Mostly Harmless

Mostly about my amusement

Category: Family (page 13 of 14)

October 1, 2006

Picked up MINI Friday

MiniandmlGetting a new car is always very cool. The family and I picked up the MINI Cooper S at the dealer Friday after 4 PM. It’s a fun car and over the weekend we put about 150 miles on it.

After driving an SUV for 6 years this will take a lot of getting used to.

It’s got

  • Automatic wipers
  • Automatic headlights (day running lights)
  • Climate control
  • Bluetooth phone integration (being able to press a button and say aloud “dial 12125551212” and having it actually confirm and dial that number is just too cool)

We took it over to a friend house and I let him drive me around his neighborhood.

Apparently I am a conservative driver. He was zipping around like you’d expect someone running around in a red MINI Cooper. Took this one corner with the tires screeching and got a “Please don’t do that again” from me.

The car is a lot of fun and I think I’ll actually enjoy driving to New Jersey in it.

September 28, 2006

The go-cart is at the dealer

I mentioned to my Dad that the MINI is on the ocean. It was originally supposed to arrive sometime in October and I had just mentioned it as part of a status update. I had no idea how long it takes to ship a car.

Without saying anything about it Dad cleaned up the entire garage to make sure I have enough room to park three cars. That was a really nice surprise and his timing was perfect.

I got a call from the dealer. The MINI Cooper S has arrived at the dealer and we can pick it up Friday afternoon.

I keep referring to the mini as a go-cart. After driving the SUV for 6 years it will be fun to be closer to the road. Lily has already begun driving the SUV whenever she is in the car. Looks like the SUV will be her car and I get to drive the new car.

Very cool.

September 5, 2006

Labor Day scare

The plan for Labor Day was to invite family over, have a BBQ, and get ready for the boy’s first day of school.

Instead we ended up spending late Monday afternoon in the emergency room. My son ran up the stairs and fell hard on his chin. This opened up a 1 inch gash under his chin! It stopped bleeding almost immediately but he needed stitches to close the gap. So we took him to the emergency room.

The emergency room was okay and we only waited about an hour or so. He was not hurting and kept insisting that the bandaid was all he needed.

He really only did not like the pain killer shot they gave him to numb up his chin. Once that took effect, we all talked about toy trains while the nurse put stitches in his chin. Today it looks fine and Saturday we are going to have the stitches removed.

August 20, 2006

Dirty window

FM RadioWe came back from Washington DC Sunday. It was an 8 hour painful, excruciating, non–stop lousy traffic, family trip up I-95. That’s not bad since Friday it took 10 hours to drive down there. Most of that was actually in New Jersey.

Around reaching NJ I turned on the radio. My 4½ year old boy suddenly says “that’s my favorite word! Open up the dirty window!” We asked him the usual “what? what did you say??” and he repeated himself.

The radio was playing Natasha Bedingfield’s song Unwritten. He pays more attention to the words than I do! We had to wait till the chorus repeated just to hear it.

Washington DC was fun and the GPS unit we got worked like a charm. The time driving was death and my son learned a new trick called “Car Sickness”.

July 23, 2006

Exercise what?

254 calories, 40.1 carbs, 31 minutes, and 1.5 miles.

What does that mean…? I have never been one to exercise. All my exercise in the past was my 15 minute walk to the office from the train station. When my company relocated me to Melville I got concerned that my only exercise would be in the parking lot.

So I started to use the treadmill for 30 minutes a day. Nothing too hard just enough for me to get a small workout. I feel good afterwards but I really have no idea what I am doing.

July 15, 2006

Small cars and children car seats

250px-MINICooperSYesterday after work Lily and I took the kids to see a MINI and BMW dealer. The idea is that we get one car for daily driving and an SUV for family trips, grocery shopping etc.

Right now I drive a 2000 ML-320. It’s a nice SUV but after 6 years I’d like to get something new. SUV’s are cool but gas is getting expensive. I am betting that before or on Labor Day this year gas will go over $4/gallon.

We went to the MINI dealer and looked at the floor models. The kids loved the car dealerships and they let me bring in both kids car seats and install them into a 2006 floor model. Me, Lily, both kids were a little cozy but it did fit.

I wonder how often a MINI dealer gets that request? “Excuse me, I want to check out how this zippy 4 seater does with the whole family. And do you know how many clowns we can fit in there?”

The kids car seats are pretty big and they have been using them for a long time. If we do get a MINI I’ll probably replace the kids car seats with (legal, safe, approved for their ages) smaller booster seats.

My current ML-320 SUV gets two complaints. First the cup holders are silly. They can only reasonably hold a small cup of coffee. Anything bigger and you need to get ready to catch the cup when it tilts out. Sodas from a fast food chain are just not worth the trouble.

The second complaint is the noise. Outside noise gets in very clearly. So when we checked out the X3 in the BMW dealer I was really pleased that when you closed the door, it kept out the muzak and conversation from the outside. This with other windows open (not the one in the door I was seated at). It maybe that the X3 is not the quiet and that my car is just loud. But the X3 seems like a well engineered vehicle.

We may keep the existing SUV and get the MINI. No rush so I think we’ll wait at least 2 months before making a decision.

July 4, 2006

4th of July

Bbq-garage

Around 4pm today it looked like it might rain so we moved the BBQ into the garage. It did rain but not for that long so we moved the BBQ outside.

With all the food cooking I was afraid we’d set off the fire alarm.

Looks like other people celebrated the 4th today also: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/07/04/korea.missile/index.html

Wow. The North Koreans apparently are feeling neglected that the United States are maybe paying more attention to Iran.

June 26, 2006

Don’t do that to me again.

So my little girl misbehaved today and was sent to her room. Her grandmother let her know that if she is quiet for two minutes she can come out.

Two minutes go by and Grandma lets her out. She walks right up to her grandmother, looks straight at her and says “Don’t do that to me again.”

She’ll be three in a few days. Where does she get the attitude and confidence…?

Grandma told her “Want to go back to your room?” Can’t wait to see what she is like at 16.

April 1, 2006

Kids and parties

Kids rule! Obey the kids!

Ahem.

Today Lily and I took our son to a classmate’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. This is the 3rd one this year (it’s April 1st) and all the kids had a good time.

Next week we’ll take our son to another birthday party. It is funny to realize that our weekend social schedule is based on our kids schedule. This will happen more and more, price of being a parent I guess. When our daughter starts getting (and having) parties then either we will have to turn some invitations down or just lose our free time.

I am not really a party person; Thursday we went briefly to a friends get together for getting a job at a new company. Lily and I left that gathering to catch the 8:15pm train out of Penn station. It was good catching up with friends and I wished that I’d stayed and taken the 9:15pm train.

March 12, 2006

Little kids pick up everything

Kids do say the darndest things.

Last night the family went to a Spanish restaurant in Smithtown (15 minute drive).  The food was good and everyone enjoyed themselves.  The kids got sufficiently wired but after walking them around they came back to reality. 

On the drive home something happened and my son let out an “Oh Sugar!”

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Jan Dembowski

Jan Dembowski

I am a software enthusiast who is easily amused and definitely mostly harmless.

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