Nagel Family Website

Friday night / Saturday morning were supposed to be beautiful for sleeping, but once again the kids had a different idea. Saturday I was up with Morgan at about 3:30, maybe 4:00. She was cling-y and eventually got sick. Luckily, after cleaning her up, we were able to fall back asleep for a bit. All I remember was waking up and Becca and Jason were downstairs, watching TV while Morgan & Laura slept on one couch, and I on the other.

After we awoke and dressed, we all went to Reinstein Woods for some Earth Day celebrations. The kids did a few crafts, while I picked up materials on energy conservation, composting, and other “save the Earth” things. The only new thing I read about was a water garden, which basically takes runoff (from driveways, rooftops, etc) and directs it to a garden. Interesting concept, but I’ll stick with our rain barrel (which I’ve been using to water the garden since it rained last week - still 3/4 full). This was our first trip to Reinstein Woods, and we look forward to returning. Here’s a photo of Morgan getting a close look at a painted turtle:

We saw plenty of ducks, Canadian geese, a few minnows, and a beaver lodge. There’s a few beavers living there, according to one of the volunteers we asked. However, finding a turtle coming out of the pond and getting a close-up was the highlight of the trip.

When we got home, after a quick lunch, we took a siesta and avoided the crazy hot weather here in Buffalo. Then I did more work in the garden, while the kids played in the backyard and Laura worked in the kitchen. Saturday night I took care of tedious business things, like entering credit card charges into QuickBooks and paying contractors.

Sunday Andy and I went for a little 2-mile run, then extended the trip by walking a bit. We were walking along this trail by 2-mile creek and when we looked up, there were 3 deer standing less than 30′ from us. After contemplating what to do, we continued on the trail, getting closer to the deer until we passed them and continued on our way.

When I finally got home & cleaned up, I got to work on a project that I’m doing for Steve. The hardest part of some jobs is just gathering the information together - this job was particularly easy, but without the proper login information, I had to put it on my server, only to move it later. Instead of spending too much time looking for the passwords & URLs, I figured I’d just move it tomorrow.

Now it’s dinner @ the in-laws, then fighting w/ the kids to go to bed at a reasonable time, because it’s back to school for them tomorrow. As for me, I have a resting week at UB, only having to do 4, 30-second bouts on the wingate bike. Next week we’re tested again, then DONE. Thank goodness - this study is a long one!

This entry was posted by Eric on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

Two weeks have passed since we started the garden, and I had some concerns this week, but it’s coming along nicely. Aside from the Carnival Peppers, everything has sprouted and I’ve moved some plants outside and many in individual containers (from the egg cartons).

Here’s the photo of the plants enjoying the beautiful weather we had today:

The bell peppers were scaring me, but between last night and this morning, 9 sprouts came up out of nowhere! I moved a few of the squash into the ground today. While we still have a month until the last average frost date, if I know a frost is coming I can cover those that are in the ground. If I loose them, I have plenty more. The directions said to plant more than are needed, in case something doesn’t germinate, but it seems all of my seeds are coming up, so I have to do something with them.

This entry was posted by Eric on Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 8:40 pm and is filed under Outdoors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

Even though I have Akismet’s spam filter (Akismet has stopped 26,324 comments so far) and reCAPTCHA installed, I as still getting lots of comment spam on my blog. So I use the Comment Blacklist in WordPress (Settings > Discussion) and automatically block many comments from certain IPs or with certain keywords in them:

payday loan
casino
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ringtones
homeowners insurance
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life insurance
accident insurance
casualty insurance
phentermine
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I cleaned up a couple of the words because my Mom reads this blog, but if you’re having trouble with comment spam, try using this list, and add your own as you see the spammers sneak in.

This entry was posted by Eric on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 6:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

So last week, before our plyometrics class, our trainer told us he has a new job and probably won’t be able to train us any longer. I asked which gym he was going to, as I’d follow him there, but it turns out that he’s going into another field completely. So today was our last class with him. I’ve been in denial since he announced this last week, but will realize things will be different on Thursday when Jim’s not there.

I’ve trained with Jim for a little over a year now. When I first started with him, my form was horrible and I struggled with everything I did. Today, my form is better (not perfect) and I’m able to lift with more confidence.

The point I’m getting at is over the past year, not only have Jim and I worked together, but the group I now workout with has formed tight bonds. We get together regularly (rock climbing later this month; and a fellow gymrat is coming over Thursday night w/ his wife & daughter) and workout together on the days we don’t have class. So while we may be losing our trainer, the group will continue to be strong.

I’ve had workout partners before, but they only last a few months at most. But having a team that works together (there’s 14 of us in the class - when we get together, at least 8 of us show up), losing 1 member, even our trainer, won’t break us up. We may lose some people, but others will come in (one has signed up for the next session, after being absent from class for many months now).

Change is a part of life; you can deny it and be left behind, or embrace the change and continue moving forward.

This entry was posted by Eric on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 10:26 am and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

This weekend we made our annual pilgrimage to Moore’s Sugar Shack in Freedom, NY. I’ve been joining Laura’s family for who-knows-how-long, going for an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at this sugar shack. Historically, Laura’s brother and I attempt to eat our age in pancakes (mind you, he’s 7 years younger than me, so he has a significant advantage). I failed last year, only managing to down either 17 or 18 before giving up. This year I showed restraint and stopped at only 5. I can’t believe I ate that many in the past.

On our way home, we ended up doing some geocaching. We attempted 3 caches, and found 1 of them. I knew there was 1 we wouldn’t find, as the last 3 log entries were a no-find. However, another that we tried I expected to come up with. GPS reception was decent, but the area was pretty busy. Bottles, leaves, and a decaying deer were all fun things to find, but no geocache. It was frustrating, especially since I knew the container that we were looking for, and I’ve seen the published photos of it.

This entry was posted by Eric on Sunday, April 13th, 2008 at 11:19 am and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

Last week we started our garden indoors, planting all sorts of seeds. The little seedlings are starting to come up now, and it’s really exciting seeing them grow every day. The lettuce is going great, and the spinach is starting to come up, too. Becca’s sunflowers are exploding now that they broke through (I bought her the giant, 12-foot-tall variety - they’re only about 2-inches tall now). All of the squash family seedlings are coming up, as are the cucumbers. However, none of the herbs are up yet, and neither are the peppers or tomatoes (although the cherry tomatoes look great). Strawberries aren’t up, either. However, many of these take up to 21 days to sprout - strawberries take up to 30 days!

Lettuce sprouting	Becca’s sunflowers
Seedlings

I built some “greenhouses” for the plants out of some old temporary fencing and saran-wrap, and stole Laura’s heating pad to help regulate the temperature. Of course, to monitor the temperature, I’m using an Oregon Scientific Wireless Waterproof Temperature Sensor. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get it to register up in my weather station yet - I think I have to sync resetting the sensor and scanning for new channels at the same time on the base unit. For now, I turn the heating pad on during the day to get the temperature up to about 70-degrees, and turn it off at night.

Look for an update next week - I hope by then the sprouts will be taller, and hopefully some of the herbs and tomatoes will be showing signs of success!

This entry was posted by Eric on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Outdoors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.