Blue Ridge Grill

Tonight was the last night before Nana and Poppy headed back to Myrtle Beach for the holidays. So the gang had dinner at Blue Ridge Grill, after which Sam went to play with Shadow for a few minutes. Dad did some trivia while waiting for the food to arrive – most of which Pete was the first to call out and answer.

SAT Score

Today was the day that Pete found out his SAT score of 1500, meaning he can probably go to almost any college that he chooses to. This was without any practice or exam prep classes. He’ll have to decide if he wants to take it again. He will probably take the ACT test first, so he has that for the schools that require it.

Be Prepared (to do Nothing)

Tonight’s Boy Scout Troop meeting was even more insufferable than the typical meeting, which is saying a lot. One bright spot was that Sam was commended by the Scoutmaster for dipping the Troop flag during the opening ceremony (which most people forget to do) and he did a good job learning about the Bowline knot (see picture above). But it was downhill from there. Thirty minutes doing absolutely nothing while the Senior Patrol Leader tried to figure out what was going on the following week at the “Open House”. Sometimes he would take a break from doing nothing to chastise the Scouts for making too much noise; then go back to doing nothing again, once everyone had quieted down suitably. After this, they broke out into small groups to do absolutely nothing for the remaining 45 minutes. Dad’s job was to supervise one of the groups and tell them every 5 minutes or so what they were supposed to be doing, immediately after which they would return to doing nothing. Somehow there was still more nothing to be done at the end of the meeting, so it went 15 minutes long for the 20 minute closing ceremony.

Haircut

Dad took Sam to get a haircut. This is always a crapshoot, since he doesn’t know how to describe how he wants it. (Which is “not too short” and also “not too long”). Today a guy cut it, who Sam had not seen before. Initially, Sam thought it was too short. But later he warmed up to it and it was a pretty good cut. They took a few pictures so they can show them to the stylist next time.

Time Management

Sam and Dad went to Harris Teeter to get some Twix and Kit Kat bars to replace the ones that Garrett stole from Sam’s Halloween stash. They stopped at Deli Italiano for dinner. Dad was trying to find a page on his phone listing descriptions of the League of Legends champions, to quiz Sam about them. But apparently this was taking too long. Sam said “just forget about it, I don’t want to be here for an hour”. They hurried home so Sam could sit by himself and binge watch “The Office.”

Brown Sauce Chicken

Today Sam prepared his meal for FACS class. Mom helped with the preparation and Dad took pictures for use in the assignment. The meal was “brown chicken” (with broccoli, rice, and apples). Part of the assignment was to include pictures of “3 bloopers”, which was not a problem since Sam accidentally put 2 tablespoons of sugar into the sauce mix instead of 2 teaspoons. After a quick ride to Giant, the meal was completed.

Thanksgiving

Dad made pancakes in the morning and then Nana and Poppy came over for Thanksgiving. Pete was not feeling well in the morning, but better as the day went on. After playing The Wikipedia Game and Kabul, it was time for the big feast. Sam dined mostly on the pumpkin pie and chocolate cake. Everyone got to pick their side. Pete chose cranberry sauce, and Dad chose mac and cheese. They did some charades and another one of Dad’s trivia games. He said there were 20 answers, so Poppy said he needed to take his shoes off. Dad said it was a good thing there were not 21 items. After dinner, Nana watched the Cowboys beat the Redskins, followed by Poppy watching the Steelers beat the Colts.

Office Party

Pete had a party at work where they asked him to bring a dish to share. He decided to bake some brownies, which turned out to be a big hit.

Chess Rating

Sam’s new chess rating came out today. He went up from 421 to 640, after going 3-1 at the tournament last weekend. Dinner tonight was at IHOP with Nana and Poppy, except Nana was not feeling well and did not make it. Dad did a trivia game in which Pete/Sam defeated Mom/Poppy. The topics were countries, animals, Presidents, languages, and politics.

Pizza

Sam brings up interesting perspectives sometimes. Tonight he was having dinner at Scotto’s before the “Court of Honor” for Boy Scouts. He posed the question: “Did you ever notice that when you’re eating pizza, it is very difficult to remember the specific taste of a different kind of pizza?”

Extra Air

The “Low Tire Pressure” light had been flashing in Pete’s car for a few days. He texted a picture of it to Dad. This is the modern method of asking for help. Dad told him to add air to his tires, and texted some key instructions. Pete followed some of the instructions, but not the one about how much pressure to put in. He didn’t find it surprising that he had to increase the pressure in each tire from 26 all the way to 40 PSI (the maximum pressure marked on the tire). More than a 50% increase! It turns out that the proper PSI level was 30. So Pete currently has 33% extra air. On the plus side, it should give him extra visibility sitting up so high above the road!

Chess

Sam had a busy Saturday. Two basketball scrimmages in the morning and then a stop at Scotto’s before his chess tournament in the afternoon. He finished 3-1 in the tournament and brought home a nice trophy. Farmwell also finished 1st in the school competition. If there were a piece stacking competition, he might have fared well in that also.

Donuts With Dad

Today Dad went in to school early with Sam for “Donuts With Dad.” They enjoyed some donuts with Ethan W, William, John D, and Garrett. Then Sam showed Dad his locker (which he was able to open surprisingly quickly) and they went to the library to pick a gift from the tree for a needy family at Sam’s school.

Family Chauffeur

Pete texted Dad to let him know that he could pick up Sam from school after chess club. This turned out to be not as glamorous as expected, since he waited in the parking lot for about 15 minutes as Sam waited for William to finish his chess game. Welcome to Dad’s world.

Driving

Pete turned 16 and 3 months today, so Dad watched as he backed the Kia out of the garage and drove himself to school. Dad reminded him earlier of the Berman family parking motto, which is “choose a spot that you’re comfortable with.”

Cluttered Desk, Cluttered Mind

Pete usually does his homework at the kitchen table. You may be wondering why he doesn’t use the nice desk that he has in his room. Take a careful look at the picture above and see if you can deduce why he does not use it.

Mailbox Repair

Dad put up the new mailbox today. The old one was destroyed by Eve, who picked up Pete on Friday and backed straight through it at a very high rate of speed. The picture shows the new mailbox, along with an inexplicable tire track in the middle of the yard.

Mills Mess

Sam has been working on a juggling trick called “Mills Mess”. Here is a video of him doing a bit of it successfully.

All-County Chorus

Pete had his All-County Chorus concert today. He was in the Chamber Choir. There were 2 people picked from each school. Dad left his Scouting for Food event in time to attend the 2-hour concert at Briar Woods. Pete’s Chamber Choir performed these songs:

• Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron
• The Banks of Doon
• Russian Picnic
• Marianne
• Happy Together

Dad and Pete compared notes about the concert as Dad drove Pete to work immediately after going home to change. Dad picked him up from work at 12:30am.

Veterans' Day

Dad was home for Veterans Day (like every day), so he got to hang out with Sam, who was home sick. Pete was busy, with All-District Choir during the day and then work at night until 11:30pm.

Trivia Night

Mom, Dad, and Pete went to trivia night at Greene Turtle (Sam was not feeling well and stayed home). There were questions on Simpsons, Golf, and Football, so as you may have guessed they did well. Their team name was The Straw Men. The last question required arranging 5 cities geographically from East to West (Omaha, Fargo, Dodge City, Denver, El Paso). Since they had the lead, they only bet 1 and won first place when everyone got the final question wrong. They brought home a cheesesteak to go for Sam, which had him feeling a little better (but not enough to go to school on Friday).

40% Fluent

Dad drove Pete to school, since there was still a week before he could drive by himself. They were joking about the “I Voted” sticker in Dad’s car. There was some discussion about which candidate Dad’s car voted for. The conclusion was that Dad’s car probably voted for Trump, for many reasons such as it does not have a brain, has not expressed any opposition to gun ownership, doesn’t read the Washington Post, and has never had an abortion.

Sam announced today that, according to DuoLingo, he is 40% fluent in French. Not bad for a few weeks into French I class. This seems like an odd concept, like being 40% pregnant. Perhaps the binary days are gone where you were either fluent in a language or not.

Election Day

The boys were home from school today. Dad took Sam to the mall at lunchtime to get a pair of black Vans. Pete joined them also (and drove). Everyone was able to catch some Pokéstops and Pokémon from the table at lunch. Mom and Dad voted for Hillary Clinton and then Dad watched the returns come in with Pete until about 1am. Once Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania were announced for Trump, the race was over and it was time for bed. The Republicans also retained control of the House and Senate.

Too Much Pressure

Today was the first family crossword tournament. Dad printed out the weekly Patrick Blindauer “Piece of Cake” crossword and everyone competed to complete it. Mom opted for the bar instead of the kitchen table, since there was “too much pressure."

Whiteboard

Mom made the mistake of asking Sam to update the whiteboard weekly calendar after dinner. There were many lessons learned. One is that Pete should never say to Sam “whatever you do, do not erase that item…”

99th Percentile

Dad dropped Pete off at 7:45 to take the SAT at Herndon High School. As Pete walked into the building, Dad had a confident feeling that Pete would score higher on the test than 99% of the people walking into the building along with him. (Spoiler: he was right)

After leaving Pete, Dad went to his puzzle contest in Arlington. Later that night, Pete and Sam worked on the Sudoku and Octo puzzles that Dad brought back from the tournament.

Panther

Pete had his first day of work tonight at Panther Laser Tag. He was pleased to discover that he gets tips from kids’ parties. He got about $20 in tips tonight, and would get another $44 on Saturday. This is in addition to his $7.50/hr wage.

Candy Exchange

Sam took the bus to Jackson Vickers’ house today for some sort of post-Halloween candy exchange. His backpack was about twice the normal weight, from all of the candy. He was able to use Dad’s ingenious invention, the “catch-all” note which has a few blanks on it for the date and bus number.

Cubs

Pete and Dad were watching game 7 of the Cubs/Indians world series game. The Cubs had a comfortable lead, so Pete went downstairs for a few hours to write some music. When he came back upstairs at 12:30am, they were coming out of a rain delay and it was 6-6 in the 10th inning. Pete and Dad witnessed a bit of history as the Cubs scored twice and won the game – their first world series in 108 years!

Cancer

Continuing with Food Fest 2k16 while Mom is out of town, the boys went to Ledo for dinner. Hopefully there were no cancer patients within earshot of the table. It started innocently when Pete asked Dad a question…

Pete: Do you talk to your best friend from elementary school anymore?
Dad: Occasionally we chat on Facebook. Not as much since his wife was diagnosed with cancer
Sam: You can post on his Facebook page “your wife has cancer”
Dad: Well I think it might be better if I phrased it a little differently
Sam: Your has cancer wife
Dad: That’s not really what I had in mind
Sam: Cancer has your wife

While waiting for the pizza, Pete also took a few minutes to teach Sam about limits.