Vacation?

I took a much-needed vacation from work over the 1st week of August.  I had put it on the calendar many weeks prior without having or making any specific plans.  However, smack in the middle of my vacation I attended a 10th anniversary event for work.  It was there as I was telling a coworker how my vacation was going so far that I suddenly realized how event filled it has become.

We were pleased to accept the arrival of a good friend Christina from Kansas and her two daughters on the Thursday afternoon prior.  (Christina is still waiting for her share of Mother's Spit.)  The summer had gotten away from each of our families and this was our only chance to get together, even if it meant we missed her husband Mark who had to stay behind to mind the plains.  After having dinner together we all spent the evening at Justin's soccer game.  Friday morning we got up and drove down to spend the day at the Park at the Mall of America.  Having purchased an unlimited ride wristband for each child we were determined to get our money's worth, and with the ages spread from 6 to 11 that has a few challenges.  After several important and what I would call successful decisions we left the Park about 8:30pm with a well worn out crew - the kids with tired legs from all the rides and running about, and the adults with sore hips and backs from all the standing around.  You'd think we all would have crashed as soon as we got home, however I've discovered a phenomenon that I'll state here in semi-mathematical fashion.  I'm still working on the formal proof for publishing. (Geek alert)

Joe's Theorem:  Bedtime has a direct relationship to the distance you are from friends and an inverse correlation to the relative frequency with which you normally get to see those friends.

This is the simplified form that ignores factors such as income, medical conditions, and direction of travel.  And whether you travel by foot or transporter beam you are beholding to calculations by car or plane.

Bedtime ~= 9PM + (Log[base 2] (Ceiling(Distance / Frequency)))

Where:
Frequency is the number of times per year you are able to get together
Distance is number of hours apart you must travel at 70mph by car or 300mph by plane

Since we are 8 hours from our Kansas friends and we see them about once each year this means we got to bed roughly at midnight every night they were here.

So with successive late nights what did we do first thing Saturday morning?  We got up and went to the Minnesota Zoo of course!  Thank goodness it's only open until 6pm.  We knew we'd be pushing dinner at that time, but we dealt with the grumpy kids until we got home and grilled burgers and hot dogs.  Then the bedtime formula kicked in once again and the adults weren't in bed until almost midnight.

Sunday morning was slightly more relaxed.  We took our time getting up but then drove down to the University campus to enjoy lunch at Annie's Parlour.  This is a regular stop whenever friends come to visit us, you just can't beat this classic burger joint.  Since they are big football fans we then drove them by the new Gopher stadium on the way home.  Conveniently for me this took us directly by Mariucci Arena as well (which is really what I wanted to see).  I think the girls by this time had enjoyed too much of each others' company cooped up in the car together.  They fought all the way home while Christina did her best to stay calm in the driver's seat.  I don't think it bothered Bird nor I very much and I personally was enjoying the thought of our boys getting to see first hand what they look like when it is them fighting instead.  At home I volunteered to watch the kids while the ladies went shopping at a local outlet mall.  I must say I love these two girls and while they behaved themselves very well under my subtle guidance (which amounted largely to me saying "Don't make me call your Mom!") the experience reinforced my appreciation for having only boys.

Monday they left and although it saddened us to see them go we were spent.  We had a couple of hours before my brother-in-law Jason showed up to setup the spare bedroom.  Oh! Did I not mention this was the day my sister Tiffany and her husband Jason moved in with us again?  Must've slipped my mind.  It's only temporary though, less than a month, while they settle the paperwork on the house they just bought.  As if these two house guests weren't enough for her Bird spent the rest of Monday orchestrating a mildly hostile takeover involving five boys on Tuesday starting at 8:30 in the damn morning.  Justin and Sam both had friends over all day and then capped it off with sleepovers.  My first true day of vacation and I was truly getting no where near the Wii.  This would have been the perfect mindless recovery activity for me.  Instead I tinkered with the piano and my guitar before doing some odds and ends around the house.

Wednesday I got up fairly early and started taking apart our Rainbow playset.  After 10 years we decided to give the playset to Brian, a coworker of mine with four kids under the age of five.  He, also on his vacation, came over and the controlled destruction went smoothly and efficiently but took until about 11am.  Brian and I then showered up and drove downtown to a 10th anniversary company event.  The very same with which I began this blog post.  Here we both were, on our vacations, surrounded by coworkers and I was explaining my 'vacation' to a good friend.  Such is life...