The May Family  
The May Family; Garland, Texas

 

30 April 2005

Goooooooooaaaaaallll!?!?!

Another YMCA soccer season has come to a close. Once again, Collin participated on a team, the Shooters, organized through the Richardson branch. This spring marked Collin's sixth season playing soccer and his second with the Shooters. Every season has brought improvement and an increase in confidence and skill. Combining Collin's progress with that of the other members of the team resulted in their making it to the fourth playoff birth.

A season climax was reached when, during the first playoff round, Collin made the first goal of his career to. Date. The set-up was perfect. Collin positioned himself on the opposite side of the goal from gameplay. One of his teammates initiated a drive toward the goal. At the last second he passed the ball to Collin who carefully aimed and kicked the ball into the net — behind the goalie! He never knew what happened. Collin was beside himself with pride.

A little later in the game, he found himself in the position of being directly in the path of a long driven kick down the field. Adjusting his footing, he aimed his head and sent the ball right back from whence it had come — helping to establish the set-up for yet another team goal.

After the game, Collin called all of his grandparents, his uncles and a few other to share the news of his magnificent game.

The Shooters lost in the penultimate round to the best team in the league. However, whereas this group was used to cleaning the clocks of their competitors with a shutout, the Shooters were able to run up the score, ending the year on a fairly respectable 3-6 defeat. Once again, though, Collin had a great game and showed still more progress.

The end-of-season party was held this evening at Heights Park in Richardson. During the awards portion of the event, Collin was recognized as the"Most Improved" member of the team during the presentation of awards.

Congratulations, Collin!?!

24 April 2005

Tiling Project, phase I

The May Family has been busy during the last ten days on a project to replace the aging carpet in the central hallways with tiles. This is our first large scale renovation project in over a year and the inaugural for laying tile of any type on a large scale.

We were happy to have Mark assist us in this endeavor. He has two such projects under his belt — having recently laid laminate flooring in the entry, living and den areas of his home and relocating the tile to the master bathroom. while residing in Little Rock, a similar project of tiling the kitchen was completed by Mark. He was able to provide insight and technical pointers for our project and even donated four hours of his time during the initial work phase, last Saturday (16 April).

The project spilled past the first day and into the work week, which reduced the window of labor to a couple of hours each evening. Tile laying was completed on Thursday, instant. Allowing for a couple of days for curing of the mortar, a little over fifty percent of the grout work was completed today. The balance will follow later during the coming week.

The job to date has been quite satisfying. Having replaced the tedious job of trying to maintain a clean carpet has given way to the much easier task or sweeping in combination with periodic mopping. The hounds and felines are now free to have "accidents" with little lasting impact and additional cost.

A photo montage will be posted to the album archive in early May for interested visitors to browse.

As indicated in the section heading, this is phase one of a multi-pphase project. Future installments will involve linoleum and carpet removals in both bathrooms, the den, kitchen and living room. In their stead will be placed tile (bathrooms and kitchen) and laminate hardwood flooring (den and living room). Out timeline has us completing work by the end of November. Stay tuned for more progress. :-)

16 April 2005

Madrigal

The choir department at Naaman Forest High School presented its second annual Madrigal Dinner this evening at First United Methodist Church of Garland. Though the second iteration and the second which we, as a family, have attended, it was the first in which Rebecca participated.

Primarily a promotional vehicle for members of the Renaissance Choir, participants in the other choirs are encouraged to perform as hosts and servers for the feasting aspect of the event. Last year, Rebecca had another engagement with her Girl Scout troop and was unable to attend. This year she was otherwise uncommitted and served as a hostess. On the other hand, Collin missed this year's celebration due to accompanying John, et. al. On a camping trip and equine photo shoot. In his stead, we invited Nana to be our guest.

This has proven to be a showy event with much drama and pageantry. A processional opened and closed the gathering and the balance of the time was broken into musical sections and skits. Among the pieces performed were various period pieces including Wilbye, Arcadelt, Busto, Morley, Passereau, Gastoldi, Certon and Catlin. The primary dramatic presentation was a humorous, period adaptation of the "Royal People's Court"". The fare, as it was last year, was disarticulated chicken parts, basted in barbecue sauce, on a platter with trimmings.

Attendance of this event has become an anticipated part of our sping school schedule. The musical genre appeals to both Elizabeth and Herman and the associated entertainment is always

10 April 2005

Crossing over to Boy Scout

Congratulations are in order for Collin. He, along with three of his classmates and another member of the Webelos den of which he is a member, "crossed over" to Troop 728 earlier this evening.

In a ceremony which took place under threat of rain at the fire ring of Breckenridge Park (Richardson, Texas), the five scouts had their advanced Cub Scout regalia ripped from their uniforms and replaced by novitiate Boy Scout insignia.

The ceremony itself was steeped in mysticism and symbolism. Older scouts from Troop 728 donned Native American costumes and served as the bridging facilitators. During the process, the Webelos had their kerchief removed and their epaulettes stripped. Both were replaced with Boy scout equivalents and each scout was presented with an arrow bearing commemorative notation. The group then presented themselves for a photo op.

group photo of participants
(select image to view in higher resolution)

This was a Pack event. As such all other Tigers, Cubs and subordinate Webelos were in attendance. Prior to the ceremony, the Pack sponsored a BBQ buffet.

To our knowledge, Collin is the first in our immediate families to graduate from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. Herman only made it as far as the first year as a Webelos. We congratulate Collin on his achievement and hope that he continues down the path toward an Eagle Scout.

06 April 2005

Server upgrade

Technology permeates our household. With two portable systems, a primary desktop and a multitude of secondary and support devices, we require a powerful and dependable server to coordinate backups as well as to run various software packages. Heretofore, the machine serving in this capacity has been an obsolete system capable of little else by today's technology standards. However, our needs have expanded past the point the existing hardware was able to support. A failed attempt at upgrading the operating system precipitated the need to replace our server hardware.

As of today, the migration from old to new has been completed. The entry for Scheherazade in our technology overview has been updated accordingly. The content of the old entry has been archived here for historical purposes.

  • PowerMac 8600 200/AV
    w/ a Sonnet Crescendo/PCI G4/700MHz processor upgrade
  • 512Mb RAM
  • 250Gb HD storage
    cumulative drive capacity spread across four drives
  • MacOS 10.2.8
  • acquired: July 1997

In an attempt to recoup a large portion of the procurement cost for the new system, components from the machine being replaced will be offered for sale. In the coming weeks, the 8600 will be disassembled, its constituent parts inventoried and the resulting catalogue made available for purchase through multiple mediums.

 

continue to the March 2005 archive

 

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last edited: 2005.05.03