      Tomorrow – 381 miles to go… then I’ve been promised the best barbecue on the planet, served by fat women in a restaurant without a floor. I’ll let you know how it goes (cuz it sounds like my kind of place).

  • Directions

    We’re leaving for Jen’s parents’ new house in Mississippi later this week, and we’ve decided to drive instead of fly. I have all this time off, and we haven’t really done a true family road trip since Brian was born, so I figured it’s time. We’ve got the van, all the adapters for our toys and the road “menu” all planned out (pop tarts for breakfast, granola bars, grapes, apples and carrots for snacks and then out for lunch and dinner). We even have our route (just so everyone knows in case we get lost in the backwoods somewhere). The part through western Virginia and eastern Tennessee is the same route Jen and I took when we moved out here from Tucson, and it’s a pretty drive through rolling farm land (if I remember correctly). I love directions. I love knowing where I’m going and about how long it’s going to take to get there. I like that thick red line telling me where to go.\
    I know I’m probably stupid for thinking this is a good idea, but I’m actually looking forward to it. We took lots of road trips when I was a kid. We drove around Europe in our VW camper van with the Porsche engine in it. It went over the Alps to the Eagle’s Nest, to Spain, to Belgium – where it protected us from golf ball sized hail, and I remember sleeping head to foot in the hammock over the front seats with Tim. My other favorite memory is sitting in the very tall back seat and picking up stuff from the floor with my feet (I can still pick up all kinds of stuff with my toes… good talent to have when you’re lazy).\
    This trip will be different. We’ll be staying in a hotel at the halfway point instead of a campground, and I’ll have my macbook and EVDO card so Jen could blog from the road if she wanted (but she gets carsick reading, so I’m not sure how she’ll handle the laptop), and Max could surf Noggin or watch a movie (or play with Line Rider.\
    I’m sure we’ll let you know how it goes.

  • Geeks Love *

    Geeks love *

    It’s scary how easily these things get started. All it took was one little verbal slip in a meeting, and now we have t-shirts. I got mine today when I made a little trip to the office to show off a prototype. They turned out way better than I expected (because Cindy never sleeps, apparently).\
    I love having talented friends who like the stupid stuff as much as I do. Work would be really boring without them.

  • Quandry

    I have a ton of stuff of substance to blog about (church, meetings at Max’s school, dumb ass politicians) but instead I want to tell you all about my latest dilemma. Today I went shopping for the road-trip-required twizzlers and peanut M&Ms for the drive to my parents’ house next week. Then I remembered that Brian can’t eat nuts and if he sees me not sharing, he’ll pitch a fit. Waaaah. I need my peanut M&Ms for the trip. It just won’t be the same without them! What am I to do?

  • Kids Love the Ska

    Want to make your kids dance like mad little dervishes? Throw on some ska! I was listening to the SKAverville episode of Coverville where Brian played an unbelievable version of the Can Can. I loved it so much, I made Max listen to it (because he was nearby). He giggled uncontrollably and then started boogying. I tried it this morning on Brian with the same results – spinning happy kid.\
    There you go, scientific proof that kids love ska. If you don’t have some, I highly recommend the Trojan Ska Revival. It’s got the Can Can on it, and most of the rest of the songs were recorded live, so they’re chock full of energy. These are going in the “dance” playlist we have in iTunes that we roll out when the boys need to let off some excess energy before bed time (I Like to Move It from Madagascar is one of their favorite “dance freakout” songs, along with Move Your Feet by Junior Senior).\
    I love watching Max and Brian dance. It’s this funny combination of running, hand waving, head bobbing and butt shakin’ that warms my heart and makes me giggle. When Brian’s just grooving, he does this cute little head bob with the beat that just cracks me up. I’ll try to get it on video in the near future…

  • Why I Don’t Go

    I read this great editorial about Christianity going off the rails and then the Missionaries came over tonight. That, on top of the fact that I’m on a panel at SxSW next year about spirituality and have been thinking about my relationship with the church for a while, has led me to finally write this post. I haven’t been going to church for a while. Neither have Jen or the boys. Partly, it was a habit we broke with a new baby, and then with a messed up ankle, travel and other convenient excuses, like having to go back to a congregation we were never that comfortable in the first time we attended (short version: when we first moved to Sterling we lived in an apartment and were in the Sterling Park Ward – when we bought our house, we were in the Ashburn Ward – they re-organized the Stake and we were thrown back in Sterling Park). Jen and I talked about it several times, and we made several attempts to go back, but those attempts never stuck. Now it’s been several months, and we haven’t been back, and that’s what leads me to this.\
    I don’t like going to church. I don’t like what’s become of it. Just like the editorial states (which made me say “Amen, brother!” out loud even thought I was alone), I feel like the church has slowly slid to the Right. The members of the church have aligned themselves with the same fundamentalist evangelicals who a generation before wrote horrible anti-Mormon literature, told unspeakable lies about our beliefs and were pretty much downright ugly. Now, they’re right there with Falwell, Dobson, Robertson and the rest of the pious idiots on the Right trying to take rights away from people and preaching hate instead of love and empathy. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how members of a church that was persecuted by religious zealots in Congress in the late 1800’s, and forced to leave the United States to find peace, could support the same kind of bigotry today when it comes to things like gay marriage. The straw for me was when a letter was read from the pulpit before the Senate voted on the gay marriage amendment asking members to call their senator and “ask them to do what you think is best.” The vote was doomed from the start and even the senators who supported it knew it. It was a purely political play in an election year aimed squarely at shoring up support from the Religious Right. That the leaders of the Church either didn’t realize that, or worse, embraced it, was too much for me.\
    There are other reasons that I’m not ready to talk about yet. When I am, they’ll show up on the blog too.\
    I thought it would be harder to slip away. I thought it would be harder to give up a habit I’ve had my entire life of going to church every Sunday. It really hasn’t been. In fact, I don’t really miss it at all. I don’t know how Jen feels. We haven’t talked about it in a little while, and, as always, I’m only speaking for myself here.\
    I don’t know what I believe any more, and that’s the only thing that’s currently troubling me. If I don’t go to church, I’m a “bad” Mormon. If I’m already a bad member of the church, what comes next? How far does the line slide? What do I believe?\
    I’m not in a huge hurry to figure it out, but when I do, I’ll let you know.

  • Digging the Twitter

    Because I’m a big Odeo fan, I heard about Twitter through their RSS feed. I checked it out, and it seemed like a nice diversion but I didn’t really get it. Now I do. Since I have friends that have started using it (thanks Cindy and Jason), it’s become a lot more fun. I post updates all the time (well, now that I’m on vacation, what else do I have to do?), and keep the chat window open all the time.\
    If you’re online all the time, and have friends who are too, it’s a fun toy. It’s not going to help you get any work done, but sometimes that’s a good thing. It’s a good way to keep track of what your friends are doing in whatever “medium” you want – IM, SMS, RSS, or on the web page.\
    They even have a nice little JSON interface! If you go to the home page, and look at the bottom of the page, that’s pulled in from Twitter and shows my last three updates. Neat, huh?

  • Look out, world!

    I have been dealing with the longest bout of PMS ever. At what point do I face reality and admit it’s not PMS, it’s just that I am a cranky bitch?\
    Yesterday was a bad day at Chez Lawver, with the broken pipe, flooded basement, heater on the fritz, and the lack of running water. I had Kevin take us out to dinner (my hero) just to keep the boys happy and out of my hair until bedtime. The waitress asked if we wanted an appetizer. I said, “No, but I want a brownie sundae with 4 spoons to eat now, while the real food is cooking. Because that is the kind of day I had.” Her eyes widened a little, in fear I think, while Kevin just laughed. But it was fun! My mom applauded when she heard about it. The best part was that Kevin filled up on sundae and salad and took home almost a whole steak and baked potato, which I ate for lunch. Score one for me!