Week 684AZ - Schools out!

Schools out! Zach was VP in Grade 7, and won the election to be president when he comes back in Grade 8. Amelia had a rough go of math at the start grade 3, but is now the poster child (literally) for the effectiveness of Math Academy (an afterschool math program), she’ll be going into Grade 4 in great math shape, maybe if she keeps doing stuff she’ll even be ahead in math. Let me brain dump a bunch of stories that could have been their own post but I’m too lazy, maybe I’ll split them up later.

Life upgrades - Take the kids to school daily

One of the things I’ve always really enjoyed was walking the kids to school which was easy because the school was a block from our house, and had an early start so I could drop them off and still get to work early.

Things are different now, there’s a late school start, and the kids take the bus. For the first half of the year, I didn’t walk the kids to school. And then some time in January I realized, I can re-jigger my day to be able to walk the kids to the bus stop. And it turns out, even though it’s only 10 minutes of my time. It’s a very pleasant time, and the kids really appreciate it.

It’s amazing how this small act, 10 minutes a day can have such an impact on me and my relationship with my family.

Once in a while I had to skip, and when I told this to Zach especailly, he didn’t complain, but he did have a dissapointed look.

Picture of my last day walking kids to school.

Apple Parental Control Bugs

Amelia has a time limit on her iPad. She gets 2 hours a day, except she gets unlimited web tunes (unlimited comic books). Over a perioid of time, I noticed I was seeing Amelia less and less, I realized the problem was she was having more fun on her iPad. I was surprised she was spending this much time in Web Tunes, and decided I’d need to put a limit on that as well.

When I went to put the limit on, I was surprised to see that Amelia was on her iPad 8 hours a day on average, and most of that on YouTube. I figured there must be a bug in Apple’s Parental controls, and thought through how I could “force the settings to syncronize”. Being a computer industry vetran, I figured changing the password would send a setting sync. And then I was like “Doh”, Apple doesn’t have a bug, Amelia knows the password - Sheesh.

I call Amelia over and ask if she knows the password. She says “No”, but I’m skeptical and change the password anyways. An hour later she’s out of time, and comes to me, and says can you enter your password. But this time she looks away, really far away so she can’t see it.

I’m super proud of Amelia, I won’t underestimate her hacking powress again.

Synongauge

As luck would have it, we had three synonagouage events in a row. The first 2 were barmitzvah’s for Zach’s friends. I really enjoyed the services, and decided I’d check out a Friday night service.

I’ve always loved the idea of the sabath, reseting our week and dedicating time to the family. I arranged for a family friend to meet us there for the service. At 5pm Friday we stopped what we were doing, and got into our church clothes. When we got to the synongauge, I called the friends and they’d forgotten about it. I was ready to drive home, but Tori was like “What?!” No, we’re going in. I was very afraid, but Tori reminded me she’d hold my hand if required.

Service was nice, and best of all, our friend ended up showing up late, and we all went to the park and had dinner together. Was nice to get together.

One thing that’s unpleasant, but needs to be said. The synonaguge is a beautiful building in the middle of Seattle. And in front of the building is a very big, very bury, very conspiciously armed security gaurd. It’s a shitty world we live in.

Fruit Salad

Tori has many talents, one of which, which is also her hobby is gardening. She’s made our yard beautfiul and my favorite part is the fruits. We have amazing black berries, and raspberries and blueberries and strawberries.

And, now we’re abouot to get cherries! It’s ike a farmers market in our front yard (and back yard)

Lots of skating

I like roller skating. Luckily one of the bar-mitzvah’s had a roller skating party. I was on the rink with all the kids, felt great. First time I’ve been roller skating since I’ve gotten stronger, and feels great!

I don’t like ice skating as much, but Amelia had a b-day party which was at the skating rink. I wasn’t gonna skate, but turns out no parents were skating so I laced up. Didn’t especially enjoy skating, but loved the fact that I was able to get some awesome pictures of the kids, and encoruage kids that weren’t as comfortable skating to skate.

And now, I’ve gotten myself some light up wheels (which sadly don’t work indoors), so I’ll be trying to roller skate outdoors. Fingers crossed this doesn’t end in injury.

President on top, working from home on the bottom

Kettle Bell and other gym stuff

My kettlebells are progressing well. They should I do them 4-6 days a week for about an hour. My normal TGU is now at 53lbs, which is my goal. I don’t think I’ll go up. My two handed swing is at 62lbs, will probably that that up to 70lbs.

What’s next you ask? A fine question! For swings, I’ll switch to 1 handed swings, so far, I can do 44lbs, I’ve got a long ways to go!

And for TGU’s I’ll switch to upside down kettlebell walks, and add upside down TGU’s. These are super good for me. First, it helps my shoulder mobility, which is a root cause of a lot of my wrist problems. And it also gives incredible grip strength, which is great since that helps everything!

Upside down kettle bell walks:

https://youtube.com/shorts/7Bx4wb2p49c?feature=share

Upside down TGU:

I can’t even find a video, I’m going to have to make one my self to showt eh whole internet

And of course, why stop there, I’m now training:

• Hanging L-Sits (I can do 30s in the chin up position), also great for my grip!
• Pistol Squats (I can go about 1/2 way down), great for the legs and balance
• Full Lotus (I’m at half lotus barely), great for the hips and mindfulness
• Skipping on one foot in circles (3 minutes), great to bullet proof your ankles so you don’t fall down!

Other stuff

LLMs

• Photos of the garden

Grinding out promotion documents which I usually like to procrasinate Taking a meditation course