Ever since I got a new pair of eyeglasses last summer, I’ve been looking for a small, thin hard case for the magnetic clip-on sunglasses that came with them. A thin sleeve for the clip-ons came with the case for the eyeglasses but it is meant to be used in conjunction with that case. It is much too bulky for everyday use and is overkill considering I’m usually wearing the glasses and have no need for the case.Ideally the case for the clip-ons would be small and slim enough that it wouldn’t cause a noticable bulge in a pocket. It would need to be rigid rather than just a sleeve to protect the frame from bending (I’ve already had to straighten it out once). And of course the interior shouldn’t scratch the lenses.Surprisingly enough I’ve had a heck of a time trying to find anything close to this. Given the selection of eyeglasses that came with clip-on sunglasses that I was able to choose from, I would think that such cases would be fairly common. Most cases I’ve come across have been much to bulky, too small (i.e. for reading glasses) or not rigid. The cases at the bottom of this page from McCray Optical and for these Shade Control clip-ons are perhaps the closest I’ve come but I haven’t found a place that sells them and I’m reluctant to purchase anything without testing it out with my clip-ons first. I also just came across this case but it seems unnecessarily thick and deep.If you happen to come across a thin, rigid metal case for clip-on sunglasses, please let me know! The interior dimensions should be about 5″ x 1.25″ x 0.3″.

I guess it’s bound to happen more frequently the older a person gets. I found out last night that a friend of mine from high school Nate Blackburn passed away earlier this week. I was not terribly close with Nate, in fact I probably hadn’t seen or spoken with him since he graduated from high school about 14 years ago, but we hung out with the same group of people from band class. I’ll always have something to remember him by, though. At a common friend’s graduation open house, we all started goofing off by the pool and soon people were getting thrown in fully clothed. Nate started to go after me but I didn’t want to have any part of it. So I took off running and he followed. Now you have to understand he was into gymnastics so he was quite muscular and in much better shape than I. Knowing this, I ran just as fast as I my legs could carry me. He chased me through a neighbor’s yard where my clumsiness got the best of me and I lost my balance while zig-zagging to try to shake him. I tumbled forward, landed on my shoulder and broke my collar bone. In hindsight, I guess it would have been better to have just jumped in the pool. :PThat was about the last time I saw him until tonight at the viewing at a local funeral home. The funeral is scheduled for Friday morning. I was quite impressed by how many people were at the viewing to express their sympathy for Nate’s family. A few high school friends who still live in the area (Andy Ciupak, Matt Pulliam, Bruce Spike) were there as was Jennifer Herbst who flew in from Pennsylvania. We went to a nearby pub afterward to catch up since most of us haven’t seen each other in quite some time. Though admittedly under very unfortunate circumstances, it was really good to see them all again. High school reunions are focused on graduating classes, whereas my band friends covered the 3 years before and after my own graduating class. I don’t know if I would have ever met back up with Andy or Matt if not for tonight.A few years ago, most of my friends were getting married. Now many of them are having babies (11 couples we know are having a kid this year). Until this past October the only funerals I had attended were for grandparents and great grandparents. I certainly hope this trend doesn’t continue until I’m much older. It does make me think long and hard about my own life. I often take for granted just how good I have it. It’s events like these that make me realize that there are no guarantees in life. Life is not always peaches and cream, there’s no promise that it’ll be long, and when something bad happens it will rarely seem fair. Carpe diem.

*sigh* I haven’t been very good about posting recently, have I? No excuses. Just haven’t been thinking about posting much recently.Kaija is growing by leaps and bounds. She understands quite a bit of what we say to her, though her vocabulary is still limited. Some of the things she can say now are: beans, peas, cheese, yes (“yesh”), no, ice (“eyesh”), hot (cold is “brrrrr”), mama, dada and beep. That last one we taught her while pulling her in her wagon… whenever we would back up, we would say “beep beep beep beep…” and she started saying it, too. Much to our chagrin, about a week before Memorial Day she decided she liked the word “no”, knew exactly what it meant, and used it with authority. It was very trying for about two weeks. She has gotten a bit better since then.We weened her from nursing about two months ago. We quickly found that she’s allergic to cow’s milk (though cheese and yogurt seem to be okay) so until that goes away we’ve been giving her fortified rice milk. That was a pretty difficult transition for both Jennifer and Kaija but it didn’t take more than a few days. Jennifer had been in the habit of nursing Kaija after Kaija woke up in the morning so now she brings her a sippy cup full of rice milk.Kaija has become quite adept at climbing and decending the stairs. We still make sure that we’re around when she’s going up and down and we gate-off the stairwell most of the time. But she can go up and down without crawling or sliding if she holds onto the hand rail.We’ve been taking her to Gymboree music class once a week for the past few months. She really enjoys playing with the instruments. She also enjoys being the instructor’s little helper by helping to put the instruments away and straightening out any floor mats that may have gotten out of alignment.

About 25 minutes ago (10:15pm), I was reading in bed and heard a loud explosion outside followed by what sounded like the roaring drone of a jet engine. That’s odd, I thought, it doesn’t seem to be stopping.I stepped outside to determine where the sound was coming from. It sounded like it was a few miles away to the northwest. It’s got to be quite loud at the source, as it can easily be heard indoors.Jennifer and I flipped on the TV and radio stations but haven’t heard anything about it. I’ve hit the local news sites to see if they’ve got the scoop.I called the Rochester Hills/Oakland county sherrif department to see if they had any information. I could barely get a word in. “Hi, I live in Rochester Hills and I heard a…” “If you’re calling about the explosion, we’re already on it and unless you’re injured, I’m going to have to let you go.” “Do you know what kind of explosion it was?” “Gas” “Okay, thanks.” I wish I had asked where it was and whether it was dangerous for residents in the surrounding area but I didn’t want to stay on the line any longer than necessary. I haven’t heard the local emergency siren sound yet.It’s kind of frustrating not being able to get any information on this! It would be helpful to know if we should be evacuating the area or not!Update: 10:55pm – Just called the Fire Department non-emergency line. They said there is a gas leak and to monitor the TV for any evacuation notices. I asked where it was and the woman I spoke to said she didn’t know!Update: 11:22pm – The local 11 o’clock Fox news has a “breaking news alert”. Initially they didn’t know much except that it was around Squirrel between Dutton and Silver Bell. People have called in reporting what they hear, see, and smell. People from about 10 miles away (Rochester and M-59) could hear it and causing the ground to shake. No flames, just lots of noise and vibrations.They believe it is some kind of compressor. They’re now saying they’re evacuating the square mile between Squirrel and Adams, Silver Bell and Dutton to the local high schools.Update: 11:25pm – The sound has stopped. Channel 7 is reporting that Consumers Energy is saying a 12 to 26 inch gas main has been patched. Evacuations have been called off.Update: 11:40pm – For a while they were saying people who had been evacuated best not go back to their homes, but now they are saying they can. No injuries have been reported.They’re not sure whether it was a gas main or a gas well (which is use to relieve high pressures in a controlled manner).More info on gas lines is available on the Consumers Energy site.News reports:Detroit Free PressOne station confirming it was a 26″ gas main.Update: 12:01pm – Another station confirmed it was a “reg line” (or “city gate” as described on the Consumers Energy link above) – where unscented gas was coming in to be scented. Explains why few people were reporting a scent.Update: May 2 – Detroit Free Press follow-up
Detroit News
Oakland Press

Well, the whole month of April has gone by and I haven’t made a post to the blog. We can’t very well let that happen.So what have I been up to? I’ve been doing a bit of research on digital SLR options for backpacking. I haven’t found many resources that focus on this… either they are focused purely on photography or purely on backpacking. I’m in the middle of documenting my findings so I can save some time for others who are in the same shoes. Look for it on this site soon.I’ve also been doing a bit of hiking. I try to take Kaija out at least once a week for about an hour in the Kelty backpack carrier. Jennifer actually does the same about twice a week as well, so Kaija is quite the traveller! Today I also went on a hike on the Paint Creek Trail from downtown Rochester to Adams Road and back (north of Goodison)… 11.8 miles in 3.5 hours. I stopped for 10 minutes for dinner shortly after I turned around. There were quite a few birds along the trail (robins, cardinals, red wing blackbirds among others) and I saw 3 packs of dear (8 deer total) around dusk. Rain was predicted all day long but fortunately it held out until the last half mile of the hike.

I received the following spam in one of my mail inboxes today. I usually don’t see much spam but this one happened to make it past Mail.app‘s spam filter. How do you create a mail filter for this? I suppose it could measure letter and letter combination frequency in the message body and filter out anything that doesn’t match the frequency of the native language. I’m surprised Mail.app’s filter doesn’t already do that.

I played Racquet Ball for the first time in a loooooong time today. I’ve started hanging out with a number of my old highschool friends who are still in the area. One of the regulars couldn’t make it tonight, so I stepped in as a sub. Thankfully they were very patient with me as I got up to speed with the rules and game play. I had a good time, though I have a long way to go before I’m anywhere near as good as they are. Of course, they have several years experience on me.

In my last post, I eluded to a bit of bad luck that I was having at the time.It all started when we were looking to buy airline tickets for the trip that we took out to Utah a few weeks ago… Continue reading →

I know, I know, that’s about all I write about these days. I should probably start a separate weblog just for her.It’s just that I’m already missing the “old days” when she was just a few months old, watching her learn to crawl, stand, and walk. She’s still learning, though I think from here on out the milestones will be much more subtle and/or drawnout. Even as she learns to talk, it’s one word at a time and takes a while to build a vocabulary. Heck, even I am still building a vocabulary. Continue reading →

This afternoon we had three more deer in our back yard. I pointed them out to Kaija through the window and told her what they were. “Dah,” she said. “Woof.”No, deer, Kaija.”Woof”Someday.