Thursday, January 12, 2017
Sunday, January 8, 2017
Snow
It was predicted we'd get up to 14 inches of snow, but what we actually got was about five, although there was a nice bout of freezing rain first to get a layer of ice under the snow.
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Go Karting
I unexpectedly found myself overseeing a 10yr old and 6yr old, and their mother asked if I'd take them go-karting. There is a kart place on the outer ring of Lynnhaven, so we went; and the minimum age for a driver is 8, so I ended up as a co-pilot for the 6yr old in a side-by-side kart.
$20 and a Groupon gets you two races at ten minutes each. You put on a "head sock", a neck brace, and a helmet, and squeeze into the kart. They give you a briefing on red flag, yellow flag, etc, but in fact the only signals we got were "when the lights flash, take one more lap and pull into the starting row." The attendant pulls the starter cord and away you go. The helmet restricts your peripheral vision quite a bit, so if you don't look over your shoulder, someone can be right behind you and you won't know it. The karts can hit 45mph and (when someone slightly more expert than I am is driving) can drift and do a bootlegger reverse. Steering takes quite a bit of effort, although the attendant said the single seaters are easier. At the end, you get a printout which shows your fastest lap and average time per lap (yes, the ten year old beat my Fastest Lap by about half a second).
$20 and a Groupon gets you two races at ten minutes each. You put on a "head sock", a neck brace, and a helmet, and squeeze into the kart. They give you a briefing on red flag, yellow flag, etc, but in fact the only signals we got were "when the lights flash, take one more lap and pull into the starting row." The attendant pulls the starter cord and away you go. The helmet restricts your peripheral vision quite a bit, so if you don't look over your shoulder, someone can be right behind you and you won't know it. The karts can hit 45mph and (when someone slightly more expert than I am is driving) can drift and do a bootlegger reverse. Steering takes quite a bit of effort, although the attendant said the single seaters are easier. At the end, you get a printout which shows your fastest lap and average time per lap (yes, the ten year old beat my Fastest Lap by about half a second).
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Year in review, 2016 edition
- Diana recovered from knee replacement.
- Birthday party for Eunhye
- Dominion removed the power line across the river behind our house.
- Went to Australia to see all the inlaws and outlaws, with an unexpected side trip to Hawaii.
- Visited Kelson before he moved to Boston.
- Hosted Michael Kelen for a couple of days.
- Betina from Zambia stayed here for a couple of weeks.
- Semi-adopted Razvan and George, students here from Romania for the summer.
- Visited Jonathan and Stacey at their "so new we haven't even found all the boxes, much less unpacked them yet" house in Columbia.
- I attended LibertyCon while Diana and Rachael toured Chattanooga.
- Rachael stayed with us for ten days of beach and surfing.
- Josh got his Australian green card.
- Drove to Long Island for a funeral and, on the trip back, uttered the utterly improbable phrase "Thank God we made it to New Jersey."
- Finished our "New World, New Sun" D&D campaign with Darci, Kris, Jesse, Jana, and Tom Paul.
- Started waltz lessons, which transmuted into lessons on foxtrot, bachata, milonga, and I know not what.
- Went to Vienna, Cesky Krumlow and Prague. Came back from Prague, reluctantly.
- Celebrated Gwen & Josh's first anniversary.
- One of the more...interesting...presidential elections.
- Visited mom and dad before they went back to Zambia, and played golf with dad.
- Diana went to Toronto and Montreal for pre-Christmas visit.
- Hosted a Christmas party for the D&D group and another for the neighbors.
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