an electrician came by the house today and performed three repairs. he swapped out a ceiling fan; replaced a fluorescent light ballast and replaced three light switches.

he did all this without ever going near the fuse box to turn off the power; without getting electrocuted and completed everything in under an hour.

needless to say, that is not the narrative that would have followed my feeble attempts to make the same repairs.

hilarious…

the jar of coins on a free standing shelf starting rattling first.

then my desktop montiors and office chair shook.

as i looked around at all the loose and free standing objects in my office i saw visions of our earthquake conscious, california living friend robbie darting around admonishing “all of this should be secured to the walls!”

i went downstairs and asked the family if they felt anything strange. they looked up from the book they were reading on the couch like i was somehow off.

but out the window i could see my neighbor outside their house looking up as if something were falling from the sky.

“[name redacted], why are you outside?”

she responded – “why are you outside?”

so at least two of us noticed something strange had just happened.

thirty minutes later i heard the report that a 5.8 magnitude earth quake shook virginia.

while i’ve been in places with earthquakes, this was the first one i ever felt. and this was nothing compared to what the folks in new zealand and japan have experienced recently.

it is quite an amazing sensation and one that i’m glad i got to enjoy at the lowest levels of magnitude.

after more than two weeks – we’re nearing the end…

lego death star vs. eight year old boy…

i’m not saying i make more money than you, but apparently the wsj thinks i do – less agreeable people earn more.

and while i agree there may be many managers who unwittingly reward disagreeableness, i am not in that camp. i knowingly rewarded and encouraged it. co-workers who challenge the ideas of their colleagues ensure that only good or great solutions survive the gauntlet every idea must pass through. not to mention, this is absolutely the best source of comedy in the office.

so, do your career a favor and disagree with your boss today.

lost in this animation is the scale of this amazing thing – when we get done i’ll provide a picture demonstrating that…

who hands a seven year old a lego catalog and says “pick out anything you want and i’ll get it for you”?

turns out, ethan has an aunt who does.

ethan didn’t need the catalog and said what i expected to hear – “i want the death star”

we started putting it together tonight and are maybe 200 pieces in with only 3603 left to go.

i know at least three of you out there reading this are very jealous just now…

its funny to watch how people react when we tell them we pick up the whole family and live somewhere out of town for months on end.

reactions run from “that is so cool” to “that would end my marriage”

two things strike me most about our journeys – first, we always live large when we go away. we know we’ll only be visiting for a little while so we take in as much of the area as we can before we leave. this also means we spend more time doing interesting things as a family and less time doing the mundane things that seem to eat up so much of our time when we are at home.

second, as much work as it is to embark on one of these adventures, natalie noted that we have never come home from one of our trips and regretted having gone. this is even after we put up college kids in our house and they turned it in to a beer pong party center.

so, today i’m overwhelmed with all the catch-up items on my to-do list settling back in to being home, but i smiled large when i walked by natalie and saw she was already at work looking at new destinations for our next trip…