24 years on, I think I might hang out here a while

 So 24 years ago today (!!!) a young Sean had decided between two temp jobs: one at an tech-heavy outgrowth of AT&T, where they were looking for someone with an engineering background to help support their work. And the other was doing CAD drafting for a company that would give me the chance to grow into using my actual Civil Engineering degree.  I think money was similar, but I really did like the interview that I had with the engineering firm. Of the four folks I talked two, at least half had been at the company, left, and then came back. That said two things to me: a) they knew for a fact that the grass wasn't greener, and b) the company welcomed them back. That seemed like the type of place I would be able to thrive. 

Thanks to the folks at the Atlanta office of Brown and Caldwell -> it's been a great double dozen of years, with a lot of good people doing good work for the environment and the world. 

Life lessons sometimes come a little too late

I don't know who needs to hear this today, but... Medical specialists for children are there for a reason. I first discovered this with respect to my youngest, who had some issues with the dentist; until we found a children's dentist that made it something to look forward to (even up to getting cavities filled.) 

So apparently I use this platform recently to talk about kid illness/medical things; that's interesting. 

(1.5 months on, still the case.) 

August 20 - just going ahead and writing something while waiting for number one's psychological assessment to happen. I am used to driving places with her over the past few years; one difference now is that with Fiona getting the home health infusions, I'm not having to go in to the hospital, and haven't had the free time out of the house sitting there waiting. 

I'm a little irritated - just saw how much money I'm needing to pay for alternative vehicle tax (taking the place of the gas tax, which hasn't gone up.) Georgia politicians decided to replace the ad valorem tax for all vehicle and revenue from gas tax to a flat tax that is aimed at folks who want to be green - their natural enemy. Also, it's $200 (but not based on how much you paid for the car) It's more than people pay in gas tax, probably.

Will need to defeat Hades - maybe tonight? I'll be able to upgrade some of my various things, and get good. One day. :)

Apropo of nothing: I'm very impressed with the level of care that Children's Hospital of Atlanta (and, i'm guessing, most children's hospitals in general) provides. We've seen Bingo for the overnight patients, (eveyone wins,) the glam cart (for dressing up the kids, clowns (who are also doctors...) The fact that they provide this is not just a relief for the kids, but the parents as well. I've known this intellectually for a while, but it's different seeing it from the inside.

Two stories about four-year-old Lachlan, focusing on nightmares and boogers.

1) He has a favorite pillow, a normal queen-sized one. Well, favorite pillowCASE; he asks for his 'blue pillow' a lot, and it doesn't matter which pillow is inside. (pillow) And to be honest, I don't know that *he* knows that we have more than one blue pillowcase - changing the pillowcase also doesn't seem to matter. Either way, Pillowy has turned into one of his best friends. At least until the other morning. He woke up calling "Dah-deeeeee" in his best plaintive tone. When i went to check on him, he let me know that he had had a bad dream. In it, Pillowy had grown legs and chased him down the hall.  No permanent damage there - he still wanted to take it with him everywhere.

2) He is a kid, and therefore is very familiar with the taste of his boogs. I try to gently steer him away from eating them, but only have about a 20% success rate. C'est la vie, amirite? However, he recently came up to me with a concerned look.
"Daddy, you know how boogs taste good?"
"...yes?"
"Well, EAR boogs are YUCKY."

"Neither do TOE boogs.  Like THIS." (and proceeded to clean out some of the funk from between his toes.)
"Well, buddy... maybe you shouldn't eat them?"
"That's a good idea, Daddy."

I've since learned that Eye boogs taste ok, salty and crunchy.

On the ease of getting registered to vote in Georgia

Georgia has been hit with a federal lawsuit alleging that their modified voter registration system is very picky, and impacts minorities more than white people. (if your data doesn't exactly match what is already in several government databases, it automatically gets denied.)  Have you EVER seen a government database??

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lawsuit-georgia-voter-registration-process-violates-law-42080632

From the article:
"For multiple reasons the records may not exactly match, including many that aren't the fault of the potential voter, the lawsuit says. Data entry errors, typos or misread handwriting can cause mismatches. Hyphenated and maiden names or initials, as well as transposed digits in a driver's license or Social Security number, can also cause problems."

I saw the article, and made the rookie mistake of reading the comment section. I saw one comment that said: "Hey, I registered with my driver's license, easy peasy." I wanted to document my response here, just in case any others out there feel like it's just too darn easy to register to vote.

"Not every potential voter in the state has a Georgia Driver's License. There are 5 million registered voters (out of 7.5 million potential voters.) Georgia has 6.6 million issued licenses, meaning over a million folks don't have one.  That's up to 40% of the unregistered voters.

Source here http://www.statista.com/statistics/198029/total-number-of-us-licensed-drivers-by-state/
Here http://sos.ga.gov/index.php/Elections/voter_registration_statistics
Here http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/13

(I admit I was surprised to see that there were over 60% of all Georgians with driver's licenses... but I shouldn't have been, after sitting in Atlanta traffic.) "

Fi has started kindergarten this week, leading to 3 days of dropping her off at the bus. I'm sure that will get old sometime, but it's still fun to walk her to her stop. (Lachlan hasn't been in LOVE with his sister getting to do something he can't, but for whatever reason the driver wouldn't take him too. Even though I offered her $0.50 in dimes.)

He's been pretty adorkable himself recently, tho. Putting him to bed the past few nights I've been telling him a story. The first night as he was crying for Mommy, I went ahead and told him all the things that Mommy was doing (walking through the woods, going up Up UP a hill, going down Down DOWN a hill, crossing a stream.... you know, the basics.) That worked pretty well -> he passed out 2 minutes into this riveting tale. Last night, however, things went a little differently:

Me, thinking there was some way I could stretch my storytelling muscles: "Once upon a time, there was a pirate captain named Lachlan, and he was on a boat, sailing across the water."
L: "No no no, MOMMY was mumble mumble!"
Me, incredulously: "MOMMY was sailing?"
L: "YEAH!"
Me, resignedly: "OK, MOMMY was sailing, and she landed on a beach. She walked through the woods, and saw a bear. She said 'Hello, Bear!'"
L: "No no no, she mumble mumble MOMMY!"

Me, to confirm: "She said 'Hello MOMMY?'"

L: "YEAH!"

Me, dryly: "....Mommy said hello mommy."
L: "YEAH!"
Me, fingers crossed: "OK. Mommy said Hello mommy. Then Mommy saw a rabbit."
L: "No no no, she mumble mumble a MOMMY!"
Me: "..... Mommy saw a MOMMY?"
L: "YEAH!"
Me. seeing the logical ending to this pattern: "OK. Mommy saw mommy walking through the woods."
L: "No no no! Mommy mumble through the mommy!"
Me: "..... Mommy walked through the mommy?
L: "YEA-No no NO! Mumble mumble mommy!"
Me, willing to compromise my artistic vision: "..... Mommy mommy through the mommy."

L: "YEAH!"

Me, ready for bed myself at this point: "..... Mommy mommy through the mommy." 

Two senior moments and a fun math coincidence

Derp the First: The first day of the most recent snowstorm, LN came to me after a walk and told me that her phone had stopped working. She didn't remember dropping it, but the screen was a lot more cracked than it should have been. It also seemed as though it had reset itself, with the last calls recorded made back in May. No calls or texts would go out or come in, and it wouldn't even connect to the Wifi. It was a dead parrot. I spent a fair amount of (unsuccessful) time on the phone with tech support, and eventually even they threw their hands in their air in surrender. I found it strange that the 16 gig micro-SD had disappeared, but assumed it had fallen out when the phone was (obviously) dropped. They volunteered to send a replacement phone, as long as we sent back the other (non-functional) phone.  So we waited for that to arrive in the snow-slowed mail. At least, we did until I went into the garage, and discovered that the phone we were trying to make work was her OLD phone, which we had replaced in, say -> May of last year? LN's main comment: "Ah - that's why it looked so familiar." My thought: "I *knew* that she had a Samsung, and that the LG was weird."

Item the second. Took Fi down to Galloway to meet with potential preschool teachers Saturday AM. Our plans to go get lunch with a friend of LN were derailed when LN's keys went missing. Kids were already in the carseat, so we left them there with snacks as we emptied her car. We spent about 45 minutes looking for them at the school, then drove home and back to get the spares (one of which will be in the other car from now on, believe you me.) Got back, spent another 15 fruitless minutes looking for them, then headed home. I even lifted the carseat out, on the off chance that the baby carrier had eaten them. Turns out I should have lifted the BABY out -> apparently Baby Brother spent about 2 hours keeping Mommy's keys warm with his butt. Good news -> we found them. Bad news: covered in Cheerios and masticated Veggie straws.

Lighter note: Got a digital scale to find out how much weight I'm not losing. Nice thing is it allows me to figure out how big the kids are. So Lach is 22 pounds, and Fi is 33. That's 55 pounds of kids we're responsible for. Whoa. (i know that gets LN right in her Eleven-loving heart.)