Family: June 2008 Archives

I should learn never to open my mouth. First it would mean a lot fewer nights spent sleeping on the couch. Second I would probably find myself in a lot fewer weird and unusual situations. In this particular context I would have had a much easier day and I wouldn't be in nearly as much pain. A few days ago I noted that Trina and Whitney had left town leaving Tiffany, Dakota, and me at home to fend for ourselves. I also noted that part of the challenge that I had was to find something for Dakota to do so that he was not so bored. Yeah, that was a really bad thing to say. No sooner had I written that then the entire universe started to crumble around me. Ok, maybe not the whole universe, just that little piece that Trina left me in charge of during her absence.

With Trina and Whitney out of town that leaves me home with Tiffany and Dakota. Tiffany is now working full time so rarely do we even see her with work and then going out with her friends. That leaves me and Dakota at home. There is nothing quite like having an eleven year-old boy around to make you realize how old you really are. That kid has nothing but energy. The depth of that energy is diametrically opposed to the shallowness of his attention span. Approximately every 5 minutes he has to tell me how bored he is and how there isn't anything to do. That wouldn't be so bad but I am really trying to get some work done and the last thing I need is to stop and try and find something for him to do. And it's not like just anything will relieve the boredom. Oh no it has to be highly entertaining. There is no way I could possibly suggest that perhaps he could clean his room or possibly empty the dishwasher. No chores are definitely not on the list of fun things to do. As a result he is practically driving me crazy. So tonight I decided we all needed a break.

I sat down to begin composing this blog entry. The words just seemed to start to flow and I was feeling pretty good that this was going to be a great post. I had finished the first couple of paragraphs and decided I would re-read it to make sure it sounds ok. I was pretty darned happy with it. I went out to look at a previous entry thinking there might be a good hook from something I wrote earlier. It was at that moment that I realized that I had just written the first two paragraphs from a June 24th entry. No wonder it sounded so familiar. I thought that just meant that I was in the zone and focused. Now I realize that I am having a side effect from the medication they gave me for my bronchitis. I hate when that happens. Writing while on medications is definitely different than what normally happens when I write. Usually I can almost visualize the words on the paper and I feel as though I am just a scribe to some higher power that is guiding my words. While on meds I feel more like I am wandering around in a daze surrounded by fog. I'm definitely going to have to pay closer attention otherwise some of these posts are going to sound like Jethro Tull lyrics which I still believe he makes up as he is singing the songs.

For as long as I can remember I have had asthma. My parents and I chose at a very early age to not let this be an inhibitor to leading a normal life. I was much too active to try and relinquish that freedom and I refused to allow the ability to breathe stand in my way of having fun. This plan of action does have risks and inherent danger especially if you choose to be active in sports. My parents always made sure that my medications were fairly regulated and that I had an inhaler with me at all times in case something should arise during a game. I never quite know what is going to affect my asthma so therefore I just need to be flexible and prepared for the unexpected. The problem is that sometimes I am not real good at noticing the early warning signs of an asthma attack. I can get much too involved in a game to let my body dictate when it has had enough. This has led to some very close calls. I remember in high school while playing basketball I began to feel a shortness of breath coupled with a slight wheezing. Rather than calling time-out during a crucial sequence I chose to wait until a break in the action. Unfortunately that break did not occur before the game ended and by that time I was in dire straits (and I don't mean the band). My inhaler would not work in that sense and instead my mother rushed me to the hospital for an emergency treatment. It was a costly mistake on many levels.

I thought I would start with a continuation of yesterday's entry and give you an update on how it went at the Grand Canyon State Games. Both Trina and Tiffany had registered for events in Track and Field. The track meet was located at Mesa Community College in Mesa (it works out better to put the college in the city it is located otherwise people get really confused). Events were to start at 5:30 PM and check-in was to begin at 5:00 PM. After spending the morning at the Sports Authority watching as Trina tried on various shirts and shorts, I was definitely ready for something a little more exciting. Trina was especially nervous since she had not jumped competitively in over a quart of a century. She loves it when I put it in terms like that. Add to this the fact that she had not trained at all for this event and her anxiety levels were extremely high. Tiffany on the other hand was the poster child for coolness. Competing at a high level has become old hat to her and she was just enjoying the idea of being able to high jump with her mom.

Late last evening we received a call from our oldest daughter Ashley. Last year she decided that she was going to get back in shape and lose the weight that she had gained since going to college. She has been diligently working on that and is now probably in the best shape of her life. She looks great and feels even better. During her high school years Ashley was a pretty good athlete. She was a triple jumper on the track team and to this day holds the freshman record in that event at the high school. With all the success that Tiffany has had during her high school track career; Ashley had once again gotten the competitive bug and wanted to compete. Living in Utah she found a state competition that among the events featured track and field. She entered the meet and competed in the long jump and the triple jump. She called to tell us that she won both events. We were very proud of her and were excited to share in her news.

Growing up with the last name of "Summers", this was always my favorite day of the year. I mean how many people can say that they have a day that commemorates them for the next 3 months? Not only that but even Mother Nature pays homage to you by making your special day the longest day of the year. According to scientists and the Farmer's Almanac this is the day where the Northern Hemisphere is tilted more towards the sun than at any other time of the year hence there are more hours of daylight on this date than any other. The days from the first day of winter until today have gradually gotten longer while the days from today until the first day of winter will slowly get shorter. Given this information it is important to take full advantage of this day and live it up.

As I arrived home from work I was greeted by a flashing light. That's not to say that an LED was sitting at the door, it's cord wagging waiting for me to arrive to play with it. It just means that as I walked through the living room I happened to glance over at the telephone answering machine and noticed the flashing light that indicates that there is a message waiting. The answering machine is an interesting device. I have now successfully lived through an era that began before this device was invented. I distinctly remember getting my first answering machine after we were married. I remembered the sense of freedom that I felt knowing that I no longer had to worry about being home or missing a call. Now if I was not at home someone would be able to leave me a message and I could return their call after I returned. It was an amazing feeling, quite liberating to say the least. I look at that now and think how pathetic my life once was that I would get excited about something as simple as a telephone answering machine. Now we take that kind of technology for granted. We have voice mail or a similar capability built into nearly all of our personal communications devices. Still, there is just something alluring about seeing a flashing "messaging waiting" button.

There are certain days that are life changing: the birth of your child, the day you get your Arizona Diamondbacks Season Tickets, and the day you get married immediately come to mind. My kids are now reaching teen age years and the baseball season is now two and a half months old so that must mean that I am going to be talking about anniversaries. Today marks 27 years since my wedding to Trina. It seems so much longer than 27 years and I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way especially if Trina happens to be reading this. What I mean is that really we have known each other for much longer than the time we have been married. I met Trina during my sophomore year of high school at Skyline High School in Idaho Falls.

Our middle daughter Tiffany begins college this coming January. She has just finished High School graduation and is now trying to earn money to afford to go to school this coming winter. Recently she was accepted into Brigham Young University - Idaho which is the campus in Rexburg Idaho as opposed to Provo Utah. There are pros and cons to going to BYU-Idaho. On the con side BYU-Idaho does not have the collegiate sports programs that the BYU-Utah campus has. This means that she will not be able to compete in NCAA track like she hoped. On the pro side the campus is slightly smaller than BYU-Utah and therefore has a closer student body. She will also be able to share an apartment with her sister Mallorie who will be a Senior during Tiffany's Freshman year. This of course could be a pro and a con in itself depending on how much sister stuff they can deal with. When the kids graduate from high school my gift to each of them has been a laptop computer. It is nearly impossible for a kid to survive in college without their own computer and many colleges are now requiring a laptop for several classes.

Father's Day is always an interesting day at our house. It has evolved a lot over the years of our marriage. It began as a simple day where things just kind of flowed. When the kids were really young we usually celebrated with a handmade card and perhaps breakfast together. As we collected more kids and they got older the celebration got a little bit larger and more involved. Trina would work with the kids to make sure to take each of them shopping and allow them to pick out something for their dad. This usually meant that I received a very eclectic series of presents ranging from stuffed animals to art supplies to colorful shirts. As the kids are now starting to get old enough to start leaving the house for school the holiday continues to evolve. Now I usually get an e-card along with a note saying that they are poor college students and if I could please send money they would be happy to send me something (assuming I send enough money since they had things to buy too). It's not just about the gifts though.

Like most people on the planet I am concerned with global warming. I am also concerned about the level of pollution and waste that is accumulating on the planet. Clearly weather changes are afoot and things are different than they have been in the past. I am not yet ready to drink the Kool-Aid that is being served by the environmental groups. I have not been shown a significant amount of scientific data that would lead me to conclude that man is the one responsible for these changes. I am not naive enough to believe may is blameless I just think that there are more factors at play here than the generalizations that have been given by the media. I do think we are too wasteful and do not take into consideration the finite number of resources this planet has. But I also think that we don't know enough about the weather patterns over the course of the life of this planet to know whether we are seeing a change due to man-made problems or if this is a normal occurrence that happens with some sort of regularity through the millions of years this planet has been around.

I had previously written about my shopping adventures trying to get a Wii Fit for my kids. Since that traumatic episode I have shied away from anything having to do with this device. Well that and the fact that the Arizona Diamondbacks have been in town for a 6 game home stand has left me with very little free time. The Wii Fit box had been set down next to the television and literally forgotten about until Dakota uncovered its existence. Since that time all I have heard was his pleas to set up this device so he could play. I swear, I really need to stash things in better places until I have enough time to deal with things after baseball season is over. Finally I could not take it anymore and I allowed the kids to set up the Wii Fit. I was hoping that telling the kids to go for it would dissuade them. I further assumed that setting up a Wii Fit would be too complicated for mere children to understand and therefore give me a little extra time. I was wrong on so many levels.