Halloween

Sam went out with Jackson and Jackson for Halloween. He had pizza and Jackson’s house and then went around the Cheltenham Circle area. His costume was Josh Dun, drummer for 21 Pilots. Jackson V went as his fellow bandmate, so they were a tandem costume. Pete stayed home and kept Dad company. Mom did a great job getting most of Sam’s costume together before leaving for her Philly trip.

Food Fest

Mom headed to Philly today for her conference, which meant it was time for the commencement of “Food Fest” (renamed from “Pizza Fest” at the request of Pete). The start of Food Fest was delayed about an hour so Pete could help Emily (neighbor) get ready for her Math test. Then it was time for some Chipotle before Brian came over to watch the Sunday Night Football game (Eagles v. Cowboys). Sam watched the first half of the game with Dad and Brian, but Pete had to finish reading “The Tipping Point” for school so he came down just for the last three minutes of the game (plus overtime).

Pete, Dad, and Sam have also been constructing some of their own crossword puzzles.  Dad and Sam did a few “minis”, while Pete has been working on a fairly ambitious full-size puzzle.

Smash Tournament

Pete had his VBODA band assessment today. They scored the highest rank (Superior). Dad and Sam went to Fredericksburg for a Smash tournament. Sam lost his first game (to Schleppy – Jigglypuff), won his second (Zora – Captain Falcon and Yoshi), and lost his third (Hero - Marth). Dad got to watch the third match on the live Twitch stream from his perch in the Eagles Nest café, one floor below. He also saw Sam (Lemon) juggling in the background during several of the other matches.

Procrastination

Everyone knows at this point that the Berman family motto is “Pretty good is good enough” (especially when it comes to finishing up homework assignments late at night). Today Sam proposed a new Berman family motto, which is “If tomorrow ain’t the due date, today ain’t the 'do' date”. It is pretty catchy, but Dad declared this to be the Sam motto, since he could not endorse it from a family perspective. Sam does not need any additional encouragement to do things at the last minute.

Crosswords

Sam asked Dad if he could print out a Monday crossword from New York Times to bring in to school. This was to do in gym class, while waiting for the other students to do their push-up test. Dad printed that, and also one of his “Piece of Cake” crosswords that he receives each week from a Kickstarter campaign. Sam was able to complete the “Piece of Cake” puzzle without any difficulty. Dad helped him finish the NYT Monday puzzle on the ride home from Chess Club. Sam is pleased to see how much his French knowledge is helping with these puzzles – there are typically 2-3 clues in any given puzzle that involve knowing some French.

Interview

Pete had his interview tonight with Germania at Panther Laser Tag. Then he walked over to meet Mom and Dad at Arby’s. The interview seemed to go well, since she gave him the new employee paperwork to fill out. However, he forgot to ask whether she accepted his wage demands, so he didn’t know what was being offered to him.

Quiz Bowl

Pete has joined the “Academic Team” at school. It is what Dad’s school used to call “Quiz Bowl” when he was on the team in 1987. This means that once a week he has to go in early for practice. It is a pretty small team. Today there was only one other person at the practice.

After dinner tonight, Dad did a mock interview with Pete, to help him prepare for his interview tomorrow at Panther Laser Tag. It did not get off to a good start. The first question was “Why do you want to work at Panther Laser Tag” and Pete had no idea how to answer it.

Math Homework

Pete declared at 11pm “if anyone wants to help with my Calculus homework, you can com downstairs”. So Dad turned off Monday Night Football, grabbed his laptop, and headed down to the kitchen. Pete discovered that he had a Chemistry lab to do first, so he took care of that. Then he worked on his Math problem set. This was one of those trick assignments that looks like a homework grade but then gets counted as a test. Pete declared at 12:30am “If you want to check my answers, you can”. So Dad tried his best to check the answers. He did find two mistakes, so it was worth his while. Dad was glad that he spent the time with Pete.

Sunday Evening

Dad returned home from his camping trip in time to make steaks for dinner. Mom make chicken for Sam, since he hasn’t eaten the steak the last few times. After dinner, everyone helped with the Sunday New York Times puzzle on the TV screen in the family room (chromecast from Pete’s laptop, which by the way is named “Gertrude”).

Parade of Champions

Today was Pete’s competition at James Madison University. They met up at school at 8:15am and returned home at the ripe hour of 2:30am on Sunday. The band finished 5th in the competition, and also 1st place in the “fan favorite” category. This may mean that the Broad Run moms at the event were able to rapidly create the most fake Twitter accounts for casting votes.

Webelos-O-Ree

Dad headed off to the Webelos-o-ree with Sam’s Scout Troop. The only person missing from the equation was Sam. The Scoutmaster asked Dad why Sam didn’t come on the campout. Dad replied that Sam “doesn’t like getting up early, being in the cold, or doing work”. So camping is not the best fit for Sam. Unfortunately Dad signed up to help out the Troop as Assistant Scoutmaster, so he braved the winds and cold for the weekend. Sam did have to temporarily face the elements as he walked from the car into Deli Italiano on Saturday night.

Chorus Concert

Tonight was Pete’s chorus concert (as well as the concert orchestra and chamber orchestra). He was a bit concerned, since Mr. Layne did not seem to be teaching them as much as Ms. Kauffmann (who has been out on maternity leave), but it turned out to be a pretty good show after all. Pete is in the Chamber Choir. The songs his group did were: “Siyahamba” (intro), “Ghana Alleluia,” “The Water is Wide," “Tenting on the Old Camp Ground”, and “Vine and Fig Tree” (outro). Dad texted Pete after the show that “The Water is Wide” is essentially the same song as “Van Diemen’s Land,” a song from his college days on the U2 album “Rattle and Hum”.

Fallacies

Dad took a second ride with Pete over to Panther Laser Tag to turn in his job application. The good news is that the facility was open this time. The bad news is that they need to go back next Wednesday for an interview with Germania. They agreed to do a practice interview to help Pete prepare for the real one. After returning home, Pete and Dad watched the final Presidential debate between Clinton and Trump. Pete had to take notes for class, finding examples of ethos, pathos, logos, and logical fallacies. There were plenty of all to go around.

Panther Predicament

Dad dropped off Sam at his basketball evaluation and then took Pete to drop off his job application at Panther Laser Tag. There were only two issues at the laser tag place – (a) they were closed on Tuesdays, and (b) Dad’s battery died and he couldn’t restart his car. Pete was pushing the car so Dad could kickstart it, when a tow truck driver happened to be driving through the parking lot to go to Mr. Pollo. He gave Dad and Pete a jump and they were able to drive the car to the Goodyear place, where Mom picked them up. Sam spent the remainder of the evening working on his History project (due last week) that Mr. Sassak called Dad to talk about.

Monday with Grandparents

Dad got to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa while everyone else went to work and school. He played golf with Grandpa. Everyone met up at 5pm and Pete drove Grandma and Grandpa to Scotto’s in the red Kia. After dinner, they walked over to Coldstone and sat outside. Then Dad and Sam went to their Troop meeting. Later in the evening, Dad and Pete went over to the hotel to watch the Monday Night Football game with grandpa. They also finished the two crossword puzzles from the Courier Times. At 10:30, Pete and Dad had to hurry home so Pete could start on his Chemistry lab (due at midnight), and so Dad could deal with the crisis of Sam seeing a wasp fly into the attic above his room. (End result - Sam slept in the family room.)

Grandma's Gifts

Mom and Dad picked up Pete’s coffee table this morning. It is a little bigger than he was expecting, but he will try it for a while to see if it will work. Grandma and Grandpa arrived around 5pm to celebrate Dad’s birthday weekend. Grandma brought her usually assortment of gifts – for Sam, a witch figure and monkey that plays a happy birthday song; for Pete a thing that plays Monster Mash; for Mom a teapot; and for Dad, two shirts. For dinner, they ordered Chinese and pizza, and then had cake from Hornberger’s. The cake was very heavy, and nobody could finish their piece except Pete.

Uniforms

Pete’s band finished in 1st place again in their competition today. They actually had their uniforms this time, now that they finally arrived in the middle of October. Dad went downtown all day to a Puzzle Hunt, so Sam got to hang out with mom.

Spirit Days

About once a week, there is a special day at Sam’s school. Something like “dress like your career day” or “80’s day”. Sam will generally disregard such directives. Today was “Hoodie Day”, however, so Sam was happy to oblige by wearing his gray TSM hoodie that he wears every day.

High Standards

It seems that the family may be dining out too frequently. One of the ways you can tell is when Pete or Sam ask “what’s for dinner” and the answer is something innocent such as “chicken”, they give you that disappointed look. The look of someone who was expecting Chipotle and instead was going to be subjected to gruel and water. So everyone sat and suffered through their chicken, rice, and broccoli. Then helped themselves to the usual assortment of desserts fit for a king.

Dad's Birthday

Today was Dad’s birthday. To celebrate, everyone went to pick up Pete after band practice and then met Brian and Patti at Escape Room Loudoun. They were joined by strangers Bridget and Theresa for “The Five Fingered Discount” room. The room was too difficult, though, and they were not able to complete it. After the failed escape, they walked over to IHOP for dinner.

The Office

The boys have been watching all of the episodes of The Office again over the past few days. It is not clear what got them started on it. It is hard to walk by the family room and fight the temptation to watch. Occasionally Sam will take a break, such as 5 minutes to do his tissue box project for French class or tell Dad that he has decided not to do his History homework because it is “worthless”.

Pokémon Walk

Dad and Pete walked over to the Fultonham Pokemon gym and quickly defeated it. Then Pete had a good idea to walk over to the Cheltenham gym and defeat that also, so they could get double coins (20). However, on the way to the second gym they saw Christopher Lock walking toward the first one. Dad asked him not to defeat the gym so he and Pete would have time to get to the second one. But it turns out Christopher was on their team, and just putting his Charizard in the gym. Crisis averted. Pete and Dad defeated the second gym and got 20 coins each. They stopped at the Cheltenham playground on the way back home and played some songs with sticks on the bells there.

Down With Bullying

Pete joined Dad this evening to watch some of the Trump/Clinton debate. It was horrible, but there was some funny stuff if you listened closely. For example, Clinton was listing a bunch of problems in one of her answers and she included “bullying is up”. Pete and Dad were trying to figure out what that meant. Meanwhile, Sam was watching the big match being streamed between Flash and SKT. He was glad that SKT won, which worked out to be good for CL9 also as they advanced to the next round along with SKT.

Homecoming

Pete went to “Homecoming” tonight, which means that he went with Eve’s friends to take some pictures, then got dragged to “Not Your Average Joe’s”, a few hours of Laser tag, and then a sleepover. Pete is NOT a fan of “Not Your Average Joe’s”, and always seems to end up there for these events. He says the name is correct, since the food is actually below average.

Homecoming Parade

Mom and Dad rode their bikes out to Faulkner Parkway to watch Pete and the band march in the Homecoming Parade. They stopped at Bertuccis on the way home, and brought some garlic knots for Sam, which he liked (new food!).

Thursday Night

Pete and Dad watched the Thursday night football game and rooted for Dad’s defense (49ers) against the Cardinals. They took a break at 10pm to work on the Friday crossword, and got Dad’s best time ever (about 19 minutes).

Early to Rise

Dad is having more and more trouble each day getting Pete and Sam out of bed in the morning. The concern is that it is only the beginning of October. The boys are already in late-April form of waking up at the last possible moment. There is nowhere to go from here. Dad will have to start coming up with some fresh ideas to make it through the year.

Teensmart

Pete has started working on the “Teensmart” program which will get Dad a 10% discount on the auto insurance premium. It is pretty boring, so he works on his History homework while the guy is droning on, and then takes the Teensmart quizzes at the end of the unit. So far this has been working pretty well. However, he is coming up on the driving simulation part of the program during which he may have to actually look at the screen.

Hillary As Our Guide

Sam was home sick today, so he and Dad did not go to the Scout Troop meeting. In the evening, Dad showed Pete the Hillary Clinton video that he made for grandpa. 

Grandpa wants the video to go viral; his three goals for the video are:

• Become famous
• Make a lot of money
• Get Hillary Clinton elected (plausible)

Dr. Panic

Pete did the “Dr Panic” escape room this evening with Jennifer. He escaped the room, but did not fare as well escaping her car, jamming his right index finger in the door. It may be a long week for playing the trumpet.

Sunday Crossword

After dinner, Dad went up to Pete’s room with Pete and Sam and they did the Sunday New York Times Crossword together. They sat on Pete’s new couch and used Chromecast to stream the puzzle on to his big screen TV. Mom helped out a bit too. The crew was able to finish the puzzle without any difficulty in 35 minutes.