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Archives for 2008

Reading Board

Reading Board

We finally took a picture of Katherine and her tattered reading board. We still owe her a visit to Chuck E. Cheese.

Violin Lessons

Katherine got to learn a new bowing/rhythm last week – “Ice Cream <rest> Cone” (ready change). Basically, it’s two quarters, one quarter rest, one more quarter than change string. Katherine and I have also worked on her holding her violin for 5 minutes at a time with her sand timer. She was soo excited to expand her repertoire. ๐Ÿ™‚

36.5 mpg

I’ve been mulling over the concept of improving our average mpg. So, I went over to Bellevue Honda and bought a Civic Hybrid last week. The car has steadily increased its average mpg during this week.

We are now at 36.5 mpg. What helps?

  • Highway driving
  • Driving on flats
  • Not driving it like a sports car ๐Ÿ™‚
  • Coasting

The kids seem to like the little blue car. Katherine explains that there are two engines – one regular engine and one special engine. Allison asked if the car needed special gas. I love zipping into parking spots.

Mondays at the Playground

Where are your manners?

Allison and I had a very amusing conversation several days ago:

Mom: Allison, where are your manners?
Allison: Someone took them.

The next day:

Mom: Allison, I hope someone didn’t take your manners.
Allison: I lost my manners.

Katherine just chuckled throughout.

Mondays at the Playground

Because Katherine and Allison are in different classrooms, they don’t often see each other at school. Monday mornings are the exception, when their recesses overlap on the playground. According to all teachers, both girls are SO happy to see each other and play together until Katherine’s classroom lines up. That’s when Allison has started to tear up, “I miss Katherine…”

Katherine still walks her little sister to the classroom. It’s very sweet.

Developmental Milestones

Katherine finally got to 100 on her reading board. She was so proud of her accomplishment. Her reading these days includes Henry and Mudge, a couple short chapters at a time, and Sammy the Seal. Allison, by comparison, is trying so hard to read. One of her favorite activities is pulling out Katherine’s old beginner flash cards and sounding out letters. Surprisingly, she eked out some simple words last week by herself- JET, HAT and a few others. Katherine and I cheered her on.

Katherine is working hard on her math these days. To help her along, we took out her old bead board. She thinks its a hoot for me to hold up a flash card and see how many she can do in a certain amount of time. She also flips over a 5-minute sand timer. Between holding up flash cards and holding Allison back from our sand timer, it gets a little crazy during math time.

Katherine and Allison are progressing with their violin studies. Katherine is now working on a new rhythm – “ice cream <rest> cone” then changing strings. Allison is learning how to hold the bow like a baby bird and not squeeze the living daylights out of it. I told her tonight that IF she could relax her right hand, we would ask Katherine’s teacher to assess her for readiness. The imagery seemed to help quite a bit; she held it delicately with no pressure for a bit – until she started squeezing again. It really is amazing how little kids can learn correct bow technique at such a young age.

Slew of Pictures

Slew of Pictures
I finally got around to downloading a ton of pictures from our camera. ๐Ÿ™‚

You’ll see the kids diving off Ms. Suzi’s diving board and swimming across the pool, eating at the Mariners game, a bus trip to the Arboretum, Allison’s first day of school and a Storm Game.

Katherine is holding a signed Storm ball, which she got from a player during the pre-game player announcements…on the basketball floor. Way Cool!!

No…the kids don’t use their goggles anymore for swim lessons.

Chuckee and The Jumbo-Tron

Chuckee and The Jumbo-Tron

It was a very busy weekend. First, our family celebrated Katherine’s progress with her reading board. Between various trips and activities this summer, we managed to squeak in 50 books (read by Katherine, not us) of increasing interest. Her first couple dozen books were primarily Bob books. Later books included high literature such has “Fred and Ted Go Camping,” “Dora’s I Love My Papi,” “Ruby Bakes a Cake,” and “My Little Pony Tea Party.” All good stuff.

For her celebration we went to Chuck-E-Cheese. We bought a bucket of tokens and tried to win as many tickets as possible. Allison also rode some of the kiddie rides and tried to go thru the tunnel, but was scared silly by a large boy perched in the tunnel entrance. Despite some setbacks, we must have earned a couple hundred tickets which bought the kids 4 bubble bath tablets, 2 plastic combs, 2 plastic frisbees, a ring and a plastic lizard. The highlight for the kids was seeing Chuck-E-Cheese himself at a nearby birthday party. Allison just stared at the party, finally turning to me and saying, “Thank you for bringing me to Chuck-E-Cheese. Can we go say Hi to Chuck-E?” She was so overwhelmed that she repeated her thanks in the car, “Thank You Everyone for Chuck-E-Cheese.”

On Sunday, we took the kids to a Mariners Game. I had prefaced the game half-joking by saying, “Maybe they’ll put us on the Jumbo-Tron!!” Well, in the middle of the first inning, lo and behold…we looked up…and Allison and I were on the Jumbo-Tron! The girls ate Dipping Dots, a bucket of popcorn. We made it to the 6th inning and finally left amid a huge rainstorm to go back home. I’ll have to post pictures tomorrow from our non-stop weekend.

The Olympics and Katherine’s Scrapbook

The Olympics and Katherine’s Scrapbook

I’ve been watching the Olympics just about every night, which explains my bleary eyes and tiredness in the mornings. This is probably because I have many fond memories of watching the games when I was a kid. I vaguely remember something about Mark Spitz when I was *really* young. And, I definitely remember Nadia, Olga and all the star gymnasts since 1976.

I suspect that Katherine will remember the 2008 Olympics for swimming and gymnastics. Thanks to TiVo, we’ve watched the big highlights of the games, and Katherine has been so impressed. She’s taken to flipping through our Seattle Times and Wall Street Journal to find swimming and gymnastics pictures. She’s also started her official 2008 Olympics Scrapbook. It consists of a dozen pages or so in a binder. The pages have carefully cut pictures glued to them…LOTS of glue. She’s got a cover page, a final page with the Olympic rings colored with dot paint and other art too. Tonight, she insisted on giving us the narrative of her book after dinner. She proudly told us about Michael Phelps and his 8 gold medals, Nastia Luikin and of course…Shawn Johnson.

Allison has gotten into this with her own scrapbook. Her pictures are a little more ragged, and some random newspaper copy has made it into her book. But, she’s very proud of her work. Allison also told my mom the other day, “Pau-Pau, you’re taller than Shawn Johnson!”

Katherine’s First Violin Lesson

My mom said that it’s payback time for all the violin lessons and practicing she endured when Sharon and I were kids. ๐Ÿ™‚

I took Katherine to her first lesson this Monday. We brought her rented 1/10 violin and her Suzuki Book 1. Katherine was very serious and listened to her teacher explain how to hold the bow. They worked on that for several minutes. Then she played the open E and A strings – four 16th notes and 2 quarter notes – “I’m a little monkey” – over and over again. The teacher kept checking her bow hand before every iteration. Frankly, while I was proud of her progress, it was a real exercise in patience and tolerance.

The good news is that I can coach Katherine using the teacher’s techniques. My goal is to get 5-10 minutes of practicing in daily for now. Biggest challenge is fending off Allison who is insisting on her own lessons (talk about clutching that bow! I could barely pry it out of her hand.)

Swimming Continues

We’re wrapping up our second week of swim lessons this week. Despite the rain during class, the kids are getting more comfortable swimming. Allison can now swim about 10-15 feet under water, kind of like a frog. She takes a big breath, pops under water, and then re-emerges on the other side of the pool. Katherine is still working on this skill – often standing up to take a breath every 5 or 6 feet.

On Monday, Allison earned her first red ribbon which states, “I swam the width of the pool.” Katherine earned another purple ribbon, “I dived off the diving board.” It was mayhem in the car afterwards; Katherine was SO bent out of shape that she didn’t get the red ribbon tool. Today, she managed once to get across the pool without standing up and got her red ribbon.

Both kids dived (belly-flopped) off the diving board and swam to their instructor at the end of class. Very cool.

Cisco Completes Acquisition of Pure Networks

Cisco Completes Acquisition of Pure Networks
Today, Cisco completed its acquisition of Pure Networks. The press release on the definitive agreement can be found here.

I started Pure Networks in July, 2002 right before Katherine was born in November. In the same year, I started a company and had my first child. It was quite a balancing act as I felt passionate about both endeavors. At Pure, I had the opportunity to work with some great people and companies. I learned a lot about building companies and investing in people and relationships. I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.
It’s hard to believe this chapter is my life is over. I turned 40 last October and I think I have at least one more startup in me after the kids get involved with school full time.

I’m currently working in Microsoft Research as a Software Development Engineer for Susan Dumais. I’m having a great time writing code and learning about search related technologies so I have no immediate plans to do something else.