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at a glance
Tribune, Kansas
Robyn:
mom and doctor
currently plotting paint schemes, linens, and curtains
Jonathan:
dad, blogger, artist
currently writing lots for GeekDad
Ridley:
first grader
currently complaining about something
Hania:
three years old
currently doing a funny dance
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Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The End of an Era
When we first started News of the Lius (nearly eight years ago!) there weren't a ton of options for blogging, and Blogger seemed like an easy way to get started. Along the way, there were lots of changes and updates, and thanks to our good friend Dave we've had a server for our site and help getting technical issues worked out.
But now, for various reasons, our site's setup will no longer work with Blogger. As of May 1, they're shutting down their FTP support (which is what I use) so we're forced to make a transition. That promised site redesign (three years ago) never happened but apparently in a couple more days I won't have any choice in the matter. So, this is just a little announcement that we're currently in transition. I'm trying to figure out this WordPress install—particularly importing the last eight years of News of the Lius into the new format—but we've had some glitches that we're still working out.
And in the meantime this week we're working toward a deadline on painting at the house since the electrician is coming. Oh, and did we mention that Robyn's leaving tomorrow for Kansas City for a conference? So, yeah, this might not be a very smooth transition period. Rest assured, News of the Lius will continue, but if you don't see some new posts for a little while, that's why.
Maybe I need to put up a little "under construction" image. Here you go: 
jonathan
Monday, April 12, 2010
Why We Do What We Do
A little over three years ago, when we were trying to decide where we would go after Robyn finished residency at OHSU, we really struggled with the options available to us. We wrestled with whether to return to Kansas (driven partly but not exclusively by Robyn's KMS loan repayment) or stay in Oregon, where we had built up close friendships and really felt at home. Kansas had always been where Robyn had her roots, her family, and a real need for more doctors all across the state. Oregon had become our adopted home, with a church we loved, a neighborhood we'd grown into, and a place where I was learning to be a real artist.
When we decided on Tribune, Kansas, as our future home, Robyn and I both described a little bit about what drew us here, but I really didn't get into much detail at the time, and I just realized that in the way that life sweeps us along, I never did get back to all the reasons why we decided on Kansas, why we decided on Tribune of all places.
Today I came across this post about the "importance of story," about Don Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Chris Brogan is asking for us to tell why story is important, and it made me think about what I'd heard Don say back while we were in Portland. We went to the same church as Don, and occasionally he was asked to speak on Sunday mornings. One week, when we were still in the midst of making our decision, he talked about stories.
He said that most of us believe that we are the main characters of the story: after all, "I'm in every scene!" And, thinking that we are the protagonists, we often try to live our lives in a way that befits the most important character. We try to make our story interesting, or follow some defined arc, but ultimately we are not the ones in control of the story. Maybe we're minor characters in somebody else's story. I remember he made the point that when we let God do the writing, amazing things can happen, because God can write much more interesting stories than we can.
At around the same time, our pastor Rick gave a sermon about Abraham. And I don't remember what the sermon itself was about, but I remember thinking about Abraham leaving his home to go to some land he'd never been to, following this promise from God that he would become a great nation. And I thought about all the stories I'd heard about people who stepped out in faith—and that very seldom do we hear about people who stayed put in faith and didn't change anything.
Oh, and there was also the book Life of Pi by Yann Martel, which was also about what makes a better story. What makes for a better story, I asked myself: striking out into the unknown and arriving in Portland, and then discovering that we liked it there and staying? Or, leaving a city that we loved for a tiny town in western Kansas, far from family and friends and any resemblance to the life we once had?
There were other reasons, too, some of which Robyn and I have mentioned before: the can-do attitude we encountered here, the incredible hospital and staff we met, the feeling that this was a place where we could really make an impact. But I know that the idea of the story had a big impact on me, and it's a big part of the reason we're here now.
When we first made our decision, a lot of my friends worried about how I would handle it. They couldn't believe that I'd willingly leave Portland for Tribune. Here we are, nearly three years later, and I'm thriving. Sure, there are things that I still miss about Portland, and things I wish I could magically change about Tribune. However, this period of my life, however long it lasts, is one that I wouldn't trade for anything. It's a part of my story now, and I dare anyone to say that it hasn't been interesting.
jonathan
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Spring Break in Portland
What with being on spring break, getting sick (and caring for sick kids), filing our taxes and just general frantic post-vacation catching up, I haven't gotten around to writing about our Spring Break trip yet. So, here we are finally. Of course, we also took oodles of photos but I try to limit things a little bit, so here are some highlights. (And when time allows, we'll have a few on the girls' pages too.)
We stayed with our friends Chaling and Kuangpin this time, over on the west side. They were wonderful hosts and took us straight from the airport to Wong's King for dim sum when we arrived. Staying on the west side meant being closer to visiting Nate, and I was also able to make a short trip to Rainy Day Games (a store I'd only been to a handful of times before because it was such a long drive). However, it also meant longer drives over to the east side to our old stomping grounds. Still, it was lovely to have plenty of space (and no cats).
 We spent the week visiting friends, eating at our favorite restaurants, and just soaking up the Portland atmosphere. Here Robyn is enjoying a snuggle and a video with the girls. (They're at Ian and Becca's, watching "Here Comes Science" by They Might Be Giants.)
 One evening we went back to our old duplex and had dinner with our former neighbors Aaron and Eva. We finally got to meet their baby girl, Olive, and had a fantastic home-cooked meal (including some amazing macaroni and cheese). This photo just shows Aaron but Robyn thought it was a great Norman-Rockwell-ish picture.
 And, of course, our other former neighbor and good friend, Lynn, joined us as well. She's since moved out of the apartments and over to her nearby corner store/apartment, and we stopped by to visit her there as well. As always, she spoiled the girls and they loved every minute of it. But as we were headed over to visit her, I was on autopilot and drove pretty much to our old apartments before I realized I was going to the wrong place. She said that's not the first time it's happened.
 Since Nate lives over on the west side very close to where we were staying, we got to spend a good deal of time with him, both at his house and making some short outings, which was a lot of fun. Since his birthday was while we were in town, we celebrated with some Miracle Fruit tablets. Many of us had been tantalized by this article in the New York Times years ago, describing a fruit that alters your tastebuds for an hour or so, making lemons taste sweet. It turns out now there are tablets available from ThinkGeek, so we ordered a package and then showed up at Nate's with lemons, limes, kiwi, strawberries, salt and vinegar potato chips, and baby carrots. It was a lot of fun and a fascinating experiment. Maybe you'll see more about it on GeekDad soon. :)
One of our other stops was OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. We didn't get to spend a lot of time there, but we did see some very cool exhibits, and the girls really enjoyed the IMAX movie "Deep Sea." One of the perks of being a GeekDad writer is that we got free passes for OMSI, and I'll be writing it up for the site later. Some of our other fun stops included the zoo, the Northwest Children's Theater performance of "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," and swimming with Ian and Becca at the Southwest Community Center. Some of these you'll see later on the girls' pages.
 Here are our girls playing Gulo Gulo with Nora and Annie. (Lily was playing games with the grownups at the time.) Ridley had wanted to go visit our friends Erik and Jaylene for a long time, so we spent the evening with them (including a very yummy dinner from Jerusalem Cafe and trying out Flemish beer for the first time), playing games and hanging out. The girls all got along wonderfully and nobody wanted to go to bed.
 At the end of the week we made it out to the Portland Saturday Market and visited Linda, the woman who makes all those adorable overalls and dresses that our kids wear. Of course we got some new outfits for the girls, which they wanted to try on right away. (You can see that Ridley is in a bad mood here for some reason.) And as always, we had a really hard time choosing because they're all so cute.
So, that's a very brief account of a wonderful trip. I didn't even tell you about going back to our old church, playing lots of games, hitting up a few bookstores, and finally getting myself some fun socks, but this post is getting pretty long as it is. I did write up a "10 Geeky Places in Portland" post for GeekDad, so you can check that out too.
 On the house front, we came back to find that the tile was all laid in our kitchen and mudroom, and most of the woodwork on the window trim was complete as well. We've got some more painting to do (I got a little more done this past week), the wood floors, and all our electrical fixtures, and then I think we're very close to being able to move in. It's hard to know for certain, but we're hoping that we can get things done around the time school ends, so that we can start moving in as soon as school's out. Wish us luck! And if you get the hankering to come out and help with anything, let us know; there's plenty of painting yet to be done in the basement!
jonathan
Friday, February 19, 2010
Stirring Things Up
I've been writing for GeekDad since last May, and I wanted to share here a little bit about that. It's a lot of fun, getting to write about geeky topics and about parenting, and it's become a pretty big part of my day-to-day activities. I think about what might be a good story, and I've even gained media contacts so that I've gotten books or games to review, which is a lot of fun. I joined Twitter mostly because that's how a lot of the contributors connect with each other, and though I was skeptical at first I've found that it's been a really cool way to share and receive information and it actually makes me feel like I've got co-workers and colleagues, people I banter with over work and parenting.
There's one particular GeekDad-related story from this week that I wanted to tell. As part of Black History Month, I wrote an article called How to Raise Racist Kids—a cheeky title intended to pique interest, obviously, but with a serious message. Most of it was culled from NurtureShock, a book I read last fall about parenting which I found very informative and eye-opening.
You can read the article for yourself if you'd like. The thing is, despite the fact that I've been writing for a while, most of my posts are reviews of things. The occasional opinion piece I've written hasn't generated a lot of feedback or response. But this particular story got picked up for the front page of Wired.com (see the red circle below):
Unfortunately Wired changed the title to "How (Not) to Raise Racist Kids" which then changed the meaning of the first few sentences and obviously confused some of the readers. The article also, according to a friend of mine, showed up on the home page of Google News briefly. Then the next day I was informed that it had been translated into French. And the Chicago Tribune's Exploring Race blog linked to it as well. And then I got to speak a little about the post during the GeekDad podcast. (It's somewhere maybe 40 minutes in or so, after we're done rambling about the east coast snowstorm.)
So while it hasn't had as many readers as some of the really crazy-popular posts on the site, it's definitely my biggest post so far and the most controversial. There are a whole lot of comments on the site (I tried to respond to some of them), ranging from agreement to reasonable objections to pretty obnoxious reactions on both ends of the spectrum, and I even got a couple of outspoken emails (one of which led to a very thoughtful conversation about race). Anyway, it's been a new experience for me, and I've really enjoyed writing for GeekDad.
Last night, there was a fundraiser spaghetti supper at the VFW, followed by an Open Mic Night at the movie theater next door. They set up some lights and a sound system, and anyone was allowed to get up and perform. When I'd talked to Ridley about it the day before, she was really excited and wanted to tell a joke and sing a song. And yesterday before we went out, she told Robyn she was going to participate. And during dinner. But when we walked into the theater (we were early, so there were only three or four people sitting down) she was struck with stage fright. I said, hey, we can test out the microphones while nobody's here, but she wouldn't even say "hello." Throughout the evening we would ask her every so often if she wanted to get up and tell her joke, or if she'd sing if we all went up with her, etc., but she just wouldn't do it.
However, because there were very few people who signed up (Kevin, the theater manager, played guitar and sang several songs, and Ralph, a local high-schooler, got up and sang a few songs) we ended up getting up do to a few acts as well. I read my old poem "Descartes Stops Here" and Robyn recited Rebecca, Who slammed Doors for Fun and Perished Miserably which she memorized ages ago and still remembers. We tried getting Ridley to tell her joke with us but she wouldn't even give the punchline, so in the end Hania said it. "What's tunafish plus tunafish?" "Fournafish." Ba-dum-bump. I played a song on the very out-of-tune piano, and Robyn and I sang a few songs. It was a fun night, but I really wish we'd had a few more participants because it really just became the Kevin, Ralph, and Liu Family show. Maybe next time we'll have better luck!
 We've been making more progress on our house! Here's a photo of the first floor bathroom, which now has a lovely tile floor instead of the nasty vinyl. We've painted the walls green and the ceiling will be a dark green (still some more touch-up to do), and they hadn't gotten the edging done yet when we took the photo but it should probably be done this weekend. The best part is that now we've got the toilet back in so we have a working bathroom again, which will be really nice.
We still haven't gotten gutters on the outside, but we have two things to figure out before then: first, we need to have snowblocks installed because snow slides off metal roofs very quickly and would probably rip off the gutters if we have a heavy snowfall. The second is that the foam insulation over clay tile bricks doesn't make for a good base to attach downspouts, so we're trying to work out a solution to that. Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing I tried to work out ahead of time but nobody could give me definite answers until now, when it's a bit late.
 And here's a couple photos showing the progress upstairs. The top photo shows the color scheme we went with for the girls' playroom: a sky blue (which we also used in the basement utility room) and a bright pink. This photo was taken before the second coat so there's still some spots which have since been touched up. You can see the windows here before we had the interior trim installed, and the bottom picture shows the new window trim (not yet stained). It'll be a little different here than the rest of the house because of the limitations from the eaves and ceiling height.
Robyn was in Topeka on Thursday, so she stopped in Salina and got us the tiles for our kitchen and front entry, and a bunch more paint for the first floor. We're getting closer to finishing up painting. Some of it depends on how creative we want to get—we didn't want just plain off-white walls and tried a bunch of colors, but one experiment with blending in the bathroom didn't go so well and we painted over it. But I'm hoping at least in the basement to have a little fun with the paints and not just have solid-colored walls. Talk to me in a month and see how that's going!
Well, that's all my news for now. Robyn had a really crazy week too, with call nights and unexpected babies and a meeting in Topeka, but I'll let her tell that story herself later if she likes.
Update: I just found out this evening, after I wrote this post, that my post about racism and kids went popular on Digg. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the site allows you to "digg" a link that you like (or "bury" one that you don't), as a way to share cool stuff with people. If enough people digg a post, it becomes "popular" and gets listed on the front page ... at least until it gets bumped by other stuff. Anyway, another first for me; generally my posts don't get any diggs at all, so having one go popular is kind of exciting.
Also, it showed up on AngryAsianMan.com, which I think is kind of funny.
jonathan
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Resolutions
Our New Year's Resolution:
Finish our house, and move in!
Right now we've still got a lot of painting to do, and we're focusing on the upstairs and the first floor bathroom. Once those are done, we can get the window trim done upstairs, and then we can let the kids run around upstairs while we work on the rest of the house. As it is now, there's not really a good place for them to be that isn't just dusty and dirty, so usually only one of us is able to go work at a time.
But hopefully we can get the rest of the house painted, then get the window trim finished, and then do the flooring. There's also the matter of getting all our electrical fixtures in, and some finishing off with various plumbing and HVAC stuff. As you can see from the photo, the exterior is pretty much done except for the gutters (and backfilling all the dirt). But our deck is complete, and the sidewalk is all done, so we're happy with that.
Have a happy new year, and start planning when you'll come out to visit. And if we're not done with the house yet, you can just pitch in! :)
jonathan
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