wvu makes like a tree

fill and repeat
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

and falls.

my no. 20 mountaineers headed down to tampa, fla., to play the unranked south florida bulls.

i knew going in that we always have problems with these guys. and playing down there is never a good prospect.

and, well, we moved the ball ok and shot ourselves in the foot just once with an interception inside the 20, but we had no answers for their offense.

they passed the hell out of us in a 30-19 defeat.

it didn't help that some key players are nicked and dinged, but who'd have thought our defense would let us down?

(on second thought, the biggest question seemed to revolve around our defensive backs, so, yeah, i think we know the answer: toast.)

normally, i'd be beside myself with a league loss, especially one where i thought we could win.

but i know these guys have our number in florida, and i suppose i've come to accept that.

luckily, the day wasn't wasted in anticipation of it -- even for the hope of eating burgers in a sports bar while watching what would have ultimately been a frustrating game.

got a coat of primer up in the baby's room. raked the leaves in the front yard. hopefully took out a yellowjacket nest.

a cheeseburger, beer and a mountaineer win would have been icing on the cake.

but that would have been greedy, wouldn't it?

just like dogs, west virginia university football will bring great joy -- and great sorrow.

the crazed mountaineer in me is just this side of deluded to believe we can win the remaining four games on the schedule -- which includes two top 20 teams.

get hard on defense and don't drop the ball. we can still win out. seriously.

old paint

old outlet
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

judging by the layers of paint on this non-grounded outlet, i could imagine it might be one that came with the house, which i think was built some time before world war ii.

i sometimes wonder about the folks who've lived here before us and the kinds of dreams they had.

they painted. they wallpapered. they added on and remodeled. they lived their lives. and then they passed away or moved.

and then it happened all over again for at least a few more times.

now it's our turn.

it's a good chance that this will be last time i see behind the faceplate of these sockets and switches until our child is, well, probably not a little boy anymore.

kris and i are deep in preparations for his arrival.

sometimes i get so engrossed in the tasks of making room for him, i don't even have him in mind.

other times, i dream and wonder.

i wonder if he'll be task-focused, like his mom, or detail-oriented, like his dad. (kris and i both hope it will be the better parts of both.)

i worry what we'll fight about. if he'll be as hard to motivate as i was. i'm fairly sure he'll be pig-headed. i just hope it's in a good way.

i imagine that as he grows, the way the house is will be the way he thought it always ever was.

same colored rooms. same furniture. same cracks in the walls. same goofy cat.

i even have little hopes. that he'd be good with both words and numbers. creative. maybe even wiry and athletic, like a cross-country runner or a swimmer. (if not coordinated, then at least i hope he'd have rhythm.)

after healthy, of course, though, we mostly hope our boy would be kind.

he might never recognize the efforts that went into giving him a good place to land.

but i hope he'd never wish he had better.

curved lines

somewhere there was a good idea when i made kris stand in the landing while i composed this shot. i'm not entirely sure what it was. maybe when there's more baby in the belly there will be more curve.

i hope the rain doesn't totally wash out the fall colors in the yard or in town. i'd like to get sort of a record of her tummy against the backdrop of the seasons like we did back in august.

after a trying first trimester, kris has an appetite and actually enjoys the thought of food again. (to her own chagrin, she'd tell you.) and she's also hit upon the right pillow combination to accommodate her back and the bump when she sleeps.

funny, though, she seems to whipsaw between grumbles when the lad decides to go for extended bouts of kickboxing and plaintive worry when he rests for hours at a time. apparently, like his mama and papa, our boy will rarely reside in the happy medium.

the little fellow definitely likes sweets and seems to enjoy moving most when we're in the newsroom. this does not bode well for his choice of vocation.

blaze of glory

scarlet oak
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

it seemed to take a long time to develop, but the autumn leaves seemed to finish strong the last week of october.

it's been raining most of the night, so i'll bet our trees will have been further denuded from saturday's showers.

if you follow the links, you'll be able to get a peek of what the mountain state offered by way of foliage this year.

(with any luck, we'll be able to get our yard cleaned up before our zealous neighbor crosses the street to do it for us.)

little news

at the time this pic was taken, she was elaina, but that has since changed.

thank heavens, my sister and her husband chose the more appropriate spanish spelling, now elena.

this was the munchkin who was responsible for us playing short-handed down in disney. a small sacrifice, i say.

besides, now her big brother has someone to look after.

given his readiness to throw down when his elder sibs are threatened, God help the boy who crosses this little sister.

porcinoia

we'd been reporting on the swine flu epidemic since spring.

i'd hoped it would be a phenomenon of mass hysteria that would peter out beyond its flashpoint.

i clung to this fraying hope even as a pandemic was declared by an international health body.

then, what was first reported in mexico, moved to the united states, then to our state and our city.

even as friends of friends were being reported with the disease, we in the newsroom employed our usual gallows humor to fend off concerns that it could reach us.

but every hacking cough or word of travel to areas of reported outbreaks made me wonder if i was somehow being exposed to the bug.

i became a much more scrupulous hand-washer over the past six weeks or so, actually timing myself and observing that i scrub as thoroughly as i can.

well, as one, then another loved one of someone in the office got exposed, i can probably say it's in the newsroom, too.

(for her own peace of mind -- and to the annoyance of our co-workers -- kris took to spraying lysol and using disinfectant wipes around the perimeter of her cubicle.)

in my mind, it seems to have begun in the back of the room and moved its way forward, like a wave. it's reached the last quarter of the office now, right about my area.

(the visual metaphor that kept going through my head was the rio bravo-style confrontation between the hordes of aliens overrunning the stronghold of lt. ripley and the marine platoon in "aliens.")

now, what used to be a collection of seasonal ailments -- sneezes, stuffed heads or post-nasal drip -- are kind of being lumped together as "the swine flu."

this comes at a crucial time for me and kris, as she reads horror stories of the disease left untreated in pregnant women resulting in tragedy.

her ob/gyn has told her at that first tickle in the throat or other indicator of infection in her patients, she goes on the offensive with tamiflu to wipe out/stave off its effects.

well, earaches herald illness for kris, so after the second day, she made the call and had a prescription called in.

she took the pill at work and within a few hours suffered an alarmingly violent attack of nausea.

the precautionary literature lists this as a side-effect of the drug, but her doc says it was too soon and said it might be a stomach bug that's been going around.

weak and shaken by the episode, she went home early to rehydrate and rest up.

now all she can do is worry what this is doing to the baby. she's not even sure she wants to try another dose, even though her ears are still aching.

i believe these little guys are fairly resilient and can ride out most of whatever afflicts their mommies.

i just pray whatever course we take will prove to be the wise one.

grin and bear it

unlike last year, when the outlook for the friends of coal bowl appeared bleak if you were a west virginia university mountaineer, i was cautiously confident before today's game.

then, our offense appeared in disarray and vulnerable to a surging marshall university squad. this year, i was worried much less about scoring as attitude as a weakness.

it very nearly held true today.

a drab, cold and damp day in the mountain state didn't lend itself to a jaunty, can-do frame of mind.

then, when our strong-armed quarterback went down, i thought the wheels would fall off the wagon.

i began thinking of how gracefully i would have to accept not only a loss, but the ribbing from my friends who root for the thundering herd.

there could be no using injury as an excuse. this one was going to have to be take it like a man.

after jarrett brown went down and the herd scored off his fumble, i tried to assuage my fears with the idea that we only needed to win by one. in an imagined bargain with God, i could meekly and gladly accept a 10-7 win.

luckily, our backup proved he possessed his own grace under pressure and rebounded nicely after halftime to collect himself and regroup, passing and running his team to victory -- by 17 points, no less, 24-7.

the bonus was now knowing geno smith not only survived his baptism by fire, but that he has some real game experience under his belt. good for this year -- and next.

but more than anything else, i am most glad that my wife, the marshall alum, doesn't care nearly as much about this kind of foolishness as i do. otherwise, things would have been really uncomfortable in this house for a few hours.

rivalry

bright gold and blue
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

on the eve of the west virginia university-marshall football game, i've come to grips with the case of nerves that the game gives.

simply put, i'm nervous because we're expected to win.

we're the bigger school; we're in the more prominent conference (maybe only marginally so); we've got a couple of prestigious wins under our belt (fiesta bowl in '08 and sugar bowl in '06); and on and on.

long story long, we enjoy many advantages. this gives us a lot to lose.

this may be the underlying reason so many wvu fans want this series to end -- it offers nothing and threatens everything.

i agree with our erstwhile sports editor that marshall missed a great chance for a couple of wins by cancelling the first series after the '97 game when the herd's program and ours were headed in opposite directions.

that surely would have evened up things and taken the fear out of potentials for loss because, hey, we'd have them out of the way.

now, while i'd always thought it was a good idea that the ball game be played since we're all on the division 1 level, the growing stakes of staying undefeated give me pause.

outside of powerball, i hate gambles.

that said, despite all the grumbles that a home-and-home matchup is a losing proposition for wvu and any other arguments to stop playing, the upped ante of a keeping a perfect record is precisely the reason to continue the series.

it's a thrill ride, a flirtation with danger. (i'm not a big roller coaster fan, either.)

but other people like that.

seems reason enough to keep riding. i'll just make sure my harness is good and tight and hang on.

and when that loss finally comes -- and it will -- then this game will be a real rivalry.

just so long as it doesn't start tomorrow . . .

uncle p takes the wheel

uncle p takes the wheel
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

this is me with vivian and tallulah at the tomorrowland indy speedway at disney world's magic kingdom.

pj's girl, tallulah, originally wanted to drive, but backed out at the last second, so we switched.

now, back home, i'm still kind of wonky from doing the lion's share of the driving back from orlando.

dad was a bit under the weather, which i think sapped him of his usual road toughness, so i had to pilot my sister's honda minivan up i-95 and across to west virginia.

(i worry a bit that at 73 dad might be getting a little past the marathon drives that our family is famous for. i hope it's just the illness.)

i'm starting to realize it takes a little longer now to recover from these family vacations featuring long stretches behind the wheel.

part of it is driving fatigue, but i bet the other part is the emotional energy that small people demand of us. (i actually had to yell back at my niece, "i'll pull this car over if you don't stop teasing sammy.")

i'd set precedent when i pulled the minivan off the side of the road to reattach a seatbelt that i thought had come undone from a booster seat, so they might have known i'd do it.

and i'll take this opportunity to express my disappointment with honda's dash/console layout.

having driven numerous family hondas in my life, i was put off by the difficulty of deciphering the functions of the neat array of switches and buttons that all looked the same but had no bearing on their placement or purpose without long, distracting stares from the driver's seat.

other than that, the vehicle drove like a dream, steady on the road and true.

these are things we're going to have to think about once our own brood starts. (i'm still leaning toward station wagon with all-wheel drive.) but that's putting the cart before the horse, isn't it?

the view from here

ducks in a row
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

throughout our disney trip, i sort of took it upon myself to stay at the back of the pack to ensure there were always seven wee ones in front of me.

contrasted with a theme park full of similar swarms of families and friends, this walkway to epcot's boardwalk resort shuttle bus center provided one of the easier accountings.

this is the start of day 2, begun late -- about 12:30 p.m. -- but followed by a solid 9 or 10 hours of gallivanting about the magic kingdom.

despite its duration, it turned out to be an easier haul than the previous day at epcot simply for the presence of better cloud cover and temperatures about one or two degrees cooler than the day before, right around 89-92. (the humidity hovered at percentages between the 50s and 60s.)

my sister-in-law informed me that it was indeed unseasonably warm for october, about 10 degrees so.

kris said the only thing that kept her from going all night was the toll on her back. despite doctor's orders, she hadn't been exercising regularly, so the day-long slogs kind of wreaked havoc on her endurance.

(well, there was that, and the gestating baby in her belly.)

we were well out of epcot before i realized i missed a great opportunity to sort of capture the whole last visit to disney without a child of our own.

there we were, in the shadow of the park's iconic symbol and i failed to photograph the juxtaposition of my wife's lovely fullness against the spherical monolith that is spaceship earth.

actually, given her posture or position in most of the photos, you can barely tell she's pregnant. her clothes seem to camouflage or minimize her tummy into an expanse of blankness.

disneyana

most of us
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

this is most of the kid clan at disney's magic kingdom, minus the major contributors to the proceedings, pamy and lem -- parents of four of the seven little tykes featured.

(an excused absence, as my youngest sister is just about due with her fifth child.)

so this left us with baby-sitting duties for her kids, an unenviable task at first glance, but considering grandma was also there, along with the formidable auntie joy, a 7-months-pregnant kris and i were not nearly as outmanned as we feared we'd be.

still, it was quite the full-time job.

the effort of keeping the children from devolving into a theme-parked "lord of the flies" scenario required constant vigilance and policing from the time they awoke until we put them to bed.

the absence of the extra hands tired me out enough that there were no early-morning or late-night forays to explore the resort's development since my last visit and made even the idea of meeting my friends mike and carrie a couple of hours away in melbourne an impossibility.

i was lucky enough, though, to be able to steal away for a few hot wings and a beer with my brother at the espn zone on the boardwalk to watch re-caps of the saturday's ball games before bed.

one of the finer pleasure of gathering with the sibs, even with or especially because of the draining aspects of child-rearing, is the late-night wind-down with some adult beverages.

our short time frame, the absence of my sister and her husband, and kristina's own pregnancy pretty much precluded such gatherings on this family trip.

but it was comforting to see that the good folks at disney know the value of a little grown-up respite in the middle of the children's kingdom.

(this was the more open signal of refreshment and indulgence, as we were in attendance in the midst of the park's food and wine fest. i just liked that throughout the world showcase and all the resort hotels there were out-of-the-way watering holes where adults relieve some of the tensions that come with making a kid's dreams come true.)

in the waiting room

this is me missing out on one of the more underrated experiences of sitting in waiting rooms -- magazine reading.

(who knew the auto shop had wireless networking that customers could tap into?)

one of the more interesting things about waiting in places like veterinarian offices, hair salons or tire shops is the sense you can get of the proprietors and their clientele.

for example, here at the applachian tire products store in downtown charleston, i can see the cabela's sports outfitters fall catalog, a copy of "automobile" magazine (featuring the pontiac solstice coupe and volkswagen scirocco), "motor trend" (pony car war: camaro vs. mustang and challenger) and, of course, "brake and front end" magazine (cover story: "what is in brake dust?")

as a wannabe gearhead, i can get down with the car magazines. (a good portion of my writing education came from reading "car and driver.")

what i really enjoy reading, though, are the outdoors magazines -- the traditional "field and stream" or the saucier "outdoor life" -- stuff written for enthusiasms i can appreciate, but i'm not exactly, um, enthusiastic about.

i get to read well-written pieces intended for folks who know their way around nature and the gear to enjoy it. (which is why i also like seeing the firearms magazines, as well.)

sort of by osmosis, i get to learn what's important to a demographic that isn't my own. it's a neat window into another world.