Three photos taken with my iPhone on Saturday, February 7, between 12:30 and 4:45 in Phelan, California, where the Almquist family were the recipients of a home makeover (actually a from-the-ground-up new house) courtesy of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
More than 1,000 spectators turned out to see the unveiling, which was originally scheduled for 2 p.m., although weather delayed the crew finishing the house. (They were still doing touch-up painting on the outside, and presumably more stuff inside, as I saw two decorators carrying around a tall black vase with white dots in the last few hours and other crew members ferrying small palm trees around on the back of a golf cart.)
The everyone-but-Ty-Pennington cast do a walk along the road to wave to the spectators.
Shortly before the reveal at 4:42. The temperature has dropped to 39 degrees and cleared out a few hundred of the spectators. (I estimate, at their peak, there were just under 2,000 of them, back when it was sunny and warmer.)
The tan dot in front of the bus is Ty Pennington, rehearsing his script as the Almquist family’s limo drives toward Phelan.
Throughout my almost-five-years at the Hesperia Star, I’ve seen a lot of value in having several shirts with the Hesperia Star logo over the breast pocket.
It’s a quick way for people to spot me if they need to talk to a reporter at a meeting. It’s a quick way of getting past the gatekeepers to get into an event. It even makes folks at school sites a little less uncomfortable with having some strange dude with a camera roaming around campus.
In addition, I’ve got a baseball cap with the Star’s logo on it, which I got as a way to combat the Victor Valley’s blowing dust and grit in early summer each year.
On a day like today, when I’m out at the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition site in Phelan, when it’s 46 degrees with icy rain being blown sideways by the wind, the cap also works to provide warmth and a little bit of shelter from the elements.
If I’d remembered to bring it.
It serving as a cubicle decoration is almost as useful, of course.
Wikipedia defines a cursor thusly:
A cursor is a moving placement or pointer that indicates a position. English-speakers have used the term with this meaning since the 16th century, for a wide variety of movable or mobile position-markers.
Note that it says nothing about being computer-generated or anything of the like, which makes James’ new cursor use Wikipedia-approved.
While his language use has picked up a great deal in the last two weeks — he refers to the fish tank as “shhhh!” and runs around the house yelling “CAT!” at a shell-shocked Hanna and Lucky — he’s also taken to using human cursors. Specifically, his parents’ hands.
James’ new trick is to grab me by the finger and drag me behind him to something he wants, whether it’s an object that he thinks is a toy (a bright plastic can of fish food), an actual toy placed out of reach or as a silent plea to unlock a baby gate leading to the study or the bathroom. (He’s actually started asking for baths, too.)
This is a cute behavior, except for the death-grip he gets one’s finger in before running toward the object of his interest. Still, between this and the language use, it feels like we’ve reached another important milestone.
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