Teaching ... myself

Finally! after a long end, school finally ended. Now we can begin to concentrate on our move to Damascus, VA. Jon and Carole have been working nonstop for the last few months getting the house in order. We are trying to rent our place now and that should totally determine how fast we make the move. In the last few weeks, I have been rather cranky - but now much of the stress is off and its time to renew. My thoughts go out to the 5 people at Watauga High that lost their jobs on the last day of school. We lost 16 positions total and I'll be surprised if we don't lose more in the next year. All the talk about "don't worry" was just talk, as usual. I am happy for our choice to go to Damascus - it kind of insulates us from some of the financial world madness. Even if I lose my job, we are not hopeless - we will have a lot less expenses there because we are sharing everything. The experiment begins soon. We will set up a real website to chronicle the journey - ...

I have been gone for a looong time.  But as life tends to do, it teaches lessons all the time - and all I have to do is pay a little bit of attention.  Well, the most recent lesson I have learned is that I have an amazing family and I am a complete moron for losing touch with them for so long.  The past weekend, Zoe and I zoomed down to Atlanta to see my Korean side of the family.  It was all my Dad's sisters and whoever else could make it.  It was a mountain of food, laughs, and love.  It was wonderful. Here is what every reunion needs... a snake - and it wasn't me!  The real men (brother in law Dave, cousin Caleb, and myself) went down to the river to muck around a bit while the less manly crowd went to get steaks and alcohol:)  But we came upon this black rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta, of course) at the trail head and I really got to turn into "Mister Science Teacher" for my 6th grade cousin.  Yes, he's like 12 or 13.  Yes, he could thrash me.  But he's sooo c...

Just a quick post.  Ashley got her leg scanned yesterday to see how the clot was doing.  We both just figured that it would be solidified and stable and maybe Ashley could get of coumadin.  We figured that things were going fine, but the scan showed NO CLOT!! God, that is such a relief.  Something that caused so much anxiety and pain for so long... to be gone and having blood flowing is wonderful.  Thank you to whatever grace delivered that.  And today she got the news that she could get off coumadin.   And today we got the news that the balance of $800 that we owed the hospital is now zero.  Good couple of days.

It was a long time coming but last weekend was magical.  And I really won't do it justice here but I need to at least report it.  I got to meet my long lost sister. Thats right (technically half sister, but I'm counting her as full).    Her name is Liza and she lives in Atlanta and is married to a super cool guy named Tony.  She is absolutely wonderful - an absolute force of nature - if there was a "beautiful day" equivalent to a hurricane, it would be Liza.  I have always been a bit reserved when it comes to expressing how I feel towards people and it has done me no good in my life.  Liza thankfully has none of that and even better, she spreads it like a breath of fresh air on these wonderful spring days we've been having.  Any person that gets others to say "I love you" easily - is in touch with some greater force.  Thank you Liza.   (2 things - 1. I did something to mess this up and it linked itself to something so I just changed this link to the albu...

So I've been putting off going to Dr. Morgan because 1) I am lazy and 2) Dave had an A1C of 5.5 the last time and I knew that there was no way I'd ever get my A1C down that far.   For those who don't know, the A1C is a blood test that looks at glucose attachment to red blood cells - this happens when blood cells are made - and since blood cells live around 120 days, you get basically a 3 month shot at your blood sugar control.  Normal (I guess I should say Non-diabetic) levels are 3.9-6.5.   Before Triabetes, I had never broken 7... in 25 years.  Not that 7 isn't pretty good.  Then while training for Ironman, I got down to 6.2.  I thought that would be the low point.  Since the 7 months since Ironman, I haven't swam one time.... I've only run a few times... and there have been very few bike rides.  Everything I gained through training, I have lost:) Actually, its not everything apparently.  My A1C yesterday was 5.2 - on the lower half of normal!  It looks like I...

Ok, its spring and my friend Jon and I have 3 hives... had 3 hives.  Now we have 2 dead hives and 1 strong hive.  I have a couple of questions for beekeepers here.  I am pretty much a novice and I tend toward a hands-off approach to beekeeping.  The yellow hive on the left is dead (bees still there), the top bar hive in the middle is dead (no bees), and the white hive on the right is strong. Here is the entrance to the yellow hive - it was never strong - captured from a swarm from the white hive. Inside the super of the yellow hive. There are a bunch of bees still here (dead).  There is very little honey left and that honey is on the outside frames. Inside the brood chamber - no bees on the brood frames.  I assume these guys fell from the top.   Question #1:  Did this hive starve? Inside the yellow hive brood frame - small white flakes in the comb.   Question #2:  Any ideas on what those are? Top bar hive.  Inside are top bars that had only a small spline coated in wax.  Caught a swarm...

So spring is coming and there is nothing I can do about it.  Zoe and I went to Damascus the other day and planted a bunch of potatoes (German Butterball and Yukon Gold).  I had never planted potatoes before, so we'll see.  Homer (our neighbor) had plowed up the garden plot down by the road (and river) but hadn't tilled it yet - so Zoe and I worked pretty hard to get out the sod - but the soil under it was pretty nice.  Then we planted 30 asparagus crowns.  Getting a bit hungry just thinking about it.  Then the next day we used Jon's idea of  folding newspaper seed pots and planted our seed beds.  It was a neat little origami trick to make a plantable pot for free.  These pictures are all backwards... as usual - you would think I would figure it out someday.  Anyway, this is Easter night - we were invited to Rosa's house for a little impromptu get together.  Easter egg hunt, dinner, bonfire (I think that is Aidan with sparklers)... it was a pretty wonderful time - thank...