*Turns to Lily who’s reading the instructions to new her juicer*
Me: See? Who needs Facebook? This is why there’s an Internet.
Lily: That’s nice dear.
Well I like the Beatles anyways.
Category: Family (page 3 of 14)
Time goes by but it doesn’t feel like it does. Lily and I have been married for 19 years today.
What was it like back then?
- 19 years ago I was threatening Lily’s maid of honor with physical harm for being late and holding us up.
It all worked out for the best and we’re still great friends.
- 19 years ago my best man was making jokes on the altar while I was attempting to look serious in a rented monkey suit.
It was a Catholic mass. When he got married in a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony I paid him back by standing next to him and treating the priest’s chanting like it was something you dance to.
- 19 years ago Father Felix’s homily described our future life as me being married to June Cleaver.
We laughed as she’s not like that at all and none of the women in my family are either. That is such a good thing. I like being married to a modern woman.
- 19 years ago Lily and I almost dropped to the floor coming down the aisle together.
Her family thought those loud party poppers were a good idea in said Catholic church. That’s how they ended the ceremony with organ music and a big bang. We thought people were shooting at us.
It’s all the same and it’s all different.
There have been changes in the scenery meaning we’ve moved.
Our family has gained and lost members in that time and not everyone is still with us from that day. I don’t like to dwell on that as I learned too early that life goes on.
We’ve a boy and a girl. Raising a daughter scares me. I grew up with 3 brothers and a squad of cousins, there were very few girls in my family. Our son is a handful but so was I.
We’ve both changed but we’ve both stayed exactly the same. I’ve always felt like I have known her my entire life and I totally mistake that she wasn’t around for the first 21 years.
We usually don’t celebrate our anniversaries and we laugh together when we realize that we’ve missed one again.
19 years of being married? I would not change a thing and would do it all over again without hesitation. That’s got to be the best recommendation for married life that I can say. It’s been great and I’m still head over heels crazy for her.
Even though she’s married to a big kid I’m reasonably confident she feels the same way. I’ll ask her again, you know, just to make sure.
In our time together I’ve learned to reach for the stars and I look forward to at least 50 more anniversaries to come.
50 years is a good target. With Lily I can accomplish anything.
I wish I took a “before” picture but these rims used to look like white nylon.
I’m replacing the girl’s tires and soaked the nylon rims in Rit Kelly Green dye for about 2 minutes. They came out a little darker than I intended but the girl still likes them.
This afternoon I had an appointment in Chinatown and when it was over I text messaged Lily to let her know I’m headed home.
Her reply should not have surprised me.
Can you get me some longan?
This is not really a good idea. I may have come back with cat food for all I know about fruit. Longan is a fruit right?
So I text back my “concerns” and get another not surprising reply.
You are there and I am not.
The cart on corner of Canal and Mulberry right next to the bank and Kam Man… The one I usually go to.
There is no reasoning with some people. I called her and walked over. Canal is crazy with vistors this time of year and it was more crowded than ever. It was $5 per lb and that was considered a good price. What do I know about how much it costs? I asked for 2 lbs.
The man started scooping up the loose longan for weighing. Full stop! I wanted the longan that was grouped together on the branch. I may not know anything about fruit but I do know that I’d really get it if I brought that home.
So now I’m headed home, typing this up, taking photos and sharing this from the train. Technology is grand but it’s no substitute for someone getting you the fruit you wanted.
I just hope Lily and our girl like it. Me and the boy won’t touch this stuff.
For Father’s Day I celebrated by getting both kids an R/C car for their own. Since then they’ve broken pieces and we’ve visited the local hobby shop many times.
This is not a bad thing and it was all good clean fun.
When they break I’ve been showing the kids how to take apart different components of their cars. On the simple side they’ve installed wheelie bars and bumpers. On the more complicated side I’ve replaced the steering blocks and stub axle carriers with aluminum versions.
But the thing that I’m most pleased with is that my daughter asked me to get her a pink body for her R/C car. They don’t make them pink so I’d gotten a ProGraphix Bandit body, a can Tamiya florescent pink paint and Pactra white paint.
I put many coats on the underside of the Tamiya paint and once it dried I then backed it with mores layers from the Pactra white paint. The Tamiya paint went on thin and clear; I always have problems with Tamiya paints. I’ve used their acrylic spray paint for my Gundam models and it just pools easily and goes on thin.
The Pactra paint was fantastic and next time I’m sticking with just that brand. It applies in good even coats and doesn’t run.
The end result was worth it.
I only take credit for the color, the lines and pattern came from the factory. It still looks awesome.
She really likes it and for a while today she was very hesitant to play with it. But I explained that these were meant to be used and I can always get a replacement body. She was back to crashing in very little time! Good fun.
I have a similar photo of my son with his blue version (blue stock body from the factory) but he looked like he was swallowing a lemon so I’ll post a different photo some other time.
We need to go to a parking lot more often. The three of use zipping up and down my narrow street has resulted in some interesting crashes. My son is at the moment is the best driver out of us but I expect the girl to give him a run for his money real soon now.
Oh and being the kid’s R/C mechanic? It’s a great job and I think they may continue to give me their business. 😉
I’m not sure how it happened but my blog has been possessed by Android smart phone posts. I’m pretty sure I have an add_filter('the_content' , 'my_function') WordPress post in my head waiting to get out. Or at least a post about a small plugin.
When is a phone not a phone?
After Lily’s Note II came back to life we realized that her phone developed an odd condition. It stopped being able to make or receive phone calls. To fix this we called up Verizon on Sunday and spent way to much time with some nice people trying to make it work.
Did you know that Verizon’s tech support can with your permission remote desktop into your Android smart phone? I had no idea and it’s weird seeing someone else run apps and make menu selections. That didn’t really solve anything and eventually Lily and I were told that they’re escalating her problem to engineering.
Me: Engineering? That’s great, let’s get them on the call.
Verizon Support: Oh no sir. They will call you back in 24 to 72 hours.
That went over well. I asked them to create the ticket anyway and to see if we could visit a local Verizon store and swap out the LTE SIM card as that was suspected to be the problem. That didn’t solve anything but at least we got out of the house.
It’s all part of a Grand Plan, I’m just not privy to it
While at the Verizon store I took advantage of my upgrade option and purchased an iPhone 5. I then had them put my number on Lily’s not-a-phone Note II and she got the new iPhone 5. Seriously, that happened.
Lily and I commute into Manhattan together so as soon as she got her Note II smart phone I was playing with it. It’s got good battery life, the display is fantastic, and with a 1.6 Ghz quad core processor it is fast and zippy. I used it to tether my laptop during out commute and it worked fine. I told Lily that I’ll get one for myself from Costco.
Lily: That’s just not acceptable and we can’t have the same phone. Why don’t you get the iPhone 5?
Me: Sure I- What?? I’ll spray paint the back of it red. You’ll never mistake mine for yours. And I don’t want an iPhone.
Lily: You just don’t understand. Get the iPhone 5 and we’ll switch numbers.
Me: . . .
I don’t claim to understand but years of conditioning have done me in. In another dozen years I’m going to be like Marvin in RED.
Monday morning I called Verizon back with “Nice one! Now when can you get me my replacement phone?” and on Thursday FedEx delivered it. This new one actually can makes and receive phone calls.
Yeah but what about the Note II?
It’s a great smart phone. The one I had before it was an HTC Thunderbolt and it’s night and day in comparison. My old phone was giving me well deserved grief and was working very poorly. This one is fantastic and works like a charm.
There is one draw back though. This phone is ginormous. The screen is 5.5″ diagonally but that doesn’t convey it properly. Think of using the iPad Mini as phone and you’ll get the idea. You have to operate it with both hands or you will either hurt yourself or drop the phone. It’s just too big and my hands are too small.
I’ve been complaining about my cell phone on Twitter and elsewhere for many months and have been contemplating getting a new phone. My choices have been narrowed down to the Samsung Galaxy Note II and the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD.
Lily got the Note II because she likes the big screen and battery life. I was leaning towards the Maxx HD (32 hour battery life!) but the Note II’s 4 core CPU makes the phone really zippy and the battery life is not bad even after abusing it.
So I took her phone with me to drop off the kids at Chinese school Saturday morning. That was her idea so I can see if it’s too large for my pocket (it’s not) and if I like using it (I do).
While there I saw a flower and took out her phone to take a quick snap. The Note II phone was dead. Dead as in 100% no lights, not responding, removing the battery did nothing. Naturally I did what most grown up men in my situation would do.
IT'S NOT MY FAULT. IT'S NOT MY FAULT. IT'S NOT MY FAULT.
I killed Lily's new phone. It committed suicide and the lights don't even come on.
— Jan Dembowski (@jan_dembowski) January 5, 2013
It’s important to appeal to the general public in case, you know, something unfortunate happens to me.
After getting home and apologizing to Lily profusely we found that removing the battery and SIM card (it’s an LTE phone and does have a SIM card) did bring it back to life.
This is not the first time electronics have lost their mind around me but I wish my curse would remain localized to things that belong to me.
I’m not really that pale.
I didn’t expect to enjoy it, but going on a Disney Cruise was lots of fun and the family will probably go on another trip sometime.
I’ve not posted on my blog for weeks, so this one is going to be a long one. 🙂
Years after 3D has become mainstream in the movie theaters, I finally saw my first one with the family. It was Madagascar 3 in 3D and we all liked it.
The 3D wasn’t overdone and I think that’s what made it work. I put the Real D 3D glasses over mine and enjoyed the show. Once I stopped attempting to focus on the intentionally out of focus parts, the effect was mostly ignored.
Not ignored exactly. It just wasn’t obtrusive. That’s what I think will make this a long lasting fad.
There was a bit of humor afterwards. See the two glasses above? I hadn’t realized that they came in kids size and I wore the small set. My 8 year old girl wore the grown up version. The ones I wore sure were snug alright.
It’s probably not going to shock anyone, but I really do not understand the ways and hows of women’s clothing. But I do like to use any excuse to take pictures.
Lily always goes with us to the Easter Sunday mass and afterwards we head to breakfast.
Before we headed out she was wearing a nice outfit but it looked like she was heading to a dinner. I mentioned that it looks too fancy for church (I did say I’m fashioned challenged, right?) and she added one piece of clothing.
She was transformed by just adding that one thing. Literally, she changed the whole tone of the outfit and went from evening attire to Sunday church.
Of course, I wore jeans and sneakers, but I’m not even a little bit fashion conscious. But I did insist on posting about it and here we are. My amazement remains intact.
