Cha nào con nấy (like father like son)

After two days of strenuous work, my dad has finished flooring all but the bedroom, mainly because we packed it full of stuff from the rest of the house. The kitchen has a bright bamboo floor now and the living room is a beautiful contrast of auburn/brown Manchurian walnut. The bill for the wood alone will put us on the mì gói list for a while, but it was well worth the effort. Usually, house improvements like this are a little disappointing - after all the planning and shopping around and buying and installing, the finished product doesn't look quite like the image on the advertisement. I hear, "This isn't the same color we picked at the store." all the time from DIY home fixer-uppers. But this has surpassed my expectations. Pictures are forthcoming.

The real reason I needed to blog tonight is because something hit me today (for the third time in the last few months) - I'm a lot like my dad. I know, I know, "Like father, like son" is such a cliché, but it's dang true. Over Christmas break, my wife and I stayed at my parents for a couple weeks to celebrate the holidays (in the snow rather than in sunny socal). As we were driving with my dad from the airport, he was texting back and forth with my brother about their weekend plans. "You know, I'm just barely becoming slightly less technology illiterate." he said as he typed (and drove). I had been thinking the same thing at work for the last few days as I pushed my mad Access skills to the limits by adding relationships to my tables and making a query. Different level of technology? Yes, but we still share the joy of learning something new, no matter how much more proficient other people might be at it.

The next instance happened on the same trip. One icy morning my dad and I decided to take a "walk" up the canyon. This walk turned out to be a 6-mile speed trek over snow-covered roads that left my heels and socks soaked in blood (stupid Shoe City shoes). The whole way up, I kept thinking, "Man, dad's trying to kill me." Did he not remember that I've lived at 58 feet above sea level for the last 5 years? Did he not realize that we were thousands of feet higher than my lungs' homeostasis and still climbing with every step? All this, but I was determined to keep my mouth shut. My lungs and heels might be bleeding bright red, but I ain't gonna say a word. I'm not a pansy. I figured dad must have loved watching me heave my way up and down that mountain, and I didn't want to ruin it by complaining. However, once we got home, I overheard someone in the kitchen ask dad how it went. He said, "That kid just kept going. I think he was trying to kill me."

Lastly, in preparing to replace our awesome carpet with hardwood, I read up on the installation techniques so I could look for potential problems before we started installing. The first item on the checklist was to check the underlayment to see if it is cement or wood. "Well, duh," I thought, "we're on the second floor. Of course it's wood. Who in their right mind would put cement on the second floor?" My wife and I measured our tiny place, ordered the wood, moved the furniture and started ripping up the old flooring. Lo and behold, right under the first tile of fake linoleum lay a smooth gray surface - none other than Mr Cement! I called dad right away to warn him. After hearing my announcement, he said, "That's funny because I just talked to my flooring guy and he said that the underlayment might be cement. I told him, 'No way, who would lay cement on the second floor?'"

Sorry about the text-heavy, pic-light post. I'll rectify that as soon as we get the desktop set up again. It has all the pictures on it.