MSRH - Not gonna make it........

[GlennCMC70]

I had made it a priority to make every event of 2015 since I had been missing so many events the past couple years. Alot of this in years past was work related due to our company aquiring towers from other companies the last 2 years running (17,000 towers in 2 years). I figured that was behind me going into 2015. My kids are the other reason. They really do consume your time, and more and more each and every year. Both my girls play 3 seasons of softball each year (spring, summer, fall). They both play basketball in the off season (which I also help coach both of them). Add to that, my oldest made the middle school basketball team this year. So she is doubled up this "off season". This often requires myself and my wife to take a kid each and head off in opposite directions, sometimes once or twice mid week as well. Not complaining though.

So, on to the point. I had planned to be there for MSRH w/out the car (likely parked all year) and put alot of attention towards the series. Well yesterday work dumped on me big. Our company is making a bid on Verizon's towers. 12,500 of them. I had to drop everything and scout sites on my company's behalf. Deadline is Friday COB. Got a long list. Working 12hr days all week and I'm trying to squeeze in another work project at the same time. I just don't have it in me to drive down Friday night After what is going to be a long week. Plus we have another weekend of madness coming w/ kid sports. Karlie was suposed to tryout for a softball team today, but it was moved to Sat. She also has a basketball game that day. The kicker is Morgan has a game as well and it is out of town. Karlie's tryout now conflicts w/ Morgan's game and my wife will not be able to get them both to where they need to be. I have to be here in order for that all to happen. I can't justify being gone all weekend.

What I hope is my last college class starts Tuesday as well. Runs through May.

W/ that said, Al has agreed to fill in for me this weekend.


FYI - Parking the car for the year as I plan to use the money for racing on a new short block (402/408 stroker) fo rthe tow rig - it has 175K on it.
My kids sports will start to drop off as Morgan is taking all honors classes and she is realizing the attention those need and that sports will need to take a back seat.
College is almost done...... i hope.

Hang in there w/ me guys as I push through this next 6 months.

F'ing bathroom still isn't done................

[Storm Trooper]

You will be missed!

[ShadowBolt]

None of my business but IMHO you are letting your kids do way too much. Hell one year after Jay played Little League he signed up for "Fall Ball". I F'ing hate baseball at any level except collage so after playing two seasons back to back I said "never again". The Fall Ball is out. From then on he just played Football so we only had one sport per year to deal with. Now if your girl/girls are good enough to get collage paid for playing a sport I would only play that one since that could save you a hundred grand for each kid. Like I said though none of my business.

We will talk about you Sat. night.


Jerry

[Alien]

F'ing bathroom still isn't done................

Guess the guy with the mule wasn't that helpful.

[GlennCMC70]

None of my business but IMHO you are letting your kids do way too much. Hell one year after Jay played Little League he signed up for "Fall Ball". I F'ing hate baseball at any level except collage so after playing two seasons back to back I said "never again". The Fall Ball is out. From then on he just played Football so we only had one sport per year to deal with. Now if your girl/girls are good enough to get collage paid for playing a sport I would only play that one since that could save you a hundred grand for each kid. Like I said though none of my business.

We will talk about you Sat. night.


Jerry

I'm sure I will be the subject of several pointed conversations. Wouldn't expect anything less.

As for the kids - advice always welcome from anyone who has lived on this Earth as long as you (ha,ha).
I totally get what your saying. I know my kids will never get into college on a sports ride.
My goal is to keep them doing something all the time. I don't want them to know what its like to lay around the house w/ time to get into trouble and learn to be lazy. They have always been kept busy. They know nothing else. I was raised the same way. My daily life was taking care of horses and other animals before and after school. I played all sports all year, summer baseball as well. Obviously school during the day and I had a job at night once I got old enough.
Morgan is always trying to add new stuff to the list. We work w/ her to keep it cut down if you can believe that.
Karlie is not so driven. She can get stressed more easily. She will likely end up on a travel softball team this year.

My thoughts are that once they are in college, it will seem like a breeze compaired to what they are used to doing. I also hope this pace will set in and they will always seek this level of "staying busy".

[GlennCMC70]

Guess the guy with the mule wasn't that helpful.

A couple hours after that happened, Morgan asked if we were getting a mule.
Kids.......

[ShadowBolt]

A couple hours after that happened, Morgan asked if we were getting a mule.
Kids.......

The mule deal had me rolling on the floor. We will miss you this weekend.


JJ

[AllZWay]

Glenn... It is funny how you and our kids have followed a similar path and thus led to the same tough decisions. I haven't missed the racing as much as expected, but do get the itch pretty bad after watching everyone's videos.... and I really miss hanging and shooting the BS with everyone. I really enjoy having the extra cash to spend on other things though. I just bought another freaking Triumph TR7...I currently own three of these disasters.

I have heard the same story of our kids doing too much and Jaycie probably is doing too much. The problem is that she is pretty good at three sports, soccer, basketball, and volleyball and also good at band. If you don't let them play now, they get behind the other kids that do play and it would limit her high school chances to play. She loves to play and compete, so we hate to limit it and so far she is still maintaining straight A's in class so we don't see the need to limit her.

At some point she does have to pair it down and starting next year she is giving up band first. In high school, she will probably have to pick two sports that don't have conflicting schedules.

[Rob Liebbe]

Glenn,

Just keep in mind that you don't want to push your agenda on your kids too much. If they are enjoying playing that much then it is a great thing. If they aren't, it can lead to resentment and turn into anger against the parents. Also keep in mind that they can love it for many years and then turn on a dime and want to quit suddenly. A sudden change or stop can be especially hard on the parents who have spent extraordinary time, money and self-sacrifice and who then get mad at the kids for "quitting".

We don't push our kids much at all. They played soccer and baseball when younger but we could tell it just wasn't their thing. We also never felt compelled to keep up with the other kids or falling behind in sports. We have let them sort of choose their own areas of interest or activities. As a result, or boys have developed interest areas that others may not; aviation (the older one flies glider), art (they both have spent hours upon hours creating toys out of wood or building ships to sink in the pool - it has also lead to learning copper soldering, welding and woodworking), video (they create stop action animations), building (a lot of creative free-form Lego projects), scuba and snorkeling, fishing, cars, old mechanical typewriters, models, music, the list goes on.

We still require that they work hard at school and maintain good grades. This is very important to us.

Also, don't forget that a little downtime is not a bad thing. They need it, parents need it, it is a good thing. I understand that you don't want a couple of couch potatoes, nobody does and also believe in good work ethic and striving to do good work, something that is diminishing at an alarming rate in this country. We use a program to limit computer time, try to limit TV time, and will have what we call "no plug-in" days with no computer, TV or any mindless electronics. Heck, I bet my kids haven't touched the Wii in months. They do play a lot of air warfare games on the computer, but still within their time limits. However they must maintain good grades and perform regular chores around the house and help with bigger projects. It really pisses me off if I'm working around the house and the kids are inside sitting on their asses. This situation usually causes some sort of "discussion" between me and the wife.

Y'all are doing a good job with your girls, it was clearly evident the few times when I have seen and interacted with them. Keep up the good work and don't worry, in a few years you can be an old guy like Jerry running all the races you want.

[GlennCMC70]

James - we told Morgan no on band. Drew the line there.
Morgan is A's and B's but is a 7th grader taking 8th grade classes.