Declan's Blog

First we got up and had some presents:

The we joined some buddies and had some Dim Sum!

We tried out the new BBQ place for Elaine’s birthday. It’s no Li’l Porgies, but it’s pretty good.

We have an 18 year old boy! How’d that happen?

Mom got up and made apple pancakes. Dad got out the camera. 😉

Our October family vacation is now over.  We stayed in a lovely condo in La Jolla.  There was an older couple booked into the same place, but they kept feeding us, so we didn’t complain.  🙂

A huge thanks to Luc and Susan for putting us (and the damn dog) up for the days we were evacuated!

We’re so glad to be home.  Sadly, Elaine caught the stomach flu I had on the first night and day of the fires, but she’s getting better.  At least she gets to use familiar bathrooms!  That’s good, right?

We’re still camped out at Luc’s house in La Jolla (Thanks Luc!), waiting to hear if we’re allowed back into Penasquitos. According to the Channel 8 news, we are not yet.

I’m mainly over my flu bug, but now poor Elaine appears to have it. I hope we don’t infect everyone!

We SO want to go home…

Hi – we evacuated to the UCSD campus.  The air’s pretty good here.

We’re all doing well.

Today is the end of a wonderful visit from our friends, the Hardys.

Last night, we celebrated Sue’s 21st birthday:

I’ll put up some more pictures later!

I was at work on Monday and got an IM from Elaine saying that firemen were at the door warning them that they may need to evacuate.  The house 3 doors to the east was on fire!

So they put it out.

From the North County Times:

Three displaced by Rancho Penasquitos blaze

By: North County Times –

RANCHO PENASQUITOS — Three residents were displaced by a fire that caused about $200,000 damage to a single-family home in Rancho Penasquitos on Monday afternoon, authorities said.

The blaze was reported at 3:23 p.m. and began in an upstairs bedroom of a two-story home in the 13000 block of Russet Leaf Lane, said Maurice Luque, spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

“There was a lot of smoke and fire showing when (firefighters) got there,” and responding crews doused the flames in about five minutes, Luque said.

Authorities estimated the cost of the damage at $150,000 to the structure and $50,000 to the contents inside, fire Capt. Ted Visser said.

The Red Cross responded to assist an adult, two teens and two dogs displaced by the fire, Luque said.

More pictures here.

Last night I got to see Erin open as a Lady in Waiting in her school’s production of “Once Upon a Mattress.”

She did great!  Here she is on stage:

And here she is being rather rude, I must say:

More pictures here.  They’re pretty blurry, the light was low.

December’s a pretty busy month at our house. Nathan’s (the boy) birthday is on the 5th, Elaine’s (the wife) is on the 16th, then there’s Christmas soon after. Because the wife handles most of the shopping around here, I’m just on the hook for her birthday and Christmas gifts. Yes, it’s a little inconsiderate for her birthday to be so close to Christmas, but I can’t blame her for that. I blame her parents.

Anyway, somewhere near the beginning of December, I normally log on to Amazon, check the wife’s wish list, add a few things, and, bada bing, I’m done. All I need to do is collect boxes as they come in and decide which things I’ll give the wife for her birthday and which I’ll save for Christmas. There’s a whole other story about brow beating Erin (the daughter) into doing the wrapping for me, but I’ll save that, or get her to blog it.

So, I fire off my order on December 3rd, and within a week three big boxes show up addresses to me from Amazon. Now, we’re a Midwest family who transplaned to San Diego. At this time of year, there are boxes coming in every day. Since I outsource the mundane business of mail to the wife, I just had the boxes piled up under my desk, planning to select her birthday booty the evening before the 16th. The wife is a crossword freak and had added:

“Excalibur The NY Times Deluxe Touch Screen Crossword Puzzle”
Excalibur Electronics; Video Game

to her Wish List. I ordered that, and, since I wanted to look like I put SOME effort into the process, I added:

“Wordplay”
Chris Astoyan; DVD

a (very entertaining! who knew?!?) movie about crossword freaks. I imagined her delight upon opening TWO birthday presents, ONE of them a non-Wish List SURPRISE, and ANOTHER that’s also on-theme! (And not just a Starbucks card. “Here, you LIKE coffee. Right?”)

So, the evening of the 15th comes and I go hide in my office and pop open the three big boxes, in search of the two crossword related items. Three boxes. Three items. WHAT? There were eleven items in total that I’d ordered for the two occasions. Oh man, I’m screwed… Thankfully, the crossword video game was one of the three, but my masterwork, the accompanying DVD, was not here. In fact, the only items that had shown up were the ones Amazon offered through third parties. All of the other stuff, DVDs and books, Amazon stock and trade, were missing. I quickly looked through my email for the Amazon Order confirmation and was stunned to finally notice this:

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