Category Archives: Family Stories

September 25, 2015

Uncle John’s Journey to Blue Jay

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California is renowned for its Indian Summers. As the season wanes, warm weather persists – perfect for an afternoon out on the lake with friends and family.

The Welker family spent many summers in Lake Gregory, a small town in the San Bernardino Mountains. Brothers occupied their time finding various ways to torture their sister, Winnie, and/or create other manners of mischief. (For Harry Potter fans, I have always envisioned older brothers Bill and Ray as the muggle version of Fred and George Weasely.)

Little Johnny Welker was the youngest of the bunch. Continue reading →

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January 22, 2015

Three Years Gone By

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I spent this morning’s commute trying to explain to my sons the concept of death. Continue reading →

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December 29, 2014

The Annual Holiday Letter – 2014

2014 holiday card

My email address hasn’t changed in seven years (and that was only because I got married and changed my name). During that same time period, there were three physical residences.

It’s hard to keep track of people’s addresses these days. Maybe because snail mail has become a relic to the point where our (now 4.5-year-old) Search and Destroy think the “mailman” drives the UPS truck. (Tangent: Happy Holidays. Love, Amazon) Continue reading →

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December 1, 2014

Communication Confusion and When 94 is a Flunking Grade

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I was just finishing up a project after spending the wee hours of the morning driving down to Gramma and Papa’s house. I signed off, “Without further ado…”

“Don’t you mean adieu?” inquired Gramma J.

Did I? Ah, mother. “When you depart from me sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.” (Apparently from Shakespeare’s “Much Adieu About Nothing.”) Perhaps this called for a song to appropriately end a conversation of such foolish or unnecessary talk. “So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu. Ado, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yooo…”

Continue reading →

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September 4, 2014

Fun with Fishing

Caden fishing

Search and Destroy received fishing rods for their birthday. So this past weekend, we headed to a local pond where a friend had assured us fish were practically leaping out of the water to eat bait.

“That was the thing about nature: make one lousy rule to describe it and it’ll contradict you even if it has to transmogrify and metamorphosize and bust its ass to do it.”
– The River Why, David James Duncan Continue reading →

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March 25, 2014

Stop Wine with the Septuagenarian

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PapaStavo turned 70 over the weekend.

In 1944, $1 was the equivalent of $12.43 today. Europe was in the throws of World War II. But in a small abode precariously situated in the province of Verona, Italy, a boy was born.

So I packed up the boys and headed south for the celebratory shindig. Continue reading →

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February 20, 2014

How Many Times Can I Say This

Blogiversary

Today I realized this little blogging endeavor of mine has been going on over four years. My sons’ lives have quite literally been blogged since birth. In no way has my story ever arced the way I expected – I guess that’s partially what keeps me writing.

Thank you for being part of my journey, and for reading the highlights behind the headaches and hilarity that Search and Destroy bestow upon their ever expanding world.

In honor of Stream of the Conscious’ fourth blogiversary, I give you a few of the more memorable comments I’ve actually heard myself saying. Continue reading →

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February 6, 2014

TechMom Tuesday: The Next Generation

TechMom

I write a monthly column over at AlliOSNews. It’s a techie site – extolling all the goodies and gunpowder on the Apple OS. (SHINY TOY!) I’m TechMom. And these are my stories on how technology is really used. This is what you must deal with, as I am a Silicon Valley nerd by day.

I’m well aware it’s Thursday. TechMom Tuesday is typically published the first Tuesday of every month, and this month I’m all nostalgic about the future. (Oxymoron on purpose unless you’ve got a flux capacitor.) I reserve the right to rant more or less as the technical goings-on, well…go on. Continue reading →

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December 16, 2013

Radioactive Dad (or when cancer makes you a superhero)

Note from Jon:
To those of you that I work with or are friends with and are hearing about this for the first time, I want you to know it’s not because you weren’t important enough to find out or even that it was a big secret. I didn’t tell a lot of people because of the gut reaction people have when they hear the word “cancer.” Having done all the research and knowing that it would all work out fine, I chose to handle this privately rather than unnecessarily place the burden of worrying on people. I’m sorry if I may have hurt feelings. This was the choice I made because to me the whole thing was just a bump in the road and not anywhere close to the gravity of the issues that other people deal with, even within my workplace.  For those of you that knew and offered help and support, we thank you. 

Brothers_With Dad

Cancer. The word strikes fear into the hearts of many. But it’s so broad, diverse. And thanks to medical research and innovation, the C word is much more likely to be a chronic (treatable) disease as opposed to a death sentence. Continue reading →

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October 9, 2013

Barely Legal

Mitch_Reading

Eighteen years ago I was a sophomore in high school. (It just occurred to me that I have been out of high school longer than it took me to get through it.)

Today my cousin Mitch turned 18. Continue reading →

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