I’ve decided it’s time for me to get my list in writing. I turn 40 later this year and I figure that’s half of my life complete (based on U.S. census tables), so it’s time to set some goals for the latter half of my life. I see and hear about things all the time that prompt me to say to myself, “I should do that before I die!” And then I tend to forget about it.

These are the big-ticket things I’d like to do one day. Most of it is traveling, but I’ve alway felt that there’s so much of the world to see and learn about.

No, I don’t have the money or time to do a lot of these things. But that’s what I have the rest of my life for, right? And it appears that much of it is visiting stuff.

Disclaimers about this list:

  • There is no timeline on most of these, except somewhat for Obergammerau
  • These are presented in no particular order
  • I am not suggesting I have the money to do all these things
  • This list will change constantly and I will bump it periodically

Leave a comment if you think there’s something else I should try, or if you have tips about something on the list, or if you want to share your own bucket list items!

Yes, I would like to do this one day: Cruise to Antarctica.

  1. Visit Antarctica
  2. Visit the Grand Canyon
  3. Climb Mount Rainer
  4. Run the Marine Corps Marathon
  5. Do the Goofy Challenge at Disney World
  6. Visit Banff/Whistler
  7. See the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta
  8. Visit Yellowstone National Park
  9. Take an African safari, hopefully with the kids
  10. View the polar bears in Manitoba or Norway
  11. Go to San Diego ComiCon
  12. Visit Paris
  13. Ski in the French Alps
  14. Ski in New Zealand in July
  15. Learn to snowboard (Note: I tried to learn, twice. I’m too old for this crap).
  16. Visit Alaska, perhaps on a cruise
  17. Visit Beijing
  18. Visit Times Square on New Year’s Eve to see the ball drop
  19. See the Passion Play in Obergammerau, Germany in 2020. Take the kids.
  20. Plant a garden that will provide the sole source of produce for my family all season
  21. See Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade live.
28. April 2013 · Comments Off on My Baseball Boys · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
Timmy is on the Phillies.

Timmy is on the Phillies.

Jacob is on the Cardinals.

Jacob is on the Cardinals.

This year the boys are both on very good, very hard working teams. It’s nice to see their hard work and tons of practice pay off in good records. Since it’s become apparent that the boys are serious about their baseball, we made the investment in some better-than-beginner equipment for the two of them.

I took our good camera out to the fields earlier this month, but didn’t get the best pictures because I had to deal with the chain link fence. I was able to use the manual focus on most of them, and all things considered, I’m pretty impressed. Enjoy! More »

25. April 2013 · Comments Off on On My Latest Trip to Super Walmart: Ice Cream News · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,
This is really yummy!

This is really yummy!

Tonight I went to the Bellevue, Nebraska Walmart Super Center mainly to pick up some Dorothy Lynch salad dressing for my boys. It’s the only kind Timmy will have on his salads, otherwise he eats his salad “dry”.

I decided to pick up a small container of ice cream for myself while I was there, and I was in search of a pint-sized container, such as Ben & Jerry’s or Haagen-Dazs.

I found the gelato pictured above, and it’s very yummy! While I have been sitting here watching the NFL Draft enjoying it, I looked at the nutrition information:

  • Serving size: 1/2 cup
  • Number of Servings: 3.5

What?

Then I looked at the size of the container: 14 ounces?

Scammed again! More »

23. April 2013 · Comments Off on Mississippi Discoveries 1: Beauvoir & the Jefferson Davis “Presidential” Library · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , ,
The newly-rebuilt Jefferson Davis Presidential Library in Biloxi, MS.

The newly-rebuilt Jefferson Davis Presidential Library in Biloxi, MS. It opened on March 16, 2013. It has a library, restoration center, and gift shop.

Yipee! A new state to discover!

At the end of March, Dave and I made a trip to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, MS for Dave’s laser-eye surgery. We spent about 5 days in the area; before his procedure, we were able to do a little bit of sightseeing. Besides the numerous casinos, there are a couple of neat tourist attractions that we enjoyed.

First on our list was to pay a visit to Beauvoir, which was Jefferson Davis’ home after the Civil War. He was living as a disenfranchised not-really-citizen at the time he acquired this house, because he had some of his rights stripped as part of his treason indictment. In fact, he was nearly broke when he came to Beauvoir as a house guest in 1877. The country at the time was very divided on his right to remain in the U.S., but in the deep south he was left alone. On the grounds stands the Jefferson Davis “Presidential” Library**, which operates in the same way as other presidential libraries around the country. The property is managed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

**Being that the United States never formally recognized the Confederate States of America as a sovereign state, one could argue that Jefferson Davis wasn’t really president of anything. But I’m not going to get too deep into that argument.

Beauvoir itself. An understated home with a great view.

Beauvoir itself. An understated home with a great view. There were many more trees before Katrina.

The grounds took a beating during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. You can see a picture of the house right after the storm in this CNN Article. The library was destroyed, and priceless artifacts were blown all over the place. It took over 2 years to restore the home, and it was able to reopen in summer 2008.

More »

The purpose of this blog post is to have a place to quickly compare the two weather stations I have in my backyard.

The top “sticker” is for our Davis Instruments Vantage Pro 2, circa 2004. This weather station has performed reliably for our family at each of our last four homes.

The bottom “sticker” is reporting from our AcuRite Pro Weather Center. It just arrived about a week ago as part of a GeekMom product test.

This is part of my comparison project — I have Weather Underground archiving both weather stations’ data. I can only choose one weather station with which I can associate the webcam, so it’s on the incumbent weather station.

So…what you SHOULD be seeing are similar temperatures, dewpoints and barometric pressures. I’m not convinced the wind data will match very well, the Davis anemometer is very old and doesn’t seem to be spinning as well as it used to.

Comment below and let me know what you think….

17. April 2013 · Comments Off on Time to Think About Moving — For Real! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

From our packout in North Carolina, July 2008.

It’s for real now — this week we’ve been squeezing in a couple of move-related tasks before I go to Omaha for more Air Force work. We put all our ducks in a row for looking for a house in Colorado, and we have made the arrangements for our belongings to get picked up in early June. It’s feeling real now!

We are having our stuff picked up a little early this time around for several reasons: (a) the kids can still be at school and not underfoot during most of the packing and (b) we’re still planning our annual big trip to the northeast and I wanted to get the packing over with beforehand and (c) there’s more assurance that our belongings will be ready to deliver as soon as we get our house squared away in Colorado.

What this means is that things are getting REAL: in the month of May I will be wrapping up my involvements with the base spouses’ club and the local Cub Scout pack, and I will be able to completely focus on getting us prepared to move.

What types of things do we have to do in the 7 weeks? Here’s a quickie checklist, which will help me as much as it will help anyone else, hopefully.

  • Checklist of utilities to turn off
  • Checklist of address changes for other creditors
  • Establish a “Do Not Pack” space; remove items that you need packed, begin position items in there that you can’t have the movers take, such as personal paperwork, valuables, musical instruments, pet supplies, etc.
  • Begin removing batteries from toys and lightbulbs from lamps
  • Know where the cash is in the coin banks around the house, prepare a big trip to the local CoinStar machine (where you can convert the contents into one of a number of gift cards to waive the 8%+ fee)
  • Get vehicles prepared for the big cross country drive in June

Here’s some other moving-related stuff I have shared on this blog in the past several years.  This is the third move I will be sharing on my blog, this is a great way to help the kids remember what it was like the past several moves.

09. April 2013 · Comments Off on Alabama Discoveries 5: The Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center, Mobile · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , ,
The Gulf Coast Exploreum is in a primo location in the heart of downtown Mobile. We enjoyed the museum, but it appears to need some updates.

The Gulf Coast Exploreum is in a primo location in the heart of downtown Mobile. We enjoyed the museum, but it appears to need some updates.

On the last day of the boys’ Spring Break, we took a field trip to Mobile’s Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center. I went in thinking it would be an all-day museum, but we ended up not spending much time there at all. The kids enjoyed it, but there seemed to be a lot of empty space in a seemingly very large building. It wasn’t crowded at all while we were there, our school district seemed to be the only ones in the Gulf Coast region having Spring Break as early as the college kids….

There’s an IMAX theater at the museum, which was showing Fighter Pilot. We saw Fighter Pilot at the IMAX theater at the Museum of Naval Aviation on one of our multiple trips, so we didn’t see it again.

Thanks to our military ID cards, we got an outstanding discount at the Exploreum: my admission was free (even as a Reservist) and the kids’ admissions were each $2 off.

The Scratch Factory exhibit was my motivation for taking the kids in the first place. I don’t know if it was good or bad, but I found that most of the Scratch Factory were tasks similar to what we saw at the Pensacola MESS Hall last summer. Wind tunnels, crafts that can be run through the wind tunnels, and a giant marble run wall.

My boys spent most of their time in the Scratch Factory area enjoying the marble run construction area.

Jacob's marble run.

Jacob’s marble run.

Timmy's "so tall I needed a stool" marble run. He wanted to make sure I could capture the three dimensions in his creation.  "Like Aquaduck", he told me.

Timmy’s “So Tall I Need a Stool” marble run. He wanted to make sure I could capture the three dimensions in his creation. “Like Aquaduck“, he told me.

We didn’t spend long in the Scratch Factory section. Thankfully, it was quite empty most of our time there, and a school field trip came in just as we were leaving the area.

The next section we explored was the BodyWorks section. This was a very good assortment of medical and health-related exhibits. You started by receiving a blank key-card with which you would insert the card into assorted physical tasks and the card would record data about the tasks. There were plenty of signs around attesting that the data on the cards was not kept for any reason, and the cards were erased upon their return.

There was a scale, numerous strength measurement tasks (arm wrestling, hitting a hammer to ring a bell, etc), and a few mental agility tasks. If you went around the entire exhibit, then returned the card to the beginning, this assessment would print out for you. Unfortunately, many of the assessment displays were broken.

The medical profession exhibits were really cool. The kids could explore what it’s like to do heart surgery, endoscopic surgery, and explore tools that surgeons uses.

Jacob exploring how doctors perform endoscopic surgeries. He had to rely on the camera as his "eyes" to thread one piece of metal through another.

Jacob explores how doctors perform endoscopic surgeries. He had to rely on the camera as his “eyes” to thread one piece of metal through another all inside that box in front of him.

There’s also a BeHealthy exhibit, which featured making correct grocery shopping and eating choices. I remember a similar exhibit at the Omaha Children’s Museum.

After a lunch break back at the truck (we packed leftover beef and broccoli stir fry) we headed back in to see the last large section, which was called the Hand’s On Hall. This was full of a wide variety of explorations: sound, light and physics displays. Like at the BodyWorks section, many of the exhibits showed signs of wear and some of them outright didn’t work at all.

Jacob learns about the impacts of 2-, 3-, and 4-pulley systems. You sit in a seat and use the systems to hoist yourself up. The more pulleys in the system, the easier it is to do, but you lift yourself more slowly.

Jacob learns about the impacts of 2-, 3-, and 4-pulley systems. You sit in a seat and use the systems to hoist yourself up. The more pulleys in the system, the easier it is to do, but you lift yourself more slowly.

My rock star. Pieces of PVC pipe and a pair of cheap flip flops. I could totally do this at home!

My rock star. Pieces of PVC pipe and a pair of cheap flip flops. I could totally do this at home!

We spent a total of 3 hours in the museum if you include time at the really nice gift shop.

After the museum we walked next door to the Fort Conde Visitor’s Center, which just opened last October. This area has a 4/5-scale reproduction of the original fort that sat on the same site. Fort Conde helped protect Mobile and Mobile Bay in the early 1700s. Tucked in among the more modern Mobile skyline, it’s a very short walk around the perimeter.

Timmy said "Let's pretend we're bombing!"  So they did...

Timmy said “Let’s pretend we’re bombing!” So they did…these are facing Mobile Bay.

If you've ever driven through the I-10 tunnel (called the George C. Wallace Memorial Tunnel...shudder), you will have driven right under Fort Conde. It's just above the western end of the tunnel.

If you’ve ever driven through the I-10 tunnel (called the George C. Wallace Tunnel…shudder), you will have driven right under Fort Conde. It’s just above the western end of the tunnel.

The boys and I had a fun field trip and it was a nice way to wrap up their Spring Break this year.

05. April 2013 · Comments Off on Bacon Stout Chocolate Cheesecake | Tide and Thyme · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I’m trying a new tool called “Press This” on my own blog, mainly for some training for GeekMom. I just want to see what Press This will do. Enjoy this recipe in the meantime 🙂

Bacon Stout Chocolate Cheesecake | Tide and Thyme.