winding to an end

The semester is winding to an end, thankfully.  I want to have more time to inspire these students to greater success, of course, but in the end we all have the same 24 hours in a day that was used by Galileo, Edison, and Benjamin Franklin.  And Marie Curie and Mother Teresa and Oprah.  I have been working a pretty good balance of work and home for the last 2 months, but I still sense an internal imbalance that has more to do with stress and failure than it has to do with time spent at work.

I am terribly excited about our big roadtrip back to Idaho this month.  What I can't believe is that it's been more than two years since I've been in that exceptional state.  I finished a book yesterday, which was pretty good, but I was especially thrilled on the last page--you know, when it tells about the author--and the author and his brood lives in the state of Idaho.

When delicious raspberries were on sale recently, we stocked up on them and devoured them like North Pole elves devour gumdrops.

I am looking forward to a yet unknown adventure this weekend.  The weather is perfect!  Details forthcoming.

more pumpkin talk

The night sky is great for viewing at 9pm these days.  So last night when we went to the members night at our "local" observatory, we had a treat of many of our well known constellations and asterisms, and it was all around a good night for looking up.  The moon was bright--which makes it too bright for a good dark night, but it's nice to see the craters and moon's features through the big telescopes too.

The local observatory is more than an hour away, out of town a fair distance, but out of town from the other part of town.  We would probably do better to just drive 30 miles out of town northward and looking at the dark starry night there.

More pumpkin, thanks in part to a restaurant nearby called Sweet Tomatoes that we sort of frequent.  Pumpkin bisque, pumpkin cobbler, and pumpkin cocktails.  I didn't mention because I'm sure all of you were up-to-date on the facebook status updates, but Bonnie also made some delicious pumpkin bread lately.

Just kidding about the pumpkin cocktails.

the cogs of life

Well, the transit of Venus is approaching, and oh how I look forward to those sweet days of summer.  For now, though, a good part of my waking energy goes into the nurturing of eleven dozen young adults who collectively have the math gumption of a thimble.  My biggest challenge is in connecting with these dear students, that our classes may be sweet paradises of learning instead of tense and volatile zoo scenes.

You could call me Peter these days.  Not because I am a rock, but because I've been quite the pumpkin eater. And Bonnie and I were working out the details of that nursery rhyme, and correct me if I am wrong, but Peter offed his wife and buried her in the garden.  Not exactly the nursery rhyme book illustration of a little woman in a pumpkin shell home.  With such lovely rhymes we pacify our children's need for rhythm.  Call me Peter, but only because of my pumpkin eating, and not because of any homicidal transgressions whatsoever with any wife at all.

Three of our pumpkins this year rotted and molded before Halloween actually arrived.  We had carved them up nicely like professional pumpkin carvers, but the weather got warm and flies and fungus had a field day.  So we got a couple more and left them intact.  Until today, for one of the fruits.  I came home to Bonnie hollowing one out, ready to stuff it full with goodies.  And then it baked in the oven for a couple hours, and let me tell you, that was an excellent dinner. Like on NPR: Stuff, Bake, and Devour a Pumpkin.  It was a practice pumpkin for when we go to the in-laws for Thanksgiving.  On top of that, we got some pumpkin ice cream, which I think we can make ourselves, and yes, we even got a pumpkin pie blizzard at Dairy Queen.  And we got some pumpkin flavored toothpaste for our bathroom.

Just kidding about the toothpaste.

Our Halloween was wonderful.  We got together with some church friends, all the kiddos played around, we dressed up and had a great time.  On Halloween too we went around and greeted our neighbors and greeted some of our neighbors who came to our house.  One of my students lives a few houses away from ours.

Time is flying.  Maybe because I am so anticipating the transit of Venus.  Orry spends way too much time at school learning too little.  He did a report today on the job of a paleontologist.  Isaac, in pre-K, is learning his letters and writing a little and drawing discernible things.  He has turned into quite the little communicator.  And Annie has taken to running to keep up with the boys and making her upset and pouty faces.

Well, I haven't been the most current current troydanielbecker, but the cogs of life are still turning for us in Houston, and one day spins into the next much in the manner of the school days of our youth, if you can remember those.  Thanks for reading.

kung fu peanut butter water

It is difficult to write these days. First, and thankfully, Bonnie is writing so many great tidbits on we talk dinosaur. But mostly, I am so busy these days with the new teaching position at Dwight D Eisenhower Senior High School in Houston. And when I'm not busy with school stuff, I'm dandling children on knees or tossing them in the air. Or tickling them silly with laughter or falling asleep while I read them books goodnight. And then there is Bonnie, who I also like to tickle silly with laughter. And then there are the Die Hard movies we just got done watching together. We watched Kung Fu Panda II together, as a family, in the dollar theater. That was fun. There were lots of similar families there on that Sunday afternoon. It has continued to be so dry that our garden plants have suffered some casualties. And maybe you saw some news about local wildfires. But on the other hand, it looks like it may come down to Boise State and LSU this year in NCAA football, and wouldn't that just frost your whiskers? Orry and Isaac are enjoying school. Annie is really growing up too. Bonnie made some peanut butter ice cream today that was among the best ice cream products I have eaten. And I am not one that favors peanut butter in desserts. One fond thing that I recall from my childhood is irrigating our desert fields. We sure moved a lot of water, my dad and me. What do you remember fondly from your childhood?

math methods, fireants, birds

I have a new abacus toy, or actually, a soroban, with instructions in English, that I might just devote some time to.  You know, these manual calculators have good quick methods for doing large and decimal multiplication and division and can also be used for roots; not just for tallying or for adding numbers without using your fingers.

Although the instruction booklet is in English, it was printed in Japan, and has a few funny things and misspellings like thumb without a b, and more embarrasing, count without an o.

It seems like every time I come to Louisiana I get violated by fireants.  But this time they got me in the morning before heading to Louisiana, while still in Texas.  I got no fewer than 13 or 14 bites, and I am reminded that last time when I pinned my allergic reaction on poison ivy, it was likely a similar fireant violation instead.   The last time I itched like that was when I went camping, and I'm pretty sure I didn't get any fireant bites then, so I don't know what I can put that down to.  But I had a terrific allergic reaction once to fireants and I guess I still have reactions.  My body seems to not react and not react until it reacts to something, and then it will either react easily to the same thing, or get used to it and seem to react less and less until it doesn't react any more.  About these ants, they are all "new" ants, as opposed to getting bitten by the same local type of ants again and again, and maybe there's something in that, too. 

We harvested our first cucumber, yum.

Bonnie and I had a good time watching videos last night about birds that can talk.  Not just parrots and parakeets, but magpies, starlings, crows, and the like.  Fascinating.

33.5 years old

Today is my half year birthday, and I know you're probably wondering why you didn't hear about my 33 1/3 year celebration, but I think at that time I was probably counting candles on boys' birthday cakes, cutting out dinosaur hats, or something of the like.  And I can tell you what I'd like to be doing on my 34 1/3 year celebration.  That's the time (next year, actually on June 5 or 6, 2012, depending on your side of the international date line) when Venus will cross in front of the sun for the so called "transit of Venus" event.  It happens twice, about eight years apart, every 105 or 121 years in a delightful planetary dance that repeats with a periodicity of 243 years.  The last transit happened in 2004, so here's your last chance, living humans, unless you live so long as to see it happen again in 2117.  I hope to be somewhere with my family, watching the sun without looking at it directly, ideally in Japan or Alaska or Hawaii or some other neat place, although just about anywhere will do, so long as we don't go to places like Brazil or the Azores or western Africa.



(The above times are for the 2004 transit which occurred on June 8th.)

Tomorrow is my last day on the job at my current school, where I have been working in the capacity of Academic Director after beginning teaching at this language school last summer.  I am taking a position teaching Geometry in high school for the following school year, and I'm excited about that change.  I liked the leadership role of working with teachers and helping to run a school from that angle, so this is step one in getting a principal certification down the road.

Orry got registered for kindergarten today as well, so we're both excited to start school in a couple of weeks.

Hey, thanks for stopping by and checking out my blog.

Becker Boy Camping

It came time to start a camping tradition with these TX Becker boys, so we headed out one hot Friday for Huntsville State Park, about an hour north of us.

One of the perks of the trip was while we were still in our air conditioned van, checking out an enormous statue of Sam Houston, which is the way Texas celebrates its heroes.  You can tell that we are almost certainly distant cousins on my mother's father's side because of our brow and the overworking of our corrugator supercilii muscles.

Hunstville has a 67 foot Sam Houston, but the Dallas zoo has a 67 foot giraffe thanks in part to sculptor Bob Cassilly.

We got out and stood by the feet and then hustled back to our cool van Winnie.

Our high spirits continued while we arrived at the state park and drove to our camping site.  We got out of the van and ate our dinner and then hit the trails for a hike.  With our stroller.  At first we took the time to take pictures of pretty red flowers.

But soon I think the hike turned more into a fun ride on the stroller across a bumpy trail of tree roots and some declines to try to get Daddy to run down.

We found some puffballs and lots of ant lion pits, which we investigated.  After we went down the path for a while, we needed to turn around and get back to our campsite before dark.  It was starting to get a little whiny.

What followed gave me the feeling that my Becker boys would be traumatized and ever fearful and reluctant of any similar future adventures.  What started as a little whiny got to outright tears as we piled into the sleeping bag sleeping arrangement and endured the hot and sweaty all-natural Texas night.  We were dressed fairly well in good natural bug repellents, which unfortunately gave me an allergic reaction so that I got a bad case of the itches when it was time for a case of the Zs.  It was a fairly restless night of adjusting, readjusting, waking, and nearly waking.  Finally, when it was too light to go back to sleep, it was over and our morning would begin.

The morning continued the theme of going from whining, to tears, and finally to something like sleep.  We drove across the park and checked out another short trail.  I left the stroller, but soon I was carrying Isaac, and after we turned around I was also carrying Orry.  Luckily he was enough of a sport to walk intermittently, especially when Isaac started nodding off on my shoulders.  Finally we made it back to the car where I decided that maybe the allergic reaction was perhaps somehow some exposure to poison ivy (I've been having some super sensitivity to that delightful herb lately).  Luckily though, it was time to call it a day and we listed the animals we saw or heard before we got out on the open road and headed back to Houston, when Orry and Isaac got some good air conditioned sleep in their car seats.

The list and Orry's delight in listing the animals we saw and heard told me that maybe the delight of the trip wasn't lost in its misery.  And sure enough, the very next night he was wanting to sleep in the sleeping bag again, although the night before I was sure he was crying about being sweaty and just asking to go home.  But the parts I left out were watching the stars and bats emerge from the twilight, listening to the owls.  Checking out an alligator in the morning, listening to an eagle screech.  Watching the clouds move.

Our list of fauna:

owl (Orry said we can count it twice because we saw two.)
bat
deer
squirrel
rabbit
human
cicada
butterfly
ant
ant lion
firefly
blue heron
frog
anole
alligator
crow

heron

egret

ibis

eagle

We didn't count mosquitoes.  And there might have been some water birds we didn't get.  I also saw some non-water birds that aren't included above, and we heard a woodpecker or flicker on a hike.

Also we saw some plants and fungi.

I couldn't help but look up dickcissel when I saw it on a bird list.  And what a treat, because in the sound blip for a dickcissel's call, you can hear in the background a western meadowlark, the type of call which is familar to me but seems seldom caught in internet sound blips.

All in all, the trip was a wonderful sort of miserable, with lots of highlights that will probably endure as long as any memory of misery.  We'll slate another weekend in September and I hope we can get lots of family camping in this fall.

bats and cucurbits

I had a great 3 day weekend in Austin. Seeing the bats helped with that, but it was altogether a great weekend of family and fun.

For more footage check out Bonnie's blog


I have scheduled another blood donation for this upcoming weekend. Also on the agenda is a George Observatory night on Friday. Good for the stars!

Speaking of stars, Orry recognized The Starry Night from a print at the Bourgs's. So we looked at a Van Gogh book, but I think really he just wanted to continue with his computer games.

Our school garden continues to grow. Most impressive are all the cucurbits. At the school, our canteloupes are thriving the most. At our home, Annie's halloween pumpkin seed plants are most impressive. It has been nice to grow these plants.

Our kids are also growing like cucurbit vines in the summertime, and we keep doing our best to revel in their magical young years.

June 22

June 22. Happy Birthday, nephew Theo. In one year you will have been a prime half your life. It will happen again in three years, but after this the primes get more spread out. Why, I won’t be prime for 4 more years yet , and then I won’t be prime again until 4 years after that. In the next 8 years of my life, imagine what will happen. On the optimistic side: Sustainable economics? Peace in the middle east? Fungus Revolution? Grandpa Dan will likely be knocking on the door of 70. Great Granny, 90. On the other hand, what new pestilence and diseases will we face? What will climate change bring about? Which animal and plant species will be gone forever? Which genocide of your young lifetime will go down as the worst?

Back on the upside, it’s summer now, and our hemisphere is bathed in sunlight. My garden at the school—that is to say, our gardening club’s garden—includes corn and sunflowers, beans, a few whispers of life left in a bunch of strawberry starts, parsley, beets, radishes, pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchinis, cantaloupes, basil, tomatoes, parsley, carrots, and dill. I’m trying to sprout some potatoes to put in there, and we have some other plants waiting for some corn and sunflower shade.

The Reader, what a great book. Thanks for the window into Germany, Judge Schlink, and into the human experience.

Becoming Texan

Becoming Texan is easy. All you do is move to the state, and it's required by law to become Texan within 30 days. Becoming Texan means getting a Texas driver's license. Actually, who knows what the real law is? And what about people who don't need a driver's license? And maybe it's 90 days. The thing is, my information is from the dmv and not the lawbooks. Of course there is an ambiguity, as "Texan" could mean someone originally from Texas, like I am an Idahoan, or, on the other hand, someone who resides in Texas.

Aside from that law or faux-law, once you get here, there aren't that many laws. You can shoot people, or drive on the median if you want. And they voted recently to discount all the violations caught by traffic cameras in Harris County, because traffic cameras aren't cops, and we don't need laws to make good choices at intersections. But after living near the beltway for the duration of one year and ten days, I have seen with my eyes, while I am driving, more accidents happen here than I have in the rest of my life put together.

I would like to add some photos, but this blog isn't big enough for Texas-sized photos.

Yee haw.

Becoming Louisianan

If you come to Louisiana for only a semester, it might be the fall semester and you'll get all you want of NCAA football, but you might miss out on crawfish. If you're in Louisiana for a year, it's pretty difficult to miss out on crawfish season. It coincides conveniently with Lent, because crawfish are God's manna for swamp people.

When you live in Louisiana, you learn by and by how to eat a boiled crawfish. And if you're lucky, you learn how to identify the good ones from the bad ones. The good ones, it turns out, are the ones that are boiled alive. Their tails curl. The bad ones are the ones that are dead before they're boiled, and their tails extend straight and uncurled. (By the way, that is a sort of myth, although it seems by my estimation to be a good test.).

Eating a crawfish entails breaking the arthropod's carapace apart from the tail (actually the abdomen, or in crustaceanese, the pleon). Learning what's best about eating crustaceans from their shell involves learning about the juicy yellow fat which is usually spooned out of the carapace with a finger and ingested with the tailmeat. It's what people are going for when they "suck the heads" of their boiled crawfish. And it's good. It is, as I learned on www.crawfish.com, hepatopancreatic tissue. There it is said that it is, in fact, not fat, but actually, as far as what I can understand from what a hepatopancreas does--metabolizing lipids, we might as well call it fat.

You might think that eating your share of a mountain of vermillion mudbugs in this manner might as well make you somehow Louisianan, but of course not. After you're in Louisiana for a while, you also get to learn how to execute the crawfish boil. You get your crawfish, you wash and purge the crawfish. You use a giant's pot and a Texas sized burner. You use Zatarain's. You boil potatoes and corn and onions and maybe sausage with the boil. You heat it up for so long. You boil for so long. You let soak for so long. And then so long, hepatopancreatic lipids and sumptuous tailmeat.

Purging crawfish means dousing them with saltwater, which makes them empty their digestive tracts. The digestive tract, which has the similitude of a small "vein" running through their tailmeat should be nice and clean. Black full digestive tracts are from negligent purging, and adds to the mud and detracts from the delicate tailmeat and sumptuous hepatopancreatic lipids.

You might think that cooking up a genuine crawfish boil makes you Louisianan. And it helps, but today I realized that after 10 years of a connection with the Pelican State, that I finally took the next step in being even more Louisianan. That was when I went down the bayou with the one-legged father-in-law and his .45. We drove back into a property that his brother has spent 10 years taming. There we harvested wild crawfish from crawfish traps. The .45 was for the alligators. What deserves note is the plentiful birdlife down there--something I had forgotten. But just in our little excursion we saw herons, cranes, egrets, stilts, ducks, ibises. There were some I didn't know. The excursion was actually quite brief. But it was real Louisiana.





And you might think that somehow I'm going to get to the point of calling myself Louisianan, but there a good deal of other labels I would rather attach to myself. Maybe after I buy some land down the bayou and build on it, knowing that it will flood. And I have to make the traps. And I have to get a .45 probably, and go half deaf, or maybe lose a leg or finger. To an alligator would be best, but cancer or a staph infection will do. But I did marry a good old Louisianan, and all three of my spawn have been delivered in this odd state of birds and Republicans.



The thing is, I have as much love for Louisiana as I do for, say, most of the midwestern states combined. And if you throw in the badlands and forests in the Dakotas, that's probably pretty accurate, because there's a lot in Louisiana that really moves me. Today, in Louisiana, was one of the best days of my life, actually. Not only did I have this wonderful adventure, but we had a birthday jamboree of family times and dinosaur delight.

sunflowers, cicadas, ssss

I took on running a gardening club at our new school. What a wonderful opportunity. We have land, a small budget, and a dozen or so interested students. The other week I planted some corn and sunflowers, and they have poked through the soil. Sowing seeds and watching them grow nurtures the soul. Try it if you haven't, or haven't lately. Chime in if you're a so-called old hand.

The cicadas are chiming in nowadays. The summer is here as far as Haiku is concerned (part of the often not-understood richness of Haiku involves season words--like "cicadas", which depict the particular season). Even if you otherwise despise bugs, you gotta love cicadas.

There was a third item I was thinking to blog about. It started with an "s" sound, but it wasn't sunshine or sunburns, seasoning or spices, sofas or settees. It wasn't sacrifice or cease-and-desist orders, and it wasn't suicide or citizenship. The subject escapes me no, but I can tell you it wasn't Saturn, or sex, or singing, or sonnets, or supper, or Cesium, or cymbals, or citadels, or CDs, or psychology or psychiatry or similes or smiles.

Maybe it had something to do with interviewing at some other schools, which I have done recently. Maybe it had something to do with going to the children's museum, which we did last night. Maybe it had something to do with Bonnie's new blog we talk dinosaur. I can't recall.

It could be that it was about Annie walking backwards, because she seems to like to do that nowadays, step step step. Or it could be about watching an extra baby (a coworker's baby) in the house, which is on the list of current news at the Becker household. It could possibly have been about the website houstongasprices.com (they also have it in your area) which is currently listing gas prices lower than $3.40 / gallon in the Houston area! But I don't think so. Nothing has struck a chord with me yet.

It could have been about the painted lady butterflies emerging from their chrysalises, or about our new costume fun, or about all of Bonnie's latest crafting activities. Or about planning a trip to Austin, or Louisiana, or renting out our Sparrow house finally... hmmm.....

Alas, I think I shall have to leave the title of this blog with an ssss, until the subject comes back to me, if it does at all.

my recent animal identification

We found a mole cricket the other day. The thing was (--and it's not like I have ever seen a mole cricket before; it actually took some investigating to learn about them) this mole cricket was so fuzzy. And they are not small insects, either, at about 2 inches long:

Unfortunately, I am not having as much luck identifying a strange bird I saw the other day.

I wish you all the best in your animal identification quests.

less cholesterol, more owl and cat

It turns out a deciliter of my blood contains more cholesterol than the average American's, at 224 milligrams. Bonnie helps bring down the average though, you bet. I don't know the breakdown of good and bad, or triglycerides, and this sure wasn't a fasting cholesterol reading, but now you know, and so do I. In Houston, at least at the blood bank where Bonnie and I donated some of our life serum, they reveal cholesterol levels after you donate blood.

The weather has been agreeable lately. I could go for more of the outings like we had a weekend or so ago when we went to the arboretum and had a hike. Last weekend is when I got some manure for our school garden. This weekend I'll be doing some planting.

Most of you probably read your share of blogs. Sometimes you even read blogs about blogging. But today you are in for a treat, because I am going to blog about blogging about blogging. Sure, there's a niche for blogging about blogging. But I think it's best when weblogs just focus on what the weblogger wants to say, and not deal with how they are going to say it. Having said that, blogging is sometimes not as easy as keeping a journal. So anything goes, really. Bonnie started a new soon-to-be-released blog, but she doesn't know what to say. And to her I say, just say what you want to say.

On the other hand, I could do to read a few blogs about blogging. More pictures, more dialogue. Less cholesterol, more owl and cat.

driven up the wall

As many of you probably know, goats and I go way back. So I am delighted to catch the pics of these goats scaling this steep dam:







Maybe the rest of you saw these photos last fall when they first came out. I'm generally a few months behind on my internetting. Anyway, the Alpine ibex deserves a few moments of your internet time.

houstonians, May

Well, well, well, May. I wouldn't exactly say you were in like a lion this year. At least not in Houston, Texas, birthplace of Beyonce, who might dance the same moves as Lady Gaga, but with much more refinement. Houston also produced Dan Rather, Renee Zellwegger, Anna Nicole Smith, and Wes Anderson. As for you, May, you produced about 1/12 of the human population, including Blessed John Paul II and Bob Dylan, not to mention some dear loved ones. Anyway, May, we need the rain April neglected to leave behind. So bring it on, yo.

We are carrying on, in our household. In fact, I don't have anything else to say, really.

Easter words and photos

Where: Austin, TX.
When: Easter weekend, 2011.
Who: The Tex Becks and dear Marler cousins

It went like this:

The plan was great. We got a call from Kristen a couple weeks ago about the possibility of helping pick up a vehicle in Texas and meeting halfway to do a vehicle exchange (trading in a big suburban for a bigger van). Not only would we have been able to save days of driving time, but also we would have gotten a chance to play in the pool with Marler kids we know and meet the Marler kids we hadn't yet met.

So on Wednesday and Thursday of last week it looked like it could possibly go down on the weekend. And sure enough, on Friday we got notice that they were on the way! Hoping to get the van that evening and start our trek before dawn Saturday morning, we fled Houston for the state capital where the van was waiting for us.

The only thing was, the van wasn't exactly waiting for us. Well, it was waiting, but also it was waiting for a pitman arm owing to the claim that the original "was showing some wear." Well, I didn't know what a pitman arm was, but I do now.


Unfortunately, a pitman arm could not be procured until Tuesday, which is tomorrow. But a few options presented themselves. None of the easy things worked. None of the other vans around had a suitable replacement. And wouldn't you know, replacing the original also didn't work--it looked like somehow the geared bolt was slipping in the geared pitman arm hole. Which I guess means that "showing some wear" must have meant that something bad was imminent OR it means they damaged the arm when they pulled it... Anyway, we were one good pitman arm short of a great van, and meanwhile the Marler nine were barreling down the interstate system towards us.

So the rest of that day was spent tinkering with solutions and waiting here and there for a welder to come and fuse the pitman arm to the steering gear. Which sucks, because the pitman arm is relatively cheap but the box is not so cheap. But time isn't cheap either, and once you've come across the country for a vehicle, you want to get it back without spending an extra three or four days waiting--and that's even provided waiting is possible, since one also has to consider getting time off from work et cetera.

Meanwhile, our meeting destination changed from Amarillo, to Lubbock, and to Abilene. That's about the time when it looked like the welder was finished, and I took the van for a spin, only to realize that it in fact, wasn't fixed. On further inspection, we saw that the welding job we thought was done in fact wasn't done. Unfortunately, the welder was gone again, and we did find out that he would come back first thing in the morning.

Well, we didn't know if the Marlers would cut their losses and go back, or press forward and try again. They decided to press forward, so we stayed in Austin another night to await their arrival and say hi in the morning.

Which we did, and what joy! We arrived at the transaction spot Saturday morning, and Steve and Kristen and the kids were all out in the van on a test drive. The welder had come, he had finished with the weld, and everything was working fine. So the last of the paperwork was completed, bags were moved from the suburban to the van, and it looked like the end of that leg of the journey.

But snap went the weld, when Steve was pulling out the van. Foiled!--we were wrong! We looked at the weld some more, and decided that it could be done better and that indeed, it would be a good fix if it were done right. This seemed to me to be the biggest deliberation, because the welder had attempted to fix it not once, but twice. Does one go for a third attempt? And if one does, is he able to trust it will do the trick? And it is all good and well to "trust" it, but the test of this trust is driving your family across the country in the vehicle.

So our Easter was also spent tinkering with solving the problem. But I wouldn't want you to think that there were Bonnie, me, our three little ones, and some mechanics with our heads under the front of a van all weekend. Nor, when the Marlers arrived, was it us Beckers, Steve and Kristen, and their seven little ones, all with our noses in the steering assembly. In order to give an accurate picture of our weekend, I have to back up and tell more of the story.

The rest of the story should include that it was our first time to Austin, Bonnie and I. And we were tickled just driving into the hills where the Marler Van awaited. The houses, constructed within the landscape and not just on it, beckoned to the Earth lovers within. Small creeks here and there and here and there beckoned to our outdoorsyness. Runners and bicyclers reminded us that some cities are livelier than others.

When we arrived at the place where the Marler van awaited, we were fairly impressed. On account of it appearing like a large compound or estate, complete with large stucco walls and a large gateway with a gate of metal blocking us from entering as well as even peeking inside. The seller let us in, where we saw his unhumble house, terraced yard, palm trees, and various projects, as well as vans. It seemed obvious his work was in stone and construction, and when we saw the short round man we thought that once upon a time, maybe he had laid some of the stone himself.

What do I mean by projects? Like the pyramid he was building in the corner of his property. The kids had a good time playing in the tunnel/cave he had formed which was to be below the pyramid's base.

Well, in addition to popping in and trying to keep things moving as well as possible, we also checked out the state capitol, whole foods, and trails and creeks nearby. And we pretty much were in love with Austin, because we could see girls with hula hoops, tourists getting drivers' training on segways, lots of bikes, lots of picnickers, lots of beards, lots of local, lots of green, and not much traffic congestion.

And when the Marlers were there, sure it was horrible and crushing about the van mishaps, but it was such a joy to meet the kiddos and see the cousins that we were all quite beside ourselves.

You will notice some Mardi Gras hooplah. We owe gratitude for the seller, who, along with taking the Marlers' suburban and some money, was gracious enough to let our families run amok on his property, while giving us some goodies, including a bag of Mardi Gras goodies magicked from somewhere within his unhumble abode.

So by and by, we got a good weld, a satisfactory fix, and at long last we bid adieu to our Marler kin and we went our opposite ways. It wasn't the best of situations for the MArlers coming all the way to Austin, but we were tickled to see them and spend some time together, and we're just really glad that they have made it back safe and sound to Casper, where they arrived with their sunburns to this:

And yes, I said sunburns. Oh, my face looked like boiled seafood, and my neck is more than a titch tender as well. It wasn't the awesome creek dip, but the waiting around that did it....

life story, where's annie?, what's current

My new abridged life story:

I was born and still think of myself as an Idahoan.
I grew up on a farm. Or a few farms, actually.
I lived with my grandparents during the transition period between childhood and adulthood.
This means that I was first madly in love when I was a child.
I went to college and graduated in four years and never changed my major from mathematics after declaring it my freshman year. Upon graduating, though, I moved to Japan and taught English.
But in between graduation and moving to Japan I got married!
After living in Japan for a year, I lived in Portland, Oregon, and worked teaching English as a second language, and as a math instructor at a vocational college, and a few other jobs.
I have had more jobs in my life than I have had girlfriends, but fewer than the number of half-birthdays. Unless, well, it depends on what you mean by jobs. And girlfriends, maybe.
In Oregon is where I got divorced.
Then I hitch-hiked across the country. I was restless.
Then I started graduate school in Louisiana, studying mathematics some more.
In 2004 I finished with that, not finishing what I set out to do. I had started with the buying, selling, fixing-up, and renting of real estate. The renting of which I am still involved with.While I grew up, I moved around a lot, relocating mostly in Louisiana, where I met Bonnie. We are still moving a lot.
In 2005 Bonnie became such a part of my life that it was impossible to extricate myself from her grasp, and we tied a wedding knot.
And had one little boy. And another.
We moved to Korea and back. We got busy with some real estate projects, but didn't get as far along with them as we had planned.
We did get to bear a little baby girl!
And, less than 6 months later, we moved to Houston for a teaching opportunity there.
Soon after, we realized we are an IBD family.

Two years ago, I was talking about getting some dirt and a garden on a rooftop in Korea. This year I am head of a gardening club at our school. Today we had our first meeting, talking about what we will do with the garden space we've been alotted.

What else? Well here's a funny story. Only because it has a good ending. When I came out of the Reptile House at the zoo on Friday, Bonnie asked, "Where's Annie?" Because, of course, I had entered the place with three kids, and only come out with two. Of course I about-faced and returned to the spot where, a few minutes earlier, I had put Annie down to get eye-level with the leucistic alligator. She was still checking it out. In fact, I think each of them had moved about the same amount in the preceding minutes. Meanwhile I had done a quick tour of some snakes with the two older siblings. Luckily I have Bonnie to remind me that when I do family roll call, I should count three little button noses and not just two.

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We've been going through another flare-up with Isaac recently. It's somewhat of a tough time in the Becker house. On one hand, everything is fine. We stay active and the kids are all doing fine, even Isaac. Except that he hasn't recuperated well enough yet from his bad bowel movement bouts from last week. What does that mean? It means that instead of one medication three times a day, plus two other amino acid pills and two other probiotic pills he takes each day, he will take those things except a larger dose of medication, plus another medication every other day, plus another pill, plus steroids again. So we're talking over ten teaspoons of meds and five and a half pills a day, except that some of the probiotics we can mix with drinks. Then there are vitamins and B complex tablets we like to give from time to time, and I don't even want to get into the preparation of soy-free meals and snacks, which is Bonnie's new hobby. We are eating pretty well though. We're wanting to try a new sort of diet which works with a lot of IBD patients. Which is sort of funny, because we are just getting into a sort of vegan groove, and this new diet is not at all vegan. We are sort of flummoxed about all the new prescribed meds, and sort of on the fence about sliding up the scale of drasticness, but also want Isaac's bowels to shape up before too much scarring or other damage occurs.

If you really want the current troydanielbecker, this is it. A lot of IBD talk.

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Also current: My new responsibilities as assistant director of the language school where I teach are being tested this week, as the director is out of the country for a few days and I am in charge, and I found out yesterday and one of our teachers is also out for the week due to bereavement, which I also found out yesterday.

boy babble, let him go

It was another teacher training day today, but this one as professional development as a faculty member of North American College. Yes, our faculty all have doctorate degrees, but I am only sort of a faculty member since I teach the remedial math class.

Probably most of you have seen the twin boys trying to figure out how a fridge works.



Bonnie experienced something similar today at the doctor's office. Isaac's speech is pretty babbly. We understand most things because we know which sounds stand for which sounds--but strangers have a hard time deciphering most of what he says. Well, another boy his age started up a chat about Thomas (his mom helped decipher), and he and Isaac just started in.

Another thing about the doctor's visit and said boy: Bonnie described them as a "new family", you know, with the sort of scared, new look about them. Which I guess puts us in our place a little. We are more familiar by now at that office. And as Bonnie said, today we got a new intern, which I guess again shows how it is for us there. I say "us" loosely, because I've only been in the place once, but the rest of the family goes every month or so. Today, for example, we got an appointment for just a couple weeks from now. And on it goes. Also today we heard such scary words as Imuran (aka azathioprine, an immunosuppressant) and surgery. You can always read more at our IBDinourhome blog.

More about Isaac. He has mastered control over the computer mouse and enjoys such games on the computer as digging with super grover for dinosaur fossils and putting together computer jigsaw puzzles. He also likes real jigsaw puzzles.

Bonnie made the cutest little dress for Annie. We should take some photos.

I got more creative. Probably most of you saw my little video snippet from Woody Allens You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. What a great scene.



Getting this little snippet was a small chore for me. Of course, it was pretty easy, but I was really unfamiliar with what to do, so I had to figure all that out. And now I'm pretty pleased to display the finished product.

Taxes. Time to get going on those. Enough of movie snippets.

Have a good day. Don't be a fool.

teacher training

Well, for those of you getting an update, I'm once again going through some hoops to get my teacher certification, this time in the state of Texas. I am done with the seminars now, but I wanted to mention how often they'll throw on a video that makes everybody in the audience get teary eyed. In the last teacher training seminar I went to on Saturday, they first played some clips about Teddy Stoddard. In the movie link here it's Teddy Stallard, and it will probably affect you differently if you watch it knowing this, but it is purely fiction (Ballard, 1974). Anyway, it's touching though, giving aspiring teachers one more reason to stick with it and really care about making a difference.

Then, later in the morning they played this one. Now, I'm no country music fan, so it was all I could do to simply bear the music and lyrical tone. But yes, I will admit it, the content touched my heart. I don't know if it's "a true story" or not either (fiction I guess), but it also makes aspiring teachers want to care about each and every kid.

back in the saddle again

Well, my "Spring Break" ended yesterday, so today I was back in the saddle with my awesome team of teachers at the language school. We are doing some planning and development these two days, and on Monday a new (two month) term starts for us. This so-called spring break was scheduled to beMonday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, while today and tomorrow were scheduled work days for me. However, I met with some students in New Orleans on Monday as a school representative, and then I came in for a short while on both Tuesday and Wednesday, so it is really funny to think of it as a spring break.

On Monday, Bonnie and the kids and I all drove back in to Houston to get back in the saddle again as far as home and home routines. Actually, thanks to all the recent teacher training, everything is a "procedure" these days, so Bonnie and I hashed out a lot of procedures of parenting that we are starting to implement at our house. So far we've been really pleased, because children take to procedures with the gusto of a new game:

You want to play the Wii? Okay, let's check what we need to do.
What we need to do?
Yeah, there is a checklist and then steps we need to follow.
Steps?
Yes, first of all, is it an appropriate time to play? Yes it is. Next we need to make sure tidy up the living room before we play. Step one is to pick up our toys and put them away. Isaac, you do step two. Step two is to make sure all the shoes are put away nicely.
What's step three?
Orry, you just finish step one and then we'll do step three. Let's put all these toys away.
What's step three?
Step three is taking care of jackets or other clothes.
What's step four?
Step four is making piles with the things that are still out.
What's step five?
Step five? Let's make sure all the other steps are finished. Let's help Isaac finish up.
Okay, now what?
Now we get to play. But first, look at the Wii-motes and see where everything belongs. When we finish, we're going to put everything right back where it belongs.

And so on. That was fun.

So we formulated all sort of procedures for all the little details of life. Then we have procedures to teach, which become routine, and then we have a smoothly oiled productive household.

I heard that routines/procedures are how we can teach responsibility to children. As in, some action is expected in a given situation. And how the student is aware of what is expected and how they choose to do or neglect what is expected defines how responsible they are. So teaching and practicing any sort of meaningful routine makes a lot of sense.

going bald

Those who know me best will attest that for the past two years, the hair atop my head is not what it used to be. I was under the impression that I drew the head-of-hair-for-life card, but alas, dear reader, my thinned top and plainly receding hairline indicate otherwise.

Tonight was the night where a man in my circumstances explores options. Too bad I didn't save my recent google/wiki searches, because that would pretty much tell the story. An abridged version:

male pattern baldness awareness day
alopecia
free testosterone
free testosterone sex
free testosterone sexual activity
free testosterone sexual activity balding
sexual activity balding
rogaine
anagen
minoxidil
minoxidil price
cheap rograine
cheap minoxidil
male balding hairstyles
kimbo slice

I started out looking for male pattern baldness awareness day because I thought that would be a good day to start rocking what I by and by came to know is called a power donut. (See Larry David, above)

But then I realized that I should also think about the alternatives. For example I didn't know if Rogaine would be something you apply for a while which reverses the balding for life (Of course it isn't). I also wondered about price. Getting cheap generic minoxidil runs about $60 per year, and doesn't seem expensive even if I were to use it for the next 30 years.

But I'm not really one for chemicals. Especially when there is also a timely maintenance routine twice daily, let's be honest.

So by and by I learned such terms as "skullet" and "free testosterone" and I learned who Kimbo Slice is.

You see, it's one thing to embrace the short hair cut, but what about the beard? And I'm not interested in a goatee really. But I got some great tips at artofmanliness.com, and that might be worth a read if you're looking for a laugh or, let's be honest, some information.

On another note, it's nice to get to Louisiana again, the birthplace of my offpsring. We are all together again and everybody's finally getting over colds and so on. Annie and Isaac started competing for objects and attention. On Monday we'll head back to Houston via New Orleans and then we'll enjoy a few days off for Spring Break.

Here we go, springing forward in Spring again.

all the single ladies

Flash Mob. That's my newest interest. And what better introduction than:



And when I am not thinking about flash mob these days, I am thinking about addiction and recovery. In fact, I combed through some web-research for language clues because a while back, when I was working alongside guys in recovery, it became clear to me that there is "addict thinking" and "rational thinking" and lately I wanted to get something like a clear picture of what language clues one can key in on when it comes to talking with someone in recovery. My findings are worth sharing, I think.

The thing is, I copied them all down from a website I found (which didn’t allow cutting and pasting). I copied them to a notebook page. But unfortunately my computer, in the process of hibernating or something, lost my efforts. So I will just point you to the webpage, and you can scroll down to addict thinking and criminal thinking and find them for yourself I guess (starting at around page 30 of 88).

Actually, there’s a lot of other things I think about, other than flash mobs and abuse recovery. For example, the wife and kids. Since this week we’re occupying different states, I’m thinking about them a lot more than I’m spending time with them these days. I’m really looking forward to seeing them on Friday! Until then, it’s flash mobs, and addiction recovery, and oh yeah, work.

Work, which is thinking about the academics and administration of this language school, as well as instruction in language and math at the college, is also taking up plenty of time. And it’s enjoyable, for the most part.

Also enjoyable is watching the setting sun through our big circular windows. The glass is thick, and when one views the sun near the edge of the window, a couple clear refractions from the sun can be seen. And I am sure that if there is a large sunspot or an eclipse of mercury, I could check it out in the refraction action of the window. In fact, I gave that more thought to that today than I did flash mobs.

McMiscellaneous

Here I am, on the way back to Houston. And before you think I am blogging while driving, please rest assured I am in a McDonald's parking lot. No, I will not eat their food, but ever since I learned that all McDonald'ses offer free wi-fi, I've been frequenting their parking lots from time to time. And yes, I will slurp one of their smoothies from time to time, actually.

It is the 20-teens, afterall. Nowadays, you can do all sorts of things. Like, for example, you can browse the current world emergencies and disasters from the comfort of your own home without turning to the news. It is from there that I was reminded our family vacation spots during my childhood, at Island Park in eastern Idaho. There is also home to one of the worlds' largest calderas, a large caldera distinct from the great Yellowstone caldera. It is older, it shares Yellowstone's high status as an 8 out of 8 on the Volcano Explosivity Index, and it is--the way I understand it--part of a path of calderas which form every so often as our Earth's crust passes over the hotspot which is now responsible for the geo-active Yellowstone as we know it.



For more Snake River Plain info, just wiki it, or click here. Otherwise I'll go on and on about southern Idaho.

Anyway, I like that you can find out about what disasters are happening around the world without all the newsy drama bits. Of course, it's not the most uplifting, but hey, what do you expect from a McDonald's parking lot?

Well, the unfortunate thing about this week is that I will be flying solo in Houston until Friday. On the plus side, today is a day off for me, making up for extra hours I've already logged. I'll mozy on back to Houston, and get situated for the week. I've got teacher training, a final week at school, and presumably plenty to keep me occupied. Plus, I am headed back with a car full of stuff. Now that we got our garage somewhat cleared out, it's time to get all of our belongings that have been lingering at the Bourgs' house since way back even to Bonnie's teenage years.

Well, even though it's Mardi Gras time everywhere, I am getting reminded of how out-of-proportion it is in Louisiana. In Texas even, a few long hours away, it just isn't that big of a deal.

good day, ticket update

What a beautiful morning we had this morning. The birdsong was outdoing the sun, which was outdoing the crisp spring weather, which was outdoing the relative stillness we call home in the pocket of this subdivision which is in a small pocket in the corner of the vast expanse of the otherwise bustling city of Houston. Sure, I was racing off to work, but how nice it is that the morning commute to work is 4-7 minutes and involves only one left turn on busy roads.

The math problem for the day is this, and if you are used to driving in Houston, you might get this one: My commute to work takes 4-7 minutes. My commute home from work is twice the distance, but also takes only 4-7 minutes. Each commute is the shortest legal driving route. Explain.

I taught a conversation class today. I don't teach it every day, so when I do have it, it is a little bit of fresh air for me, and for the students, since we all get to do something we don't usually get to do. They told me how they like when I lead the class. Teachers like to hear that sort of thing. Also I'm seeing my regular students improve. Teachers like to see their students grow.

But I won't kid you. One of the best parts of the day came when I called the Henderson Mayor's Court to discuss my speeding ticket. Yes, slow me got a speeding ticket racing back to our bustling city from Louisiana in January. I was speeding 73 in a 60 on I-10, coming off the bridge, and so I was easy pickings. An old hat in years past at mitigating tickets and cleaning up my driving record, of course I wanted to appear in court and take care of this ticket. But it turns out the court date is a Wednesday, the place is four hours from Houston, and it is the Wednesday that is the day before the day before our final exam for this term, so there's no nice way for me to miss out on that day. Driving there in the wee hours, and driving back in the afternoon is an option, but please note that on either side of that Wednesday, I will also be driving to Louisiana twice. The hours add up, so you might understand why I was interested in checking out the legal services available which might help me in taking care of that ticket.

I found that for a fee of $200, I could retain a lawyer to represent me, even to go so far as to say that he would make sure I don't have a moving violation. Of course, the old hat I am, I was adding up a fine for a non-moving violation with the lawyer fee, and realizing that financially, it wasn't going to make sense unless the speeding ticket was $200 or more. I was pretty sure that the non-moving violation fine would be around $100, and I knew that $300 was more than any penalty I'd see immediately from an insurance standpoint. I also recognize that I'm not the type like I used to be, and that I could probably expect to go another couple or three years without getting pulled over, and I, in my way, considered these things, along with the recognition of my pride for having a nice and clean driving record for the past 35 months. (The 35 months previous to those I had 4 or 5 citations.).

Anyway, before I could retain the lawyer, I realized that I needed to call and get the exact ticket cost in order to finally weigh the pros and cons. Bonnie and I joked about it being $150 because I told her if the ticket were only $100 I would just pay it, and if it were $200 I would just pay the lawyer. So of course, when I called the Henderson Mayor's Court, they explained that the fine was, indeed, $150. But then, of all things, when I inquired more about the non-moving violation, the clerk explained that if I paid before the due-date, they make sure it does not go on my record. Now, it sounds a little fishy, so of course I googled it. It looks like there might be a simple online course ($40) I might have to take--and I'll call and get all the details, but I am pretty stoked that I will pay less than $200 total, and still keep the dang infraction from my record.

Other good things happened today. But unless I get off of here and get on the Wii and check out my body test for the day, I'm not going to be able to put a virtual stamp on the virtual calendar to mark my virtual progress.

Thanks for reading.

our last February weekend in 2011

Today was a good day. The sermon used Groundhog Day the movie as a broad illustration of living each of our days the best way we can.

Fr. Rob Price - 2/27/2011 from Dunstanite on Vimeo.

Lots of Wii tennis in the afternoon.

We also cleaned half of the toys into a new "toy chest" we have in the living room. It isn't really a toy chest, but it is a chest, and it has toys in it. Our idea is that we can store them there and every week or month or whatever, trade toys in and out of it. In this way we can keep fewer toys in circulation, and, hopefully, fewer toys scattered around on the floor.

I think I want to do this with the books too. It's a nice surprise to unpack some old favorites, and then you want to read them. When they sit on the shelf the whole while, even good old favorites get overlooked.

Bonnie's baking more cookies. She is getting a ball out of Peas and Thank you. Orry likes to sing and dance. Isaac likes to work on the computer but he struggles some with the way the mouse works. Annie does her best to stay involved and get the kind of attention only 1 yr olds get.

From yesterday:

This morning I went to a McDonalds for free wifi, only to find that the place had a padlock on their only power outlet. It would have been fine if my laptop were fully charged, but I had only about a half hour left. Of course, I found this out after I purchased a fruit smoothie to justify my sitting in the restaurant for a couple hours.

Why was I planning on sitting at McD’s for two hours? Well, this is vehicle sharing for you. This morning was a fun event at the Houston Zoo that we didn’t want to miss. Unfortunately it is also a day for my teacher training (part of going through a Texas Alternative Teacher Certification process). So we packed up the kids before dawn and drove to my destination and dumped me out so the rest of the brood could go enjoy zoo membership benefits.

Wifi isn’t working at the actual location of my teacher training, so I hoofed it to the golden arches down the road where I was confident I could spend the morning completing some tasks and stumbling upon who knows what Internet treasures.

As it was, I was able to grade a bunch of papers and get some stuff done. It’s unfortunate I can’t be plugged in during this teacher training session, but it’s not at all the end of the world. Goodness, they showed a short segment on “why we teach” that even had my steel heart leaking out emotion as I was choking back the tears.

Our Wii involvement has declined somewhat after the first-week-frenzy. I think Bonnie and I both got a little sore from our vigorous routines. Orry and I have been teaming up on our computer opponents in the game of tennis, teaching them a lesson. I have observed a heightened sense of centered balance, the attainment of which is commendable, I’d say.

a list, and forgiveness

How are your jigsaw skills? How are your competitive skills? Here is for an online jigsaw puzzle challenge for you.

On my list of things to do is to make a list of things to do. Exciting things to get you coming back here. I suppose my Wii fitness updates won't be as exciting for you all as they are for me.
And if you're curious about our IBD experiences, or about how our letter writing is going, you know right where to go. I like what I've seen some of you do with your blogs and "challenges", which make us all want to stay tuned and check out the updates. I want to do something like that. I tried to get Bonnie to post her "30-day Bean Challenge" on here, because I'm sure that would really be a gas. But there's got to be other clever ideas to keep you reading. Okay, true to form, I now have a list. I don't think it will exactly get the trumpets blaring, but now I am thinking that in addition to the usual randomness, you may also get a smattering of....

Intriguing Translations and Idioms (um...)
Neato Websites (let me stumble upon that for you)
Sermons Worth Repeating
Knowledge Worth Knowing (what's that, crickets?)

Okay, so you see, I need to work on my list. It's not the most sensational. Yet.

Today's sermon at church, though, was strangely moving to me. And odd, because really we got a play by play of the opera--yes, opera--of Dead Man Walking. You might wonder what kind of church we are going to, so let me tell you Episcopalian now and we'll get that out of the way. In fact, I just learned that you can not only listen to but watch this very sermon, which has about 75 seconds of commentary other than the literary relating.

Fr. Bob Wells - Sermon 2-20 from Dunstanite on Vimeo.

I want to tell you, that with these sermon-of-the-mount-sermons of the current lectionary, I can't go a week without thinking of forgiveness in my own life. And I never saw myself as being one with forgiveness issues. But this last decade has been a doozie, and I find myself on the fence with my personal fulfillment/development on account of my ability or inability to forgive. In spite of myself.

Upon further inspection I wonder if it's not exactly forgiveness I long for, but resolution. Like, I am forgiving/ have forgiven, but there is still a tension because the matter is unresolved. No confrontation has occurred. I just don't know.

And since you're still reading, I'll go ahead and continue so as to possibly appease your curiosity and illustrate my pains. The part of my heart that doesn't feel right is about my father's siblings and what happened in that part of my family. In the spirit of my good old grandma, I think I can accept even the worst of humanity in my loved ones (And mind you, even though sometimes I feel like it, nobody's actions or intentions here get so close as to be near the worst of humanity.), can embrace even their shortcomings or trespasses as they trespass against me, or against my good old grandparents, or father, which interestingly is more the case here I think. Like I said, all is either forgiven, or something close to it. But I think the tension remaining, which becomes apparent whenever I hear a sermon about forgiveness, has to do with never taking a chance to reconcile or at least resolve something with said loved ones. And honestly, I just don't know when or how that's going to happen. Which makes me wonder what's really going on there with my forgiveness, fear, love, or what. To be examined....

And, now, that's about enough currenttroydanielbecker for you today, wouldn't you say?

a new pastime

We got a Nintendo Wii. I was just watching "Bonnie" get hit in the head with soccer cleats, ha ha. Earlier "we" were speeding down mountain slopes, and pedaling our bikes. Orry and I "went for a run" earlier. Am I worried a little that this is replacing good old fashioned real activity? Yes. Now she just fell from an urban tightrope. But there is no question our activity level is increasing, so I'll just take that for now, and later we'll be able to arrange our lives better for real recreation.

It was a busy week for me. We administered a midterm on Tuesday which took a lot of time in preparation and follow-up. Last Saturday I spent much of the day in teacher training courses, so it has seemed like a long stretch. Hopefully next week I can relax more to make up for it. I keep getting more and more duties at the school where I work. Which is great--I hope the pay adjusts to make up for it sooner rather than later!

As for idle time nowadays, I do read up quite a bit about Inflammatory Bowel Disease and people's experiences. Today I was thinking about trying to assemble a mass study/survey in order to try and sift patterns out of thousands of Crohn's and colitis patients. Nowadays with information technology, it seems feasible that a layman could do something like this with the help of the Internet and forms. Yet it seems like a broad comprehensive study done carefully could help make great progress in untangling the mysteries of IBD. (All of you faithful readers already know about our IBDinourhome blog.).

Bonnie's got the place looking pretty good. We still have some boxes to unpack, and some stuff out in the way, but it's feeling really homey. Our family room, where most of our time is spent, connects to our dining area and has a window into the kitchen. It is a nice space, with 12 foot ceilings and now new venetian blinds on big windows along one whole wall. But the best part of it is when it's filled with five giggling Beckers, enjoying our life together.

If you want to see a bunch of aerial photography, just visit here and scroll down, looking for photos you like the best, or juxtapositions you appreciate.

a new garden

A new garden has begun on Teaside Drive. That's because we transplanted some cilantro and strawberries and basil into some little cardboard boxes. Always moving around makes it harder to get around to planting. But I say let's move our plants with us if it comes to that. Or leave them for the next guy, why not?

So are you a morning person? A night person? It turns out I am a morningdaynight person.

I hope you've packed as much fun as I have or more into the first 46 days of this prime year. It turns out that my blog readership is inversely proportional to my math topics. So how about a sweet update about the wife and kiddos?

Well, Bonnie, as most of you know, is nearing the end of her twenties. Of course she still looks every bit as young and fresh as the day we remet. I think the hardest part for her about getting older is that my hair just isn't what it used to be. Or maybe I am getting her confused with me, because I do that sometimes. Bonnie has been sewing cute state pillows and other things. She threw a great valentines/birthday hoedown. It wasn't really a hoedown, but it was like a hoedown for 3 under 5 and their parents.

The kiddos are growing and developing as if they missed the memo that this is the second year in the second decade of the third millennium CE and that time was slated for slowing down. we are doing our best to savor our experiences and drag back the reins of time with appreciation. Orry is reading more and doing more math. Isaac understands cardinality finally and is talking up a storm. His speech takes some deciphering but mostly now because some of his consonants are replaced /t/ and /sh/. But he's consistent, and once you know the code you can decipher everything. It helps when Orry's around because he's so quick picking up the context. Annie is demonstrating a lot of signs and language know-how. She's doing her best to keep up with the boys. She really likes the soothing effects of holding a blanket. She'll give kisses goodbye and goodnight, and she says thank you and please too. And shoes and socks.

It's my hope that the kids will really dig the new garden.

the day before

The day before Valentine's-Day-the-wife's-birthday, also known as Ryan Unger's birthday is usually the last day of hope in this household. The day where Bonnie might still think that maybe there's some slim chance she's going to get surprised with something special or have a decent birthday.

But this year we changed it up. I knew that it might not fare well for me if I totally slacked off yet again, so this year I secreted away a couple rolls of streamers and pink balloons and waited for Bonnie to go buy herself some birthday/valentine's gifts. Then I rallied up the troops and decked out the living room.

Then, as Orry puts it, we hid and when Daddy said "okay" we jumped out and said "Surprise!" and threw balloons in the air.

We gave Bonnie the cards we made. The idea was to give a surprise early birthday/valentine's party, but I could see the look in her eye, which means, "Man, now, not only do I have to make my own birthday meals, buy my own gifts, and plan my own day, but I need to clean all this up as well."

Today some of the streamers started coming down, but I got the duct tape out so I think we'll be okay through tomorrow.

For now, it's off to church with us!

Oh, and for your extra reading pleasure, check out our letter writing blog, notjustthebills.

the white field, solid red circle post

Congratulations America. We might get another world champion chess player in Hikaru Nakamura. Sure, Hikaru, you were born in the land of the rising sun (only 23 years ago), but thanks for pushing those pawns for the stars and stripes.

I wrote up some math notions about cousin primes and double cousin primes and got a nice email back today about prime gaps of 2^n. Nothing about troy-troy-semiprimes, but I wouldn't be surprised that somebody has listed the troy-troy-semiprimes but with some other inferior name.

Wait! No more math this post, I promise.

I went to a CCFA support group today. If you want to read up about Isaac's colitis, visit our other blog IBD in our home. I haven't written it there yet, but you know, Isaac's chronic disease is teaching me about life. When I come home from work he pops up and yells Surprise! from behind a piece of furniture (after having watched his brother do the same for the past 6 months). Then he wants to spin in the air like an airplane. And come on, who doesn't?! He is just full of life and love and such a delight.

The other news of late is the buzz on ancestry.com about some Becker photos that surfaced and so my dad and I have been reminiscing and remembering old memories that weren't really ours in the first place. That has had me thinking a lot about the old Becker farm, barn, and so on.

And then, of course, lots of work, work, work at the school. As soon as I get halfway done with what I need to get done, I get new tasks that double my workload. Oops. Well, you don't need to figure the proportions--I just mean to say that I'm always a little too busy. And in such a great month, one likes to be comfrotably busy, but able to enjoy lots of extra time with his beautiful wife and delightful offspring.

We had some guests yesterday who are bringing Japanese into our house. Breathing the spirit of kokoro where our family members have forgotten it. The couple, students at the language school, have fascinating lives which I should tell you about another time, when you have more time.

Feb 4

Well, happy birthday to me!

Actually, I sure hit the jackpot when Bonnie agreed to marry me. What a gal. What a lovely little family we make, and what a life.

Our school was canceled today so it really is a nice birthday surprise to spend it with Bon and the tots. What will we do? I think an obstacle course is in order. And spinning. Lots of spinning.

I'm up good and early, spending my hours looking at IBD and colitis stuff for Isaac's IBD blog. It is uplifting to think that even though we're talking about chronic conditions, Isaac seems to be doing so well now and that even though he is "unlucky" in some sense, he is very "lucky" in another. There's your quota of quotes for the day.

Why was our school cancelled? The massive winter storm that has covered most of our western hemisphere in white also put down some freezing rain and left Houstonians feeling all apocalyptic. But before you comment on climate change, I did read that in 1895, Houston got 20 inches of snow in February. What?! Bring it.

And speaking of, my wife has brought a delicious breakfast to the table. So on with my wonderful day....

February!

And you know what that means. Yours Truly sleeps under a star arrangement moreorless the same as the arrangement in which he squeezed out to breathe his first precious breaths. Cancer, Sirius trailing Orion, Pegasus. Cygnus rising.

February, brrr! The last few days the house was fine with no extra heat source. Now I'm wrapped in a blanket and my nose is cold. Because February has bite. Sure, it might pussyfoot around toward the end of the month. But when February comes, you best be ready for a cold snap. Especially you, Midwest.

The cold, as you know, is a nice set up for the most romantic day of the year, my wife's birthday. Over the years, I've slyly conditioned Bonnie to have low expectations on that sweet sweet day, so maybe this year I will surprise her and do one little thing like offer to do the dishes or change one of the pee diapers on that day. Or maybe I'll bring her home some fresh ingredients so she can make some of her delicious homemade ginger cookies in the shapes of little hearts. Then in the evening I will get her a blanket so she can wrap up in it while I write some weblog entries. (Don't tell her but I'm thinking about getting her a nosemitten.).

There is, of course, the Super Bowl. They changed it to February because, let's face it, February is when athletes and mothers do their best work.

Another unsung hero of the days of month two is Presidents Day. In a month exactly four weeks long, why not make the work load even less! This means that salary is sweeter in February. Not to mention it makes another three day weekend so I can do something else special for Bonnie. Oh, snap! I just checked my schedule and it looks like my school doesn't observe that federal holiday. So goodbye, sweet salary. Goodbye, something special.

Still, February, it's better to have a birthmonth of low expectations and a little disappointment, than to not have a birthmonth at all. So thank you for existing.

Today is groundhog day. This means that depending on your desires for Winter or Spring, this could be a day of joy or of less joy. In Houston, with the temperature having dropped 50 degrees in the past day, I doubt any groundhogs are going to be putting their noses anywhere except snuggled up in their mate's fur. And that is sounding good to me as the night draws on, except that with Bonnie, it is called hair, and I'm going to go snuggle my nose in it.

my school

Today was a pretty big day. It was the first day of classes at our new school. The Language school where I've been working since June has also moved to this new campus building we have in north Houston.

I didn't get a chance to relax until about 3:37, but that's okay. Let me tell you what. Last night around sunset, I was able to stand in front of a big circular window on the side of our building that faces West. It was good to see the sunset sky from three stories up (we're the only tall building around. On what we should call the front of the building, the beltway zips by, almost always pretty full of racing cars. At dusk they are ribbons of red and white, bustling on the way cars do. At three stories up looking down, it is silent, and relaxing to see the cars zipping by while I was surveying "my domain". My classroom/office is on the third floor, and faces the back (So I don't ever really need to look at the beltway if I don't want to.). It is a large room with about 47 desks. I smooshed most of them together in the back and have about 13 desks out in front that I will use. It's quiet up there. I can go right out into the stairwell and stand in front of the large circular window and check out the world. When it's dark outside it would be easy to see me if you're in one of those cars zipping by on the beltway.

My class is room 309. It's not prime, like, say, 2011. But the keener of you may notice that it is semiprime. In just a few weeks, I, too, will be semiprime. By then, the hubbub of the term's beginning should be replaced with the general business of everyday teaching and learning. We'll see.

Happy Birthday Annie!

You've made it this far, little one. That's one year of breathing air down, and according to the actuarial life tables, you can expect 79 more, more or less, barring the unmentionable. Have a good life. We'll do our best to get you off to a good start.

Readers, you might ask what else is current in our life? Let's skip the rest of October, a wonderful visit from relatives in November and December, a fun road trip to a delightful Christmas vacation in New Mexico, moving to a house across town, and also quite a few trips back to Louisiana. I'm busy each day gearing up at the new campus of North American College where I teach at the language school and have been "enjoying" the many hats of promotion. Meanwhile, Bonnie has been working at the house unpacking boxes and minding the tots. Tonight she made jambalaya and mashed potatoes which we're about to eat. Afterwards we'll have a homemade birthday carrot cake.

The kids keep developing as you might expect. Life is good. Our bedroom doesn't have a light controlled by a switch near the door, and that's about my biggest complaint.