Thoughts and pictures from central Ohio

Life after 40

I had my annual (actually a bit less frequent than that) eye exam today.  And for the first time in my life, I’m going to start using glasses.  It turns out the lens in your eye continues to grow as you age, and eventually, your eye muscles can’t contract the lens as easily for near focus items.  For most people, this happens right around the time they turn 40, plus or minus a few years.

Fortunately for me, my far focus is fantastic.  Also good is the fact that both of my eyes are nearly identical.  The end result is that I’m able to skate by with a cheap pair of +125 reading glasses I picked up at the drug store for about ten bucks.  Still, I’m not quite the spring chicken I used to be.

A tree that was sheared off in our front yard

On September 14, the remnants of Hurricane Ike combined with a powerful upper level jet stream, resulting in about 6 hours of hurricane force (70-75mph gusts) winds in central Ohio.  Hundreds of thousands of people lost power – with some having to wait up to a week to get it restored.  The damage around town is pretty significant, with downed trees and limbs everywhere.  We lost a couple of major trees and were without power for about 10 hours (we were lucky).  Westerville Schools were canceled for two days.

Roasting marshmallows around the fire

This past weekend, our family joined two other families in a campout at Hocking Hills State Park.  Although the weather was hot through the day, we avoided the raindrops.  Highlights include:

1. Cooking in a borrowed cast iron dutch oven turned out great – we used it for four meals with the best being a pork tenderloin mixed with veggies. 
2. Hiking at 3 of the 6 areas in the park (Old Man’s Cave, Rock House, and Conkle’s Hollow)
3. Swimming in the campground pool

Our daughter has had a great time playing softball this year.  I’ve been taking pictures of the team through most of the year and here are a few of the better ones of Cassady.

Mix:

• 1 part sunny day
• 1 part first day of summer vacation
• 2 parts kids
• 2 parts water cannons

Serves: family of four

Our family just back from a fun trip east for Spring Break.  We flew into and out of Portsmouth, NH on Skybus – our first trip on the discount airline (our tickets were $35 each way).  From there, we drove northwest around Lake Winnipesaukee (visiting Julie’s old camp in the process) and then onto Portland, Maine where we spent the night.  The next day, we headed to Boston and spent the next several days seeing the sights.   Of course, pictures tell a better story, so check out the photo gallery of the trip.

On March 7 and 8 of 2008, central Ohio was buried under the biggest snowfall on record for these parts.  The prior record of snow in one day in Columbus had been 12.2 inches with 15.3 inches the record snowfall for a single storm.  With this blizzard, the official snowfall on Saturday the 8th was 15.4 inches and the storm total over the two days was 20.4 inches at Port Columbus Airport.  In our backyard, we seemed to max out at about 16 or 17 inches total from the storm.  In between the shoveling and playing, we managed to snap a few pictures.

One of the family highlights of 2007 was a trip to Alaska.  Julie, Matthew, and Cassady traveled via RV with Jamie and Dave.  Mike flew up and met them for several days a few weeks later.  Some of the best pictures from the trip have been captured in this photo album.

This is Nate Arbabi. Born October 9, 2006 at 8:32pm (PDT) and weighing in at 6 pounds and 8 ounces. My new nephew. I’m so happy for Deb and Amir.