TheSylvans.com

There is a Shell gas station at exit 14 on Hwy 5 in Oregon that has over 100
kinds of old fashioned bottled sodas. We got a grape Nehi and shared it
.

I lost a friend today.  The last time I talked to him, he was in the hospital, trying to work after having blood transfusions.  I've never seen such a hard working person in my whole life.  He was also a man of great fairness and integrity.  I'm sorry I didn't get more time with him and I will miss my friend.  Goodbye Martin, and thank you.

Eli turned ten yesterday... double digits.  I feel like he should be seven.  He had a good birthday.  I got him (and Ben) donuts for breakfast and his teacher let us bring in cupcakes to server after lunch, and his class sang "happy birthday" to him.  He'd made the cupcakes himself too, the night before.  He really wanted to make them himself - you could tell it was important to him.  I'm not sure if it's because it was for his class, or if it's just another facet of him growing up.

We had asked him where he wanted to eat out, and initially he'd liked Joann's suggestion of Sonoma Chicken Coop (since he loves chicken), but Sunday night he asked if we could stay home, bbq burgers, have banana milkshakes, and watch a movie.  I always knew he really like "movie nights" but I was surprised that's what he choose for his birthday.  But he had a great time - we watched "Inkheart" and had Godiva Chocolate Cheescake (with 10 big candles on it that Ben picked out).  Ben gave him 3 Legos sets (in the morning, so they could play with them after school) including one Eli really wanted, and Joann and I, and Tim and Trina, gave him a Nintendo DS Light, with games and accessories.  I think he could hardly believe his eyes.

Eli, for a long time, cannot resist getting in on a good hug.  He is something of a home body, and some of his favorite things are a good meal, and comfortably watching a movie with his family.  So, along those lines, often when he sees Joann and I hugging, he'll say "Me too!" and come over to make it a group hug.  And then Ben's response is to kind of worm his way inside the group hug, so he can be in the center.

We went camping with friends last weekend, right before school started.  It was fun, though the weather was a bit uncooperative (cool, damp at times).  Was great fun watching all the kids doing kid things...  some of them tried new things (Phoebe and Isabelle tried body surfing and boogie boarding), and we found a couple of geocaches.

We just had a pretty good heat wave - strangely it got even hotter on the coast than here (which is completely backwards - I'd love to understand how that happens).  We went to the beach yesterday - it was 99 degrees F in Santa Cruz, but perhaps 10 or 15 degrees cooler right on the beach.  Was a great day for going in the water... except for the jellyfish that stung Eli.  Scared the hell out of me at first, because we're all in the water having a great time, and all the sudden he just completely loses it.  So I kind of snap at him and tell him he's got to stop and tell me what happened.  He did a pretty good job at that, considering he was in a lot of pain, so I tell him not to worry (while I'm worried) and walk him over to the lifeguard (because I have no idea how to treat jellyfish stings, or even if I should be worried).  The lifeguard asks him about it, and gives us a spray bottle of vinegar to spray where Eli's stung.  Yup, vinegar.  I do this, and Eli says it helps.

The lifeguard says the jellyfish has little stinging cells that break off and embed in the skin when the tentacle brushes on you.  He says not to mess with skin where it's stung, because it will irritate it more, unless you're going to wash the area with soap and water (to remove the stinging cells).  He tells us once he got stung in Costa Rica and tried scrubbing his skin with some sand.  He says Eli should feel better in about an hour, but to watch for allergic reactions - if Eli has shortness of breath or anything like that, to take him to the hospital or come back.  I ask him if he has Benedryl, and he doesn't, but they have oxygen and stuff.  He says allergic reactions are rare, but to be careful.

Eli is feeling a little better, but still in pain.  We go back to our beach blanket and he lies down, and I try to distract him by talking to him.  His stung areas welt up a bit, but after a bit (about an hour), he feels better.  He's not keen on going back in the water, but we all build a huge sandcastle, complete with moat, tunnels, and turrets.

Then, we come home and play in the pool for a bit, and read Harry Potter before bed.  I try to put them to bed, but it's too hot.  Eventually we all come sleep in the living room on the floor in front of the fan. 

Today it was much cooler - high of 85 maybe.  Played in the pool, did chores, and tie-dyed shirts with the tie-dye kit they got me for father's day.

Oh, and I should mention they started back to school last week and that seems well.  Ben has Mr. Hill, who Eli had for second grade and we loved.

Tonight the boys and I watched the Perseids. It's been smoggy here
the last couple of days (pretty bad, too) so we drove up Hwy 9, over
the summit, and went to this great vista point that overlooks the San
Lorenzo Valley, and on a clear day/night, you can even see out to Santa
Cruz.  It was clear (no smog over the hill) tonight, and we could just
make out the city lights along the coast.



So we spread a blanket down on the hood of the camry and laid on our
backs and watched some spectacular meteors against a backdrop of stars
that included the pale ghost of the milky way stretched across the
sky... while eating pringles.  Ben loves pringles. 



A great memory.



I bought a GPS on Ebay so we can go Geocaching - I got hooked while we
were camping.  It's about the closest you can come to hunting for
treasure, I think, and is a great excuse to get outside and go trekking
around.

The last four weeks (and many weeks before that, honestly) have been something of a blur.  Joann and I had a nice 15 year anniversary celebration being pampered and eating decadent food in Saratoga (and some slightly less than decadent, but wonderful for the circumstances: I was so happy to find a Domino's pizza to deliver to our room at 11 o'clock at night!).

We had a great, three-day 4th of July weekend camping at the beach.  The weather was cooperative and mild (warm enough to know it was summer, but not too hot during the day or too cold at night) and we had a great camping trip and a lot of fun watching people shoot off fireworks from the beach.  Eli and Ben and I bodysurfed for hours on Saturday and had an absolute blast.  They are really getting more and more confident in the water.

Apparently I lost my glasses - I think I left then at the cabin for our snow-trip - but I was kind of due to get my eyes checked anyway.  I've caught myself doing that thing where you hold the book closer and farther trying to find a good distance... So, they've gotten a little worse, and now I definitely need reading glasses - in addition to neading a slight correction for distance (I don't need it, but it's enough to make my eyes get tired faster).  So the doctor suggested bifocals or progressives.  I feel like 40 is knocking on my door...

The boys are doing well and enjoying summer.  I'm glad we've still got a good bit of it to go.  For me, it means more flexibility (sleep!) in the mornings, and that they can stay up later and I don't have to worry about the ripple effect of that.

Today he did something kind of cute too - we were playing and lounging in our algae ridden pool (waiting for the filter to catch up with it) and I decided to lay out in the sun and relax a bit, drink a beer, and just take it easy.  Ben, after a bit, asks if he can lay down with me.  So, he's laying down with me, enjoying the summer day, and he says, "You know what would make this even better?"  "What?" I ask.  "Some chips," he says.  So I chuckle and tell him I agree, and I get some chips and some trail mix and we sit there snacking having a grand time.

Every week at the boys school, they highlight a different life skill. Mr Hayes, our awesome principal, speaks at the assembly every morning, and hands out awards to recognize students, and talks about life skill. This weeks' life skill is "integrity".

---

We went to see the Disney movie "Earth" last night.
Before that, the boys had a session at "the little gym". When we went
to see "Earth", Eli hadn't quite finished his homework. When we got
home, it was 9pm.

So, Eli got up before I did this morning (this isn't unusual; he likes
to get up a little early and play video games on the Wii) and
completely on his own, got out his homework and finished it (two pages
of math). I hadn't told him to do this - to be honest, I was figuring
"Earth" was a good excuse to miss some homework...

I told him he should be very proud and that he had great integrity.

Today it was in the mid 90s in San Jose.  I got home from work feeling pretty tired, and Joann was recovering from a nasty headache after being out in the sun.  Neither one of us felt like cooking dinner.  She suggested (perhaps jokingly) that we have ice cream.  Sure, I said.

So we dished up some "50/50" (orange sherbet and vanilla) ice cream and called the kids to the dining room.  Ben got there first:  "They're not kidding, Eli!  We really are having ice cream for dinner".  Eli: "Yay!" (claps hands).

Today I went to a conference for Salesforce.com (we're using that at work) and there were a few surprising speakers at the keynote.  One of them was John Gage, the guy who started "Net Day" in 1995, a project to wire schools for the internet.  At the Salesforce conference he said he's starting a new project - he wants to get a ton of engineers to volunteer their time to go back to the schools, but this time with a goal of helping them become more energy efficient.  I'm gonna sign up.  And evangelize.  Awesome.

Today I talked to Causecast.org - they are interested in syndicated volunteer opportuntiies (yay!  a good connection!)  and I also recently dug out USAService.org's feed (you can get it by manually editing the URL) and added it to Eventfeed.  Very cool.

I've been reading more and more in the news about yesterday being a day of service, and a surge of patriotism across America and a continued call for Americans everywhere to get involved in their community and their country.

And I continue to think that Americans who want to answer the call will ask, "where do I go? what can I do?" And the answers are spread across hundreds of websites... so a part of the big answer, is for websites to share that information with each other, so people can spend their time helping, not searching hundreds of websites.

Eventfeed.org isn't website - it's an idea. It's a proposal and a project. An initiative for greater communication and accessibility. If every website that published events marked them up with a little special markup, then pretty soon you could Google for charitable events in your area (as well as other kinds of events).

I was looking at some site statistics, and saw that 9 people googled me in the last  month.  Me, personally, not my websites.  (Okay, six of them could have been googling for some other "Aerik" but three of them googled "Aerik Sylvan".)

That gives me kind of a wierd and interesting feeling... Not sure quite what I think of that.