Define exercise

Every time my wife walks into a room that I am in I suck in my gut.

It's not a big gut. On a grand scale it's pretty average.

It IS two inches wider than it was when we were married. That was almost ten years ago though. Compare that to any of the kids and I look pretty good. I look great!

I would rather it was smaller when my wife looked at it. So I suck it in. I keep it in. I keep it in for hours at a time.

It hasn't gotten any smaller. It doesn't seem fair. As much effort as I put into it I should be getting some benefit.

On an unrelated note, I'm doing more reps of heavier beer and not getting any upper body joy.
What's up with that?

Check out the ears on Ron. He's a Desktop pet by Stardock. Built with DesktopX technology.

More Miri wound care

Here she is twelve days after the burn.
Looking goof, eh?

It's not an April fools joke

Look how well Miriam's doing!
The shine is due to the neosporin . . . the skin is tight . . . but not that naturally shiny.

 

One week plus one day

As you can see, Miriam is much better.
I was confused, the plastic surgeon is NEXT Friday.
Hopefully we'll look at her a week from now and go, "Why bother?"

 

Wednesday, Miriam went back to school

I want to thank everyone who has sent good thoughts or prayers our way. We are amazed at Miri's recovery.

Today she went back to school and played with her friends. She seemed happy to be back to the normal routine.

The other nice thing is that her older sister Gwendolyn (6) will look at her again. For a while she said it hurt too much.

Miriam doesn't look as happy in this picture as some of the others, but that's mostly because she has a mouthful of graham cracker.

I want to especially thank the folks over at wincustomize.com. Your concern for me, my family, and my little girl illustrates what we all are, a community. {Even though my wife STILL refers to you all as "those virtual friends"}

We are so very blessed

{Update 2007-May-07 : It's been a year. Read the latest post here}

I am having a hard time denying that my family and I are blessed. I deny a active God on a regular basis; a God who acts in our lives; day to day miracles. I've been wrong before and this might be one of those times.

My youngest daughter was burned last week. She pulled a cup of hot chocolate off the counter and onto her face, chest and arm. Her screaming brought the rest of the family into the kitchen at a run. Michelle pulled her shirt off and Susan and I took turns holding her while the other poured water on her.

Our pediatrician, Hyman Penn, saw us right away and the next day we were seen at Texas Children's Hospital by a plastic surgeon.

He walks in to the room, stops, and says, "Wow." You don't here that much from doctors. You hope you never will again.

They say that Miri probably won't have scars. We need to keep her out of the sun. We need to bathe her twice a day. Keep the neosporin on. We go back next Friday to TCH to see what's changed.

The amazing thing is that Miriam has been happy. She's been playing and dancing and singing and being herself [which means she is still an imp and screams when she doesn't get her way].

She hasn't complained or cried as we've cleaned her wounds. She hasn't gotten bored or frustrated. If you ask her she'll tell you her face is messy.

The other thing is she is healing so quickly. Every day she's better. Susan says it's because of all the prayers that have been offered.

I find it hard to deny that there may be something to it. So I pray a little. And I hope God's there. And I find it a little easier to believe that he is.



The day after the burn:


Two days after the burn [Friday], dressed as a Princess :


Day three [Saturday], wearing her favorite "ballerina" slip:


Day four [Sunday](with a new stuffed puppy from the Silvers next door):


Monday, before her morning bath:


Tuesday (with her "Peeps" ballon:

A failing experiment: the Klenke Wiki

I long while back I thought about a way to capture the stories that make up a family. I knew that I didn't know most of them though and knew that I didn't have the time to invest tracking them down and documenting them.

I looked for a web-based system that the whole family could use to add, or edit whatever they wanted.

I ended up creating a WIKI at http://klenkefamily.pbwiki.coim

The system is easy, trackable, kinda fun.

I get piles of traffic from there to here but the family didn't get into it. Zero interest.

There is so much I don't know about my family; so much I've forgotten or remember wrongly. It looks like I'll pass the same legacy on to my kids.

Morning Glory Muffins

My sister needed a cupcake-like recipe for my nephew Thad to take to school. So she came to us, because we have the best food ever!!

These muffins are so good that kidlets will never know they are good for them.

Morning Glory Muffins

1 1/2 c. flour
3/4 t baking soda
3/4 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
1 1/4 c. sugar
1/2 t. vanilla
3/4c. oil
3 eggs
1 large carrot (grated)
1 zucchini (grated)
1 c. coconut
1/4 c. golden raisins
1(8 1/2 oz.) can crushed pineapple (drained, reserve juice)

Sift together first four ingredients and set aside. In separate bowl, mix sugar, vanilla, oil, and eggs, stirring wall. Add dry ingredients to Liquid mixture, mixing quickly. Fold in veggies and fruits. If batter is too dry add a small amount of reserved juice. Grease muffin tins, spray with Pam, or use paper liners, and fill 3/4 full.

Bake at 375 degrees about 25 minutes or until golden brown

Lucy . . . I'm home!

Every day when I come home from work I enter the house and yell "Lucy, I'm home!" in my best Ricky Ricardo voice. I don't remember why or when it started. It's just one of those things. [And don't get me started on why his full name was Ricardo Ricardo.]

In any case, the two little kids have started to do it. At least they have a reason; "Dad does it."

I asked Gwendolyn the other day if she knew who Lucy was. No idea at all. It looks like I have to teach Gwen some culture.

It's Cookie pus!

Susan is from New York and I'm always hearing about these ice cream cakes from Carvel.

I hope their cakes are better than their commercials.

It's a small, small world

Drunkenbatman of DrunkenBlog and I go back more years that it seems like [or maybe it seems like less years than it is]. He's family now; whether he want to be or not.

Apparently he had a link in his IM away message to the latest video of Miriam singing and dancing.

It was picked up by a seemingly nice lady named Emily who met DB at his Evening at the Adler indie Mac developer conference thing. She's the editor at MacZealots.com.

So I pop over to her personal blog (wondering where the new traffic is coming from) and run into a port of Lemonade Stand for OSX. That spawns an email to my dad who introduced me to computers with an Apple ][ thanking him for being pretty cool back in '77 or '78.

This Emily is calling Miriam cute. She's winning points with me. Little does she know that there are days I curse EBay's policy about not selling people.

In the end, I have a new feed to Emily. We'll see where that takes me.

Small world after all.

A Serendipitous Intention » Blog Archive » Weekly Roundup

There's a manic rendition of Ten little monkeys available here if you haven't had enough Miriam Dance.

I had a dream the other night that she was doing THE baby dance. Susan says I'm not allowed to teach her though. She says it's too odd; even for me.

It's a Baby Bumble-Bee

Miriam, the dancer, again.
She says she learned the song at her school . . . and I have to get her out of there!

She's been watching her sister dance for years. I guess this is the pay-off.



You can see more Klenke videos at Google Video

Got website frustration? Let it out!

www.netdisaster.com lets you destroy websites in new and creative ways. I've targeted www.drunkenbatman.com with a scribling baby in the screencap because it amuses me to think of DB with kids.

Galactic Civilization 2 release date

I almost never play computer games. I love playing them but there is always something better to do. Chores, job, kids, wife. Ya know. But I really do like losing myself for a while.

There's a new game coming out at the end of February called Galactic Civilization 2. It's made by a company called Stardock. They are mostly known for thier Windows eye-candy apps but they also make a kick-ass productivity suite (including Multiplicity) and some great games. {If you like politics, take a look at The Political Machine, it's a fun simulation}

The player takes on the role of the leader of a space-faring
civilization and must guide its expansion in a hostile galaxy.
Gamers must balance their economic, technological, diplomatic,
cultural, and military power to forge alliances, fight wars, and ultimately dominate the galaxy.

The game is single-player and allows the player to play randomly generated galactic maps or play through a multi-mission campaign that tells the story of an ancient enemy called the Dread Lords.

I enjoyed playing the first GalCiv and I've been part of the beta for this one. The graphics are great. The stories are fun. I can't wait.



You can see it full screen on google.

Juggling fire (poorly)

Last Friday we had a birthday party for Gwendolyn.

Susan asked me to juggle my torches and how could I say no. I had juggled them at many of my sister Michelle's parties and this time I was going to be sober.

It was more dark that I would have liked and I hadn't juggled the torches in over a year but the kids had a good time.

I gave a bunch of them water pitols to "put me out" if I caught fire. They were configured not to shoot straight so that they would shoot each other if they tries to shoot me. There was significant pandemonium.



You can see it full screen on google.

Gwendolyn starts preparing for soccer - Miriam digs in the dirt

The spring season is right around the corner. Gwendolyn and I have been working on passing, dribbling, and kicking with the inside of the foot.

She's a dancing queen

Miriam is my active child. She had been dancign for about two minutes before I whipped out the camera and after she recovered from the fall, she was right back up.

I tried to get her to go the other way thinking she might wind down instead of up but I had no luck.

For the record . . the song is Ten Little Monkeys, Jumping on the Bed

Playing a game . . . or going to bed

I'll admit that there have been a few times when I've gotten wrapped up in a computer game and forgotten to go to bed. I've set timers and even scheduled the PC to turn off. Things happen. I like losing my self once in a while in a make-believe world.

The thing is, I always feel bad when I climb into bed and my wife is all curled up in a ball because I wasn't there to keep hejr warm.

I've never been as bad as these guys though. Very funny.

The Mutha of all gangstas . . shut yo' mouth!

I guess it runs in the family.

In a previous post I documented some of the other gang members that abide in Kingwood. I thought they were anomolies in this part of town.

Apparently I was wrong; gang membership may be bred, not learned.

Below are my wife and daughter thowing signs