Jacob Enabled Power

I slept in until almost 6am. It was a late start day for the kids which meant that I’d be working from home until both were safely off to school after the scheduled 2 hour delay. I brushed my teeth, turned the ceiling fan off, then headed downstairs. I glanced out back while slipping into my exercise shoes. The sky was crystal clear and filled with bright stars. It was very chilly, too. I headed to the living room where I whipped out 50 sit-ups. After sit-ups I whipped out windmills and push-ups. At 610am I poured coffee for Mindy and I but delivered hers before touching my own.

Since it was late start, there wasn’t any need to wake Jacob. I proceeded to enjoy coffee while getting logged into work and then playing on the internet. I took my time, figuring I didn’t need to do my run for a while yet. Between work and pleasure, I sat at my desk until almost 7am. It was a very chilly start to the day. According to Yahoo, only 42 degrees – the coldest morning so far this season.

I headed to the familyroom for meditation and a stretch. By the time that I finished, Mindy was downstairs and ready to start breakfast. I told her not to bother since I wouldn’t get to it for another 45-60 minutes. She double checked to make sure that’s what I wanted. Yeah. That enabled her to leave early for school. I think she headed out around 720am. I read a Yahoo article about Science being on the brink of disproving God. Interesting read. It was a rather lengthy article, one I planned to finish after my run. I dressed appropriately for the chilly temps and headed out the door near 730am.

I ran the full 4.1 miles encountering another subset of neighbors out at that hour. It was a good run. For the first time, I felt the need to draw my fingers up into the sleeves of my jacket. I could feel cold air gushing in around any opening in my attire. But that sensation quickly abated once body heat took over.
Jacob was up shortly after my run. He needed to be at the bus stop around 855a, or two hours later than normal. Chrissy phoned at some point to confirm that it was OK if she sent Makayla down. Yep. Planned for her. I was already engaged in work and had a couple conference calls I needed to join beginning at 9am, or shortly after Jacob headed out.

I reminded Bella about the call. I didn’t expect total silence but simply regard for me being on the call. The 9am call went fine. Afterwards, I offered to make the girls breakfast. They declined. I went ahead and fired three eggs, two for me, and then one for Eiknarf. Come 1010am I headed to the bus stop with Bella and Makayla. I had another call to join at 1030am. I didn’t have enough time to shower ahead of time. I waited for that call’s completion before getting a shower and then dressed for work.
It was Wednesday and a customer site visit day. I sent them a note on Tuesday letting them know that I’d be in the office 2-3 hours later than usual. It was 1115am by the time I was ready to go. Once again, I started the dishwasher before heading out. By then it was still a little chilly but shaping up to be a really nice day. I arrived in the Easton area near 1140am. I took notice that many folks were already heading out for lunch.

Wasn’t long before I was settled and engaged in work again. I took care of a number of different issues up until 2pm. That’s when I decided to take a lunch break and head over to the Easton Best Buy to look for and buy an external hard drive for my work laptop. I have a USB thumb drive capable of holding most of my important “can’t do without files’, but having to take the time to go in periodically and save them is another story. Having then auto-back-up seemed worth the price. Besides, I have a couple Best Buy gift cards that I’ve been carrying around for the last 2 or 3 years that together were worth about $100.

I quickly found the one I looked at online – WD, small, 1TB, USB2/3 with security and auto back-up. Perfect. I was about to pick that one until I saw the same thing only in 750GB for $20 less, or $80. I opted for that one instead. That was plenty big, and still several times larger than my laptop’s hard drive. While there, I looked at new smart phones and TVs. Did the 3-D TV demo. Wow! Absolutely amazing. I couldn’t believe how well the technology works. However, one must realize that there’s relatively little 3-D content out there to justify the additional expense right now. And the truth is, we watch very little TV as it is. Still, totally cool! A Best Buy associate came up to chat. We chatted briefly, with him sharing info about the new 4K format freshly released. I have already read about the technology, which is said to have up to 6 times more resolution than HD. You might also hear it referred to as ultra HD. But once again, it’ll be years, if not a couple decades before the content will be mainstream, not mention being ridiculously expensive. Heck, some HD content looks as clear as it could possibly be. Not really sure why I need ultra HD.

Left Best Buy and headed back to the office. It was already approaching 3pm. As you might guess, the afternoon went amazingly fast, but that’s not too surprising given that I had just a couple more hours to go after lunch. I ended up at the office until 535pm. I called Mindy as I walked to the Accord. She was just leaving the house and heading to Jacob’s soccer game. I’d almost forgotten that she had the boys with her. Lindsey called me around 1pm asking if we could keep them while she went to their open house at St Mary Magdalene.

We talked until they arrived at the soccer field which was 545pm (Jacob needs to be there a full 30 minutes before the official start of the game). Traffic being an unknown, I wasn’t sure I’d make it there before kick-off. No biggie. Traffic was about as loose as could be expected. I exited Roberts Rd just after 6pm, and made it to the Spindler Rd soccer complex by 610pm. Found Mindy, my dad, Bella, and the boys already set-up. I brought my own chair and water. Mindy brought me a snack – mixed nuts. No, not Rocky! 

It was a lovely evening for soccer, though perhaps a tad on the cool side, but no complaints here. For the second time in row, it was completely clear and next to no breeze – a rarity at the soccer complex. We were on the same field as the time before with the setting sun directly in our eyes for ¾’s of the game. Once the sun began to dip below the horizon it cooled significantly. We had to laugh when Landon insisted Rocky give him his jacket, since in his words, “he’d already had it all day”.  He left his own at school.

As for the soccer game, Jacob’s team was playing the Upper Arlington team again, the team that beat the daylight out of us a couple weeks ago to start the season, something like 10-1. This time it remained 0-0 for the longest stretch. But if either team was going to score, it sure as hell didn’t look like it would be Jacob’s team. Lost would be the best adjective I can think of to describe their play. In fact, severely lost is even more accurate. Sure enough, the Arlington team scored first, and eventually four more times before the pain was over. Jacob’s team lost 5-0. Mindy & I knew what Jacob would say. He’d blame us. Always does. Says we’re a bad luck charm. I thanked him for granting me so much power/control. Heck, and I don’t even need to get out of my chair to make him and his peers play so poorly. 

I agreed to take the boys home while Mindy took Jacob and Bella. Dad drove separately. I promised the boys I would take them to McDonalds on the way home. We went through the drive-thru. They both wanted happy meals, of course, but Landon wanted a side of chicken nuggets, too. No problem. I called Lindsey to give her a heads up that we were on our way home. After a quick toot of the horn, Lindsey came out to assist with getting the boys inside. They thanked me for their happy meals and agreed to be on their best behavior for the remainder of the evening. Uh-huh!

It was almost dark when I pulled in the drive at home. Mindy was already prepping our dinner, taco meat nachos, which she threw together with Tuesday’s leftovers. I talked with Jacob about his team’s poor performance. He’s not sure why they play so poorly, but did reiterate that we were the bad luck charms. I did recognize him for not falling apart emotionally at the soccer field and taking it out on his team members. But there are two or three kids on his team bigger and beefier than him.
The nachos were good. Bella opted instead for a hot dog. Mindy gave Bella a bye on a shower. No such luck for Jacob. He stunk! He didn’t push back, either. Grooming is becoming more and more important to him.

While at the bus stop earlier that morning I took notice that Bella seems to be stretching out. I heard Mindy make some mention of it too later that evening. That lifted Bella’s spirits. In fact, so much so, that after getting into our PJs she insisted I measure her. Last time we measured she was 51 inches. This time she might’ve been about a ¼” taller, but I told her 51.5”. She was elated to learn that she’s growing. I shared that I wouldn’t be surprised if she grew 3 inches this school year. We chatted briefly about her fast approaching tenth birthday and what she wants. She hasn’t backed away from the iTouch. Still wants one even though she had the Kindle Fire. Her reason, it’s smaller and more portable.

Mindy, Bella and I sat in the living room together in our PJs. We talked about the possibility of going apple picking this coming Sunday in the New Albany/Pataskala area. The kids were supposed to go with Jimaken last Sunday but canceled after Jacob’s soccer match. Bella wasn’t happy about that. I Googled the Linz apple farm to get details, costs, etc. We didn’t fully commit but it’s very likely that we’ll go.
It was darn near 9pm. Mindy asked that I rub her head and shoulders before she headed off to bed. Yes. I did the deed for about 5 minutes. Once she was off to bed, I did some reading until 1005pm. Before heading up to bed, I checked the score of the Reds/Cubs game. Reds were ahead 5-4 in the 7th inning. Go Reds!