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Kimberlie and I went to Kindergarten Field Day this morning at Tristan’s school.  It brought back quite a few memories.  Enjoy the pictures and remember your field day as well:

We got a call from Tristan’s school this morning.  Our boy-genius (sarcasm) had put an eraser in his ear.  I drove all the way to his school, wondering whether I should take him to his pediatrician, his ENT, an urgent care facility, or the emergency room.  I wasn’t happy about it because I had important things happening at work.

I signed him out of school at 9:50 and took him home.  First, I took pictures (of course).  Then I was able to eventually remove the eraser with a pair of tweezers.  I took him back to school and checked him back in at 9:57.  He missed seven minutes of school.

Needless to say, I’m not too happy about it.

This morning, I drove to Reynolds for the Run for Literacy 5K, part of the Georgia Strawberry Festival.  Lightning was crashing all around and it was raining so I thought for sure it would be cancelled.  I even left the family at home.  The race director, who already had to postpone the last race she directed due to snow, pondered postponing the event.

Somehow, right at 8:00, the clouds parted and the rain stopped.  We started the race.  I had considered trying for a personal record (PR) earlier this week, but my training mileage was literally cut in half this week due to issues that I might discuss later on this blog.  I’ve also skipped speed-work training for three weeks for various reasons. I decided not to worry about the PR and just get the race over with and go home and get back into bed. (I love sleeping during storms and I was convinced that t-ball would be cancelled.)

Somehow, I miraculously pulled off the PR, shaving 36 seconds off of my previous 5K record, set last Halloween.  I also got second place in my age group and brought home a trophy — the nicest trophy I’ve won so far racing.  When I got home and connected the Garmin, the computer showed that I had negative splits — which are awesome. (For the non-runners, that’s where your first mile is the slowest and each additional mile is faster with the final mile being the quickest.  It’s extremely hard to do.)  Needless to say, I was pleased!

I have two races next Saturday: Run 4 Missions at 8:00 AM and Moonlight Miles at 8:00 PM.  Remember, you can always track my Running Saga by clicking the link on the right.

And no, they didn’t cancel T-Ball.

This past Saturday, we skipped town and day-tripped up to Stone Mountain.  No t-ball, yard work, chores, or errands.  I loved the ropes course (Sky Hike), although it was one of the scariest things I’ve done in my entire life.  When did I become afraid of heights?  If a picture is worth 1000 words, then you have a lot of words below:

So this is what I was doing seven years ago . . .

(Sorry for the low quality picture. This was before we were 100% digital!)

Earth Day is right around the bend, and everyone seems to be on the green bandwagon lately.  It seems respectable to want to save the planet.  I’m all for it when the price is right.  I’m just not going to buy a “green cleaner” when the regular cleaner is half of the price, especially when the regular cleaner has been used for generations without the earth imploding.  I did make a choice to buy a vehicle with better gas mileage, although that was more for financial and political reasons, so the environmental reasons are just icing on the cake.

Businesses are jumping on the bandwagon as well.  Hotels don’t want to wash your towels and sheets every night, but again, that’s probably more for financial reasons than for environmental reasons.  Other business decisions, such as recycling are practical and noble. There is, however, one place where businesses should not “go green”: the restroom.

My biggest pet-peeve about the whole thing is when paper towels are eliminated in favor of the air dryers in restrooms. The paper towels that most public restrooms have are the brown ones anyway, made from previously-recycled materials.  So by providing them, you aren’t completely anti-Earth.

First of all, they are loud and they scare the crap out of small kids.  Trust me, I know.  If the kids were to dry their hands before using the restroom, it would make them wet their pants.  It’s a good thing they wash their hands afterward.

Yesterday, we visited Stone Mountain and Tristan had an accident.  I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that the accident was so bad that I lost my lunch during the clean-up process.  That is not an exaggeration.  Some messes can not be cleaned up with cheap toilet paper.  When we left, that restroom stall was thoroughly violated.  I honestly would have cleaned up the mess had paper towels been around.  Unfortunately, some minimum-wage employee had to do it.

I was once, in my grocery store days, the guy who had to clean up comparable messes.  I always wondered how someone could “violate” a restroom like that.  Now I know.  In this case, it’s because someone tried to go green.

This video is over 8 years old, but I recently converted it from VHS to digital (apologies in advance for the low-quality).  My sister and I went skydiving with a friend from college in 2001.  I had to go with Vimeo because YouTube sucks.  First, there were length issues and then they didn’t like the licensed music.   Enjoy this flashback!

Skydiving from Jonathan Davis on Vimeo.

I had the priviledge of accompanying Tristan’s kindergarten class yesterday on their annual field trip to Dauset Trails. I was initially hesitant about going becuase I’m swamped at work, but I decided that being at my desk for those four hours wasn’t really going to put a dent in the mountain of work anyway. There’s more to life that technology. Right?

If you noticed in the pictures, Tristan is the star student for his class again!

That’s enough about Tristan for this week.  I promise that the next blog post will not be about him!

I took a little heat, on Facebook and at work for the last post. I certainly wouldn’t have posted that video on YouTube if Tristan had been injured.  So to make amends, here is a typical Saturday in the life of Tristan.

10:00 AM: T-ball game.  Tristan batted twice, scoring once.

5:00 PM: After riding 1.5 hours in the car, then sitting through a long country wedding, Tristan dances with his sister at the reception.

7:30 PM: After eating a fabulous amish dinner at Yoder’s, but right before feeding a goat, Tristan kisses the goat.

Don’t worry, Sunday will be just as busy. We’ll relax next weekend.

Last night, Tristan and I went “mountain biking” on some vacant land in our neighborhood.  Half of the land is county-owned and the other half is the remnants of a defunct subdivision, thanks to the economic crisis.

We had a great time, until Tristan had a spectacular wipeout, as seen in the video below.  It was his first time on the “hills” on a big bike.

This is one of those things that he will laugh about later.