Driver

Owen got his learner's permit before Christmas 2022 and started on his required 40 hours of driving with some lessons with Grandpa Don. Over the course of the next year and a half, he did hours of professional driving lessons, lots of driving shifts on the way to and from Iowa, plenty of driving from Iowa City to the pond and back, some late night drives back from the Telfair-Cha's (thanks Owen!), and a several hours of intensive parallel parking practice before his first try at the road test. 

He had finished all the required hours so we scheduled a test before he left for Stanford. Owen drove us over to the DMV and instructor confirmed he could use our car (the parking brake requirements weren't entirely clear). The first thing they had him do was parallel park between two sets of cones in the DMV parking lot. It turns out all the practicing we did regarding real world parallel parking conditions wasn't quite what we needed to prepare Owen for the DMV requirements: you can only reverse once and pull forward once during your attempt, and the cones and cement block didn't quite provide the visual cues Owen had practiced with. Owen was more than 12" from the 'curb' and so the test was immediately terminated and they told him to come back and try again. Just for good measure, I tried parking between the cones and didn't manage to get close enough on my attempt, so it really wasn't easy.

We scheduled another try for the morning after Owen got home from Stanford (wanting to give us enough time for one more try before Iowa if needed). After reviewing a few DMV approved parallel parking tips, Owen was up for another try. This time the instructor told us we couldn't use our car, so Owen had to use one of the DMV cars for his test. I was nervous, but Owen wasn't phased and he nailed the parallel parking on his first attempt. 

Last time they didn't let him try any of the rest of the driving exam, so he wasn't sure what he was in for, but it turned out all he had to do was drive a few blocks around the neighborhood and he was done. We had a little scare when going through the paperwork to verify his 40 hours, it turned out that the 10 hours of night driving didn't count (the 40 hours need to be before 9pm, and the 10 hours of night driving are needed for your full license, not your provisional license), but he was just 30 minutes shy of 40 and the friendly people at the DMV let me add the time he was driving that morning to get him to 40, and we officially have a licensed driver!

Legal Eagle

Despite our best efforts, neither of our offspring has expressed any interest in going into economics. And while it's been a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, Allen and I are trying to be supportive of Owen's interest in the law. During the pandemic he started following a series of lawyers on Youtube that discussed various civil rights issues and court cases. Then last summer he participated in a week long program at Howard Law School which only fueled the fire. So this year, when he was invited to a 10 day Law Intensive at Stanford, it was kind of a no brainer.

They didn't lie about the intensive part. Owen started his day at 8:30 in the morning and didn't make it back to his dorm room until after 9 pm, which was after his Eastern Time Zone parents' bedtime. There was coursework and prep work and lots of reading. And while there was a little time at Fisherman's Wharf and general merriment, most of Owen's time was spent preparing for their trial, where Owen played an art thief who turned states evidence (a role he was oddly good at). 

Owen really loved it, and it was a nice way to ease in to the whole college life thing. Hopefully, the experience will cement his intention to study the law, and keep him on the right side of it...

(click here for all the pictures)

Here's to Good Friends...

When Owen started at Duke Ellington, he kind of had to give up baseball – Duke didn't have a team, and Owen's class schedule didn't exactly support joining a travel one. At the same time, the Nationals were in a bit of a rebuilding period, and so there wasn't a whole lot of interesting baseball to watch.

But with school ending, James Woods joining the Nationals and the prospect of college intramural baseball in the offing, Owen's gotten back into baseball which has meant watching lots of highlights, quoting stats to his father, and even meeting up with his daycare best friend Leo for a game.

Owen was supposed to see Leo at Leo's Eagle Scout Ceremony, but I messed up the time and location resulting in our briefly hanging out by ourselves in his yard playing stickball before leaving his card in the mailbox and heading home. We tried to meet up after, but Owen had prom and left for the beach while Leo had graduation and immediately left to be counselor at Boy Scouts Camp.

But the stars eventually did align and Owen and Leo were able to spend Leo's 18th birthday watching the Nats beat the Met's in what's being referred to as the best game of the season, which is only right since they spent Owen's 6th birthday watching the the same thing.