Monkey live in the jungle, robot work in a factory

The best Onion video ever

2007-09-28T03:38:14Z

I haven't posted on either blog in a long while, so here's a quick one. The Onion now has a video section and they do all sorts of fake news broadcasts. One segment is "In the Know" where a group of panelists discuss issues facing the world. One episode was 4 panelists talking about whether we should build a moat around the US, another was "Should we be shaming our obese children more?" They're always pretty funny because of the seriousness of the news discussion on completely rediculous topics. Like all things on theonion, it is satire. Today they had a new one, and I died laughing. For your enjoyment in case you haven't seen it:

In The Know: With Allegations Of Fraud In The Election Of Umaru Yar’Adua In Nigeria, How Will Global Petroleum Markets React, Especially Considering Their Understandable Wariness Faced With The Ongoing Civil Strife And Crumbling Infrastructure In The Niger Delta?

Posted a few more blogs

2007-08-03T20:23:08Z

I've posted a few more blogs on blogger. I had a bunch in "edit" mode and I finally got around to finishing them. It's been too busy lately! :)

New Blogs

Topics:

Return to Mount Lemmon
Flowers is an Herbivore
My Son the Vegetarian
Photography
Homeschooling

New blogspot entry

2007-07-26T18:41:18Z

Company for dinner

I think I'll try and keep referencing new entries to my uber-cool blogspot for a while. Just so they show up on my friend's queue's. :)

It's time to say goodbye.

2007-07-25T21:34:12Z

Well, I think it's time to say goodbye to the ol' livejournal. I've enjoyed writing on here quite a bit, but then I was shown this lady's blog. It's a family blog by a homeschooler in Canada and it looks so much cooler than mine. The pictures on almost every entry and the clean interface are so much more pleasing on the eyes.

I've been inspired to start my own blogspot. I've been having so much fun picking out pictures and sculpting new entries that I don't have any desire to post here anymore. Until something changes, I guess I'll be hitting my friend's page only from here on out. :)

I'll see you all on your LiveJournals (unless you want to jump ship with me. :))

ttyl!

Bikes and Family

2007-07-18T15:26:46Z

I had a little trouble getting out of bed and riding the bike today. I went to the gym yesterday and rode my bike to/from work, so I was a little body weary this morning. Luckily I had prepacked everything the night before so I had lunch prepared, clothes, etc. That always makes me feel like I might as well ride. :) Plus it's still 3 bucks a day in gas savings!

Today's ride in was very pleasant. The weather is nice and warm in the mornings, and I hit nary a stoplight. Yesterday wasn't quite so nice. I had to lock up my brakes thanks to the infamous "Right Hook" car maneuver. The Right Hook is when a car whips past you on the left and then quickly turns right into a parking lot or street directly in front of you. Some drivers just can't imagine waiting an extra 3 seconds for you to roll past their turn, so they do something stupid like that. I've had it happen quite a few times and I'm always on my guard for it, but this guy was exceptionally close. My heart beat pretty fast for the remainder of the ride.

Tomorrow I am meeting my buddy Bill at Saguaro National Monument for a hill climbing experience. I brought in two lunches and an extra change of clothes so I can travel light tomorrow. I've ridden Saguaro a couple of times since Eva was born and boy oh boy is it harder than it was. It's time to kick my riding training into gear!

Kristin's Mom and Fawn brought Sam back for the school year. She was gorging on meat and cheetos and sleeping in every day in Cottonwood, but now she's back to the house of prudes. :) Summer vacation officially ends for her on Friday when her school starts back up. She says its good to be back.

We haven't done much with Kris' Mom or Fawn, but Elias is happy they are here. He's been playing with them constantly, especially since they both like to be outside and don't seem to mind the heat. Eva is still in the "lie there like a lump" stage, so the most reaction she's had to 3 more people in her house is a little bit more awake time from being passed around. Both nights when I've gotten home and held her she's immediately collapsed in my arms. :)

I'm not sure what the rest of the week holds at this point, or the weekend for that matter. We've been trying to do one cooking project a weekend. This weekend we were hoping to do Spanikoptias! Mmmmmm....

Life is good!

2007-07-13T21:04:00Z

It's been over 2 weeks since I last posted. Wow! Work has been pretty swamped lately. I spent all week in a conference room cataloging 3rd party libraries that we ship with our product. Work wise, this was probably the worst week I've ever had. Sometimes you have to do crappy work at an all around good job, and this was one of those times. I did get free Starbucks, lunch, and dinner every day/night though. So that was one nicety.

I'm glad it's over though. Now I can go back to coding. The company wants to use my build system for Tucson for the rest of the campuses, so there is much work to be done! The other campuses have different mindsets on how to do things, so I either have to adapt my system to fill their needs, or strong arm them into fitting my system. I imagine, like anything, a little (or a lot) of both will happen.

The kids are doing fantastic! Elias has really cheered up and improved in behavior in the last few weeks. I think the whole new baby thing has started settling in on him, and he's growing accustomed to it. He still loves playing with his baby sister whenever she's on the floor kicking and squirming, he's still really excited, but he's behaving and listening a lot better also. It's really nice. I think he's also been sleeping a lot better. He had been waking up at 5 am every morning wanting to climb in bed with us and cuddle with Mom. That's usually when Eva is awake and nursing, so he couldn't really do that. So then he'd just be awake. This would lead to him being tired, and therefore more grumpy and less inclined to be the sweet and loving boy we knew was in there somewhere. :) Needless to say, he's gotten used to sleeping in past 5 and he's been actually sleeping in his bed in another room. He comes in sometime between 6 and 7 or whenever we wake up.

Eva is growing and growing. She feels like she's already gotten really big to me. Her time spent awake is increasing along with her size. She still loves falling asleep on me. :) I can come home after work and Kristin will have spent the last half hour walking her around. 5 Minutes in my arms, and she's out. I think it's the lack of boobs to get in the way of her feet. Or maybe she just loves her Dad. :)

Everything else is going really well. Kris and I have been trying to reduce the amount that we go out, so we've spent a lot of evenings at home playing cribbage. I love cribbage. It's a nice simple card game that is perfect for two people. Last night we played backgammon for the first time in years. We are 1 for 1. :) I think it might be time to pull out Rummikub. We've been wanting to play Rook, but you can't really do that with 2 people. Rummikub is like Rook for 2, so it should be perfect.

Life is good!

Back at Work

2007-06-26T05:51:47Z

Today was my first day back at work since Eva was born. I spent most of the day catching up on emails and filling out HR forms for taxes, insurance, etc. I did a little bit of actual productive work, but by and large it was a catch up day.

I rode my bike to work and back and went to the gym today. It was good to be on the bike again after being away so long. My legs are a bit tired tonight, but I plan on riding tomorrow. I can't ride Thursday because my work has a mandatory meeting to watch some partner video from 5 to 9. I'm not pleased. If they want me to watch a video, that's fine, but do it during the day. Not when I'm home with my family. Bastards.

The gym was pretty tough today, but not as tough as I feared. I'm sure I'm going to be really sore tomorrow. I didn't really cut back on weight so my muscles are going to protest.

Kristin did fine with me gone all day. Elias and her had a chat early on in the morning about it being necessary for him to be good while she was home alone with he and Eva. From what I understand he did pretty well. He was asleep when I got home from work, so I got to wake him up. :) Grandma Su came to visit tonight and she won't be leaving until the end of the week. That should help a lot with me being back at work. Elias is thrilled to have her here.

I have been reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle to Elias one chapter at a time. He's liking it quite a bit. I think it's good for him to have to listen to a story with very few pictures, and chapters. I go over each chapter to summarize it after we read it and he's been getting into the story. Tonight he told me that he was Ralph and I was Keith. He was asking Kris all day to read it to him, but she's making him wait for me. :) I have the other two Ralph S. Mouse books to read after this one, so I can keep reading for a long time. I hope this is the start of a long string of chapter books we can read together. Reading to your kids is the best pass time there is. For my son, it's the only time he sits still and listens to you. :)

15 Days Old

2007-06-22T19:45:26Z

We went to Eva's 15 day old checkup today. In the beginning you have to take babies to the doctors all the time. It's a pain, but it does help identify problems if they occur. You do get a little bonus bit of statistics each visit though. Here are her 15 day old stats:

Weight: 9 lbs 1 oz - 70th percentile
Height: 21 inches - 70th percentile
Head Circumference: 14 3/4 inches - 75th percentile

She is right on par with what Elias was on his 2 week visit. If she continues to be like Elias she will quickly drop to the 5th percentile in all his stats. I don't think we make big fat babies, but we'll see. The stats vary pretty heavily at this young of an age based on who measures them, except weight, but even that can vary by scale used. She's nursing like a pro though and apparently she's growing pretty steadily.

Unlike Elias, she slept through most of the doctor visit, only waking up when moved, and then quickly falling back asleep. She fell asleep on the weighing scale for Pete's sake! Lazy little girl. :)

We all went out to eat at the Cottage Bakery and Cafe afterwards. It's a nice coffee shop/food shop with egg croissants and sticky pecan rolls. It also has an upstairs seating that is usually empty, and Elias LOVES it. He was really well behaved through breakfast and we were thankful for it. Afterwards we stopped by my work to pick a few things up and then went home. Now I think it's time to post pictures on the website. I'm a few days behind. :)

Sleep sleep sleep...

2007-06-20T21:38:32Z

Well my daughter must have disliked my earlier comments about girls being finicky. She has "slept" through the last two nights, waking only to eat and be changed. No nightly walks around the house with a wide awake baby. She's laying down on her butterfly mat grunting at Elias. Elias is laying down next to her and showing her all his toys. Including the giant car he's trying to drive over her. I suppose I should intervene. :)

Eva's umbilical cord fell off yesterday so diaper changes are much easier now. No more "Oooh I don't want to tear that off!" feelings while putting on a diaper. :) I think Eva's happier during her changes too, but that could just be me projecting.

I have the rest of the week off and then I return to work. It's been so nice being home. I haven't kept the house as nice and clean as I probably should have, but I've had fun with the family.

Yesterday's soccer practice was a total failure in regards to soccer, but it was incredibly successful in regards to Elias playing with ants in the dirt by the trash can. I'm not sure if we're going to go to another practice. We tried being forceful yesterday by having the coach come and grab him, but he just screamed and cried. I think next time I'm going to give him the option of going to soccer if he wants to, playing if he wants to, watching if he wants to, etc. I'll leave it up to him, but I think 3 years old is too young for him to be in a (loosely) organized sport. Ahh well, you live and learn.

Elias is in time out right now for being told "don't touch the puzzle" and then slowly moving his fingers toward it and then barely nudging it. Obstinate little bastard! :) He's been put in time out for stuff like that quite a lot in the last couple months. He'll learn eventually, but I'm convinced (more blatant sexism here) that boys are stupid (or just ornery). You have to tell them something over and over for it to sink in. It takes the average little boy 10 burns on the hand to learn that a stove is hot. It only takes a girl once (some don't even have to touch it). I think this continues through most of life. :)

On another kid note. I swear kids make you dumber. I remember this from when Elias was born. I've been the spaciest guy these last two weeks. I got up to get another wash rag for the dish sink and I walked into the office and opened up the stationary drawer. I cleaned the juicer this morning and forgot to clean the filter. I've started a hundred tasks and finished maybe 20 of them. I think the missing IQ returns eventually, or maybe I just stopped noticing it being gone. :)

Misc blog entry

2007-06-19T17:33:46Z

I've been meaning to do a blog entry about the events of the past week or so, but time has been short. As such, I've kept a running document with topics I was going to put into blogs. This is going to be a miscellaneous blog entry with some of that stuff in it, so sorry if it is a bit unstructured. :)

My new daughter Eva has some definite good trends. For example, so far she has only peed on Mom. I don't know why she saves herself for Mom, but for whatever reason, anytime I hand her off for a bit, she lets loose a loving stream just for her. Haha. I find this pretty hilarious. :) She's also VERY grunty. I remember this from before with Elias, but she seems way gruntier. Everything she does is accompanied with a grunt, and growl, or some other vocal manifestation of her mood. I wonder if this is indicative of her future talking. I know Elias was pretty loud and boy does he like to talk. A lot.

Now for some blatant sexism. I've noticed that Eva is far more particular than Elias. Elias would pretty much nurse whenever anything happened. If he was upset at night, you could pop a boob into his mouth and he would fall right back asleep. Eva is not so easy. She needs to be picked up, walked around, sung to a bit. I can just imagine her saying "I want you to decide what I want Dad... No, not that. No not that either..." Dang girls. Everything has to be perfect but they won't tell you what they want! :) Last night she actually slept through the night only waking up to eat. That was pretty nice (especially for me since I don't have the faculties to feed her). I had to wake up and change her 4 times, but I'm a pro at this stuff now, so I can do it without waking up much at all. Plus, now that I have already been through one kid, I'm already well adjusted to sleeping in urine and spit up. Really, just throw a towel over it and go back to sleep. It's no big deal it all. Granted, it didn't take long to get to that stage with Elias, but it's like second nature now. Babies are easy.

I'm once again finding ourselves feeling pretty odd with this whole child rearing thing. Co-sleeping, cloth diapers, breast feeding (nazi), no tv, attachment parenting, etc. I swear it makes babies easier though. Maybe not the cloth diapering (they just make babies WAY cheaper), but all the other stuff. When they're in your bed, you don't have to get up and go to another room when they want to be held. I've heard a theory that human babies are really more like marsupials with an 18 month gestational period. They spend 9 months in the womb and 9 months wanting to be next to you. It means you have to hold them all the time, but that's what slings and such are for. It also forces you to slow down a little and spend time just kicking it with your baby. Breastfeeding makes things INCREDIBLY easy. No need to lug food, wash bottles, prepare any formula. You just need to keep the wife well fed. Plus it keeps the babies smelling fresh(ish). It's usually easier on their stomachs too, so breastfed babies aren't as grumpy. My wife is also a pro now after nursing Elias for... a while. :)

All right, enough of the baby rant. Back to the events of the past week. We signed Elias up for soccer before we had Eva. We wanted to give him something to get out and do on his own with me. It's a soccer team with 3 and 4 year olds. He's one of the youngest on the team I think. He doesn't really like structured play, so this is a good experience for him. He's definitely resistant though. He's a shy boy. All those new people and new lessons kind of overload him. He also has been having a little "listening" problem lately, so that's been tricky. The first two practices were a bit rocky, and we left early on the last one because he climbed back in the bike trailer and said he was going home. I have another practice with him tonight and I'm going to try hanging back and letting the coaches batter away at him. He usually does better at listening to other people when we're not around. Hopefully I can hang back enough to let him go on his own. It's good for him to get out and interact with other adults that he doesn't know. I'm a little worried that he's not quite emotionally mature enough yet though. But it's only been two practices. Elias always take a while to warm up. We'll see tonight!

Today, Kristin and I are making lentil tamales. They're like the lentil enchiladas my brother makes, but in a tamale outer shell instead. We've really been missing having tamales around. They make such delicious snacks, dinners, lunches... The lentils are cooking right now and the house smells fantastic. I hope they turn out well. :)

One final thought before I forget to mention it at some other time. A few weeks ago we were eating dinner with Sam and talking about different types of olives. We had a salad with black olives and kalamata olives on it. Sam was talking about the olives and then she asked "What kind of olives do they use to make wine?" Ewww.... That's one she's never going to live down. :)

Happy Father's Day!

2007-06-17T13:59:28Z

First...
Happy Father's Day Dad!

...and now a short blog entry

My wife woke let me sleep in until 6 am this morning. She was up at 4:30 in the morning with Eva. She has it in her mind that 4:30 is awake and play time. She's not cranky or anything, just grunty and squirmy. My daughter has been a really easy baby so far, aside from her very early morning tendancies. Those go away though, they're not really a big deal.

Eva does grunt. A LOT. Holy cow is she a loud grunty baby. Every time you move her she grunts and groans. She doesn't really cry. I've only heard her cry once or twice (and once was for the heal prick to test her vitals). She just grunts and grunts and grunts. I've been calling her Grunty (with a terrible fake German accent).

It's time to go open a few Father's day gifts now, and then breakfast! Happy Father's Day everyone!

Happy Birthday Eva Quinn Post!

2007-06-16T05:30:07Z

Kristin started having minor contractions as the sun went down on June 5th. She wasn’t really sure they were contractions at all at first, but we decided to air on the side of caution and start preparing. We took a trip to the store to get food to eat for dinner and replace a few necessities. I was actually pretty tired because I rode my bike to work and back and went to the gym. It was an exceptionally windy day!

After we got back from the store we called the Schwarzes and asked them to keep their phone handy. Then I gave Kristin a relaxation exercise and a small massage. I conked out quickly after Elias to try and sleep a little before the contractions became heavier. Last time they started at midnight and continued all evening. I wanted to get as much sleep as possible.

Kristin woke me up at 3:30 to 4:00 am to tell me that the contractions were getting a little more intense and were definitely contractions. They were about 10 minutes apart at this point, so we both got up and started moving around. Kristin put in a batch of cookies because she wanted the house to smell good. We called and paged the midwife to let her know that the contractions had begun, and she left her house shortly after.

Around 5 am Elias woke up. He could sense that something different was going on so there was no attempt to put him back to sleep. He was hilarious. He was dead tired, but he would lean against the bed with Mom and do contractions. Then he would sit on the ground with Mom and do contractions. It was really sweet. He said he was “doing confractions with Mom”.

We called the Schwarzes and asked Kureen to head over when she could to pick up the children and ferry them back to her house. Kureen asked to attend our birth, so she was ready to go! She arrived sometime around 6 am and took Sam and Elias back to her house to be with the rest of the Schwarzes. Elias was doing really well, but he was a little distracting to have around, especially as the contractions were getting more serious. He was really excited and happy to go visit Aiden and Isaac, so he put up no resistance. Sam actually had summer school that day, but it was so easy we asked her to stay home and help out. She was ecstatic to forgo the boredom of summer school and watch the kids.

Kureen came back shortly after dropping the kids off and we all pretty much just hung out and chatted. Kristin was amazing, once again. She made not a noise through the contractions. She merely focused for a minute while I pushed down on her tailbone, and then resumed the conversation. It was really neat. She amazes me so much. Kureen kept telling her she made it look too easy!

For this birth we rented a birth tub from Bette’s (the midwife) daughter. We wanted to do a water labor last time, but we only purchased a swimming pool and Kristin’s water broke before labor began so we didn’t get to use it. This time we were prepared. The birthing tub was great. It was deep enough for us to be in, big enough for Kris and I together and it was heated to a constant temperature of 100 degrees.

Kristin climbed into the birthing tub when the contractions started to get more intense. I put on swim trunks, but remained outside until later. No need to prune up! Bette would periodically check the baby’s heart rate and she performed a couple internals to measure progress, but mostly we remained as we were. We chatted about labors, births, kids, and anything else on our minds. Kristin would pause for contractions and slowly she became less and less chatty.

I was feeling more distracted this time, and I kept forgetting to give Kristin water between contractions. It’s kind of sad really, my tasks were very simple. Lay on the back during contractions, give Kris water afterwards. Thankfully Kureen was there as a second brain to remind me to offer a little ice cold water or juice to my wife.

When women are in labor they usually spend a lot of time doing contractions at about 5 cm dilated. Then when they go from 7 to 10 it’s a reasonably short but very intense set of contractions. This is when the real work begins. Kristin didn’t go through much of a transition last time, but I remember the contractions coming on pretty strong. She also burped like a sailer last time during contractions, and we all laughed because that’s a sign. She was kind of burpy all night this time, so unlike previously we didn’t get to use that as a marker of transition. This time, she just stopped talking and I climbed into the tub with her.

The midwife did an internal inside the water while I held Kristin in the tub. She was fully dilated and ready to push, whenever the urge would strike. Woohoo! We were ready to go! This was at around 8:30 am. Phew, nothing like a good four hour labor to really take a toll!

Kristin felt the urge to push shortly after becoming fully dilated. Instead of laying on her side on the bed, she got on all fours in the birth tub (the same position she was using for contractions) and began to push. I leaned on her back constantly at this time. Once the baby starts crowning it seems like the contraction lines just blur. Kristin pushed for a hearty 15 minutes and I saw the head. At 8:48 am the baby came out and Betty pulled her out of the water! Eva Quinn had arrived!

I forgot how limp and purple they are when they first come out. They also don’t breathe for up to a minute after emerging into air. This can be a little scary when you’re holding your wife and the new limp purple baby comes out showing no signs of life. Rest assured though, after a little rubbing on the back Eva cried out! It’s a wonderful feeling to hear your baby cry for the first time.

Due to the pushing position, Kristin had a little logistical issue with the umbilical cord and her leg. After a moment of checking out the baby and realizing she was a girl, Kristin popped her leg up in the air and we moved Eva around to free up the strain on the pulsing umbilical cord. It’s kind of important for those things to stay free to pump oxygen into the baby, after all.

We moved out the birth tub quickly after nursing without gulping water proved to be somewhat tedious. Kristin took up a place on her bed with her back propped against some pillows and proceeded to attach Eva to the breast. I jumped up and fetched a platter of fruit and orange juice for the birthing athlete.

The water tub factor made this whole birth a lot cleaner. Kris still bled a bit on the bed, but Eva came out almost squeaky clean in comparison to Elias. The midwife cleaned her up a little bit and checked her vitals, then handed her back to Kristin. Now is when my job really kicked into gear. I had to call people.

First we called the Schwarzes to get Elias and Sam back over to our house to meet the new baby. Then I called my Mom, who was still in town for a conference. She decided that the conference was “basically over” at 9:30 am and packed up to see her new Granddaughter. Then I called Kris’ Mom and Grandmother and everyone else in the family I could think of. I was a mean relative. I left messages with no information at all, not even gender. I wanted to tell everyone in person that this was the first Post female in 95 years!

Elias arrived soon after we called the Schwarz house and he was BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS! He was so completely thrilled with his new baby sister, you could see his grin from a mile off. The pictures we got were fantastic. It was like a half year of emotional tension burst out of him in 10 minutes. It was almost frightening.

We spent the rest of the day calling people, talking to family, visiting with my Mom and in general just relaxing and enjoying our new baby.

I thought the last birth went as easily as a birth could. But this one was even smoother. Kristin labored like a champ for 4 hours, pushed for 18 minutes and was ready to go hiking a couple hours after birth. She was barely even tired once the initial birth energy finished coursing through her. I am still amazed by how calmly and strongly she handles this whole labor thing. I certainly got lucky in my choice of wife and mother.

Finally, here are a few stats for our new baby girl:

Eva Quinn Post
Born: June 6th, 2007 - 8:48 am
Weight: 7 lbs 14 oz.
Height: 21 inches
Head size: 10th percentile (thank goodness for small headed babies!)

Things you learn in Tucson

2007-06-05T16:05:27Z

I learned something interesting on the way home. Your eyelids have sweat glands. I learned this because I recently purchased a Sweat GUTR. You see, I sweat a LOT (Thanks Thornburgs!). This traps all the sweat that runs off your head and funnels it down by your ears. This means I no longer wear skull cap covers to absorb it. This is great because the air evaporates a lot of sweat that used to just pool up, and then drip in my eyes. However, as the heat rises I still sweat below the gutr. And I've noticed that my eyelids get sweaty. I looked it up today on Mr. Internet, you do in fact have sweat glands on your eyelids. Neat!

The honeymoon period for Tucson is over. Last night it was 81 degrees outside when we went to bed at 11 pm. That means no more opening the windows at night to let in cool air. :( Kristin got up sometime in the middle of the night and put the window fan in, but even that won't last much longer. The hot times are upon us!

Waiting for Baby

2007-06-04T16:00:49Z

No baby yet. We're in wait mode right now. The due date is this Saturday, and if this pregnancy is like the last one, Kris will go into labor that night. It's funny. Last pregnancy we took the redneck farmer birthing class (Yay Bradley Method!) and it stressed how many mothers go two weeks late. This is in contrast to a bunch of my friends and coworkers who had the more classic birth.

- Doctor says you can't go past your due date
- Induction occurs
- Labor is horrendous
- Mom gets drugs
- Mom gets tired
- Cesarean time!

Luckily midwifes don't force you to go RIGHT on your due date. Needless to say I was steeling myself for the birth to happen a week or two after the due date. Then BAM! Right on the due date the contractions start. It's NEVER supposed to happen like that. Haha. :)

This time I keep thinking (hoping) it's going to go early. Hoping because I'm looking forward to spending a couple weeks home with my family with nothing planned but to hang out and be a Dad. I'm thinking it will just because I'm excited. No rational behind it. :)

This weekend was nice and laid back. Kris and I went to see the new Pirates. I liked it. It was a little more complicated of a plot, but I like those. We also watched The Holiday on Netflix. That was REALLY good. I like romantic comedies because I'm a sap and I just like movies, and this was pretty far up there. I'm going to have to buy it one of these days.

We also went swimming over at the Schwarz's again. We really need to get Elias to take some swim lessons. He is a crazy man in the water. I wish he could swim on his own better. After this baby is born I'm going to look into a class that I can take Elias to so that he can swim with his friends. Dang all my friends who own pools and gave birth to fishes!

Now I'm back at work for the start of the work week. I hear my son is a little nuts at home. Hopefully he's in a good mood for a visit from Tatik tonight! I rode my bike to work today and will probably hit the gym. Much like a squirrel stores up food for winter, I'm trying to store up exercise for the new baby arrival. :) It's also far too nice out to drive. And each ride to work is 3 bucks in gas savings. That, my friends, is a Venti Mocha!

Bring an obscure relative to work day.

2007-05-25T20:14:40Z

The time of the new baby looms! My coworkers and I went to one last Del Taco (for a whole month!) before I take off for paternity leave. It was delicious. It was tasty. It was a good sending away. Kris isn't due for 2 more weeks, but she could go at any moment. She's like a time bomb waiting to explode.

I rode my bike to work today for the 3rd time this week. I've been in a real commuting mood. Sam finished school yesterday. All A's except one B in biology. Who uses biology anyway? That's what I say. :) Since she had the day off and I'm leaving early for the midwife appointment she decided to accompany me to work. Now that she knows how easy it is, she'll cease to be impressed by my commute to work. I wanted her to get the full Craig Work Experience, so that was one more reason to get Del.

There was no one in the office this morning so we started on "Learn to Program 101". She is a very apt pupil. She was pegging me with questions and making me explain everything until she got it. I was impressed. We've gone over fundamentals so far (what is a program, function, variable, etc) We just started on objects and classes. That's where it starts getting complicated. In a little bit here I'm going to walk her through writing her first program. I have had trouble decided what language to start with. I really like C#, but I think any new programmer needs a good knowledge of C. It really helps to know that low level stuff, even if you don't use it. I finally settled on starting in C# and teaching her C after she's more comfortable with the concept. I realized I started on Basic, then went to C. It's a good way to transition.

We had a gathering at our house last night to cook S'mores and socialize. It was fun to have everyone over and not have to do too much cooking (we bought big pizzas from Costco). The kids also love playing together and roasting marshmellows. And you can't go wrong with camp fire smell.

Now we're back from lunch and I'm trying to accomplish something small before leaving. One more midwife appointment today. One per week until the baby arrives! :)

Carnivores

2007-05-23T22:41:37Z

My son has carnivore denial. We've told him many times that his friends eat cows, chickens, pigs, and other animals. He denies it. "Aiden doesn't eat cows!" We've finally convinced him that, yes, his friends to eat meat, but he's still having trouble dealing with it.

A few nights ago Kristin, Elias and I were watching an IMAX show about beavers on Netflix Watch Now. The beavers build dams, have babies, swim in the water and in general do beaverish things. At one point a bear emerges from the forest and menacing music plays. There is a beaver on land, the bear spots it and gives chase. The beaver runs clumsily towards the water with the bear in pursuit. The bear takes a couple of swipes, a couple of bites. Tension is high. Then the beaver jumps into the water and escapes. The bear proceeds to try and tear the beaver house apart, but can't find the beaver.

Throughout this sequence Elias was pelting us with questions. "What's the bear doing?" "What's the beaver doing?" We explained to him that bears eat beavers and this bear was trying to eat the beaver. The beaver was trying to escape. Elias was pretty horrified by this, he screwed up his face in concentration and then blurted, very emphatically:

"Teddy doesn't eat beavers!"

Teddy is his stuffed teddy bear.

"No, Teddy doesn't eat beavers Elias. It's ok."

Needless to say he really liked the movie about beavers. I can't wait to take him to Sea World so he can watch the Orcas hunt seagulls. heh heh. :)

My goofy son

2007-05-17T20:18:59Z

Elias is a goofy kid. Last night he woke up sometime before dawn and he was giggling uncontrolably to himself in his sleep. He woke up (we think) after a short time and asked us "Is there room for 3?" He's sleeping in his own bed, but it's right next to ours to make room for the birthing tub. We said "Sure" and he climbed over to us, but first we asked him to pee (this is usually what wakes him up at night). He complied, then started to walk out of the door to go play. Kris asked him "Aren't you coming back to bed?" which sort of surprised him and he said "Yes!" and climbed in bed. He laid there for an hour with his eyes open (Kris watched him, not me, I was asleep!) I'm still not sure if he actually really woke up. It was funny.

While I was on the phone with Kris this afternoon I overheard Elias saying "I'm dripping blood Mom!" He was fine. He had green marker on his hands which was the "blood". Really he just wanted a bandaid and a cough drop. I don't think he's ever had a cough drop before, but apparently you get them for bloody fingers. heh heh.

I rode my bike to work today for the first time in a week. Yesterday was too windy, rainy in the afternoon and I had to stay until 5 pm at work to get free Coldstone. I didn't want my first day back on the bike to be frought with emotional strife or unpleasantness, so I carpooled instead. I was going to drive again tomorrow since I have to leave early for a midwife appointment, but I think I've decided to forget that tactic and just ride. It's too nice outside and gas is getting all pricey. It was $45 to fill up my tank of gas for a month worth of commuting! How can I live with that? :) Seriously though, riding my bike to work is one of my favorite parts of the work day. I hate to miss a day. I'd rather leave an extra half our early from work. :)

We threw an impromptu BBQ for Kris' birthday a couple nights ago. It went off really well. She's the ripe old age of 31 now, 3 years my senior! We sent out invitations a few days in advance and had 18 people show up. I had no idea she was so popular. :) I guess we must make pretty decent meat burgers though because people keep showing up to our BBQs. The weather was really nice and we all ate out on the lawn while the kids played. Elias played really well except for a few outbursts, but I think those are on the dwindling side. He completely lost it when Aiden left though. I think as long as he had one friend their to play with he didn't mind the other kids leaving, but when the last one leaves the fun is over and it's bedtime. Poor guy. Ahh well, part of growing up is learning how not to burst into tears whenever something sad happens. :)

Now we're entering the home stretch of the pregnancy. We've been refreshing ourselves on the birth literature we have to be adequately prepared for the arrival date. Only a few weeks left! Woohoo! :)

Vegas and Mother's Day

2007-05-14T22:38:18Z

Well I'm back home. I was in Vegas most of last week at the Perforce User Conference. Vegas is not exactly my ideal place to visit. Being vegetarian, not a smoker, not much of a drinker and not a gambler I'm certainly not the target audience. Still it was pretty fun.

The conference itself was chock full of good Perforce information and optimizations. We heard presentations by EA Games and Google, which were really cool. Google has a half terrabyte solid state memory for their Perforce Database drive. I WANT ONE OF THOSE! The EA Games guys were really cool as well. They converted their perforce server to Linux. We're in talks about doing that now. It sounds like it could be fun and a pain in the neck at the same time. I'm not sure if anything will come of it or not.

While in Vegas we stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. It was loud, smokey and hard rockin. We spent most of our time in the concert hall for the conference, and ate every other meal in the local fancy restaurant. By the end of the trip my coworkers and I were jonesing for some cheap food, so we went out for burgers instead of eating in that night.

Vegas is such a strange town. It's packed with people dressed up really fancily going out for dinners and shows. There are pictures of mostly naked ladies on every wall. There are ads pretty much everywhere there is an empty space. I don't know how anyone can afford to vacation there when their company isn't paying for it. We had one dinner that was 100 bucks for two of us. It wasn't really that good, and it was even Indian food which is always delicious. Whew!

It's good to be back now. My family was extremely happy to see me. Elias was bouncing off the walls, especially when he saw the drumsticks I brought him from the hotel. He's been banging on the drums a lot these last couple days.

Mother's Day was enjoyable. We had planned a canoeing trip, but as the day approached we realized it wouldn't be that fun for Kristin to be 9 months pregnant in a boat. The fun of canoeing is kind of lessened by not being able to paddle comfortably. Instead of canoeing we did a little shopping, hung around the house and just kicked it at home. We went out for breakfast at Cottage Bakery and Cafe, which was a great idea. The food was tasty and there were virtually no crowds. Plus, there was a stairway Elias could run up and down while we finished eating. :)

The week should be fun. We're throwing a BBQ for Kris' Birthday tomorrow night and it looks like we have a few attendees. It's always good to have a gathering at your house!

Gaslight Theater - Buccaneer's of the Carribean

2007-05-03T15:14:18Z

We went to another show at the Gaslight Theater last night. It was fantastic! They are so hilarious. I'm a big fan of stupid humor so they hit me really well. This time the show was Buccaneer's of the Caribbean, a play off of Pirates of the Caribbean. Some of the fantastic jokes you missed last night:

"Those are nice earrings, how much are they?"
"These? They're a Buck-an-ear!"
"Oh that's great, where do you get them?"
"At a pirate's favorite store, Tarrrghhhhh-get"

Heh heh. I was rolling. Sam is also apparently a big fan because we almost had to give her the Heimlich so she wouldn't choke on her pizza. I really like live comedy theater. They're campy and cheesy and that's the whole point. There is a lot of audience interaction. Speaking of the audience, our particular show was enhanced because a middle school drama club was there. They were going nuts and cheering like crazy, so it was even cooler.

Tonight I am going to Tim's bachelor party. He's getting married on Saturday and having as wild of a bachelor party as you can get when you're a Christian Missionary in Africa. That suits me just fine since I'm pretty boring. The plan right now is to go to a Sega arcade at the mall for a while and then maybe hit a midnight showing of Spiderman 3. I got up at 5:30 this morning, so I hope I can last. This might be a night of caffeine. Either way it should be nice to see Tim, Jason and the whole gang again.

Today is the third day in a row I've ridden my bike to work. I'm not having any trouble energy wise because the sun is coming up so early. Getting up at 5:30 in the morning is so much easier when the sun is out. I'm definitely not a winter early bird, but I'm turning into a summer one.

Riding to work has been fantastic with the new bike and this wonderful weather. It's about 70 degrees in the morning and 90 in the afternoon. It's perfect. I hate being stuffed in a car in the summer. After driving home the other day and taking 50 minutes I'm pretty highly motivated. I would ride tomorrow as well but I think I'll be getting up kind of late depending on if I make it to the late show. I really want to see Spiderman 3, so I imagine I'll make it. :)

Tour of the Tucson Mountains

2007-04-30T22:21:27Z

Since I haven't updated in so long, I decided to split my post into two posts. The fair was last week, but yesterday I road in the Tour of the Tucson Mountains!

TTM was my favorite race before I tried the El Tour de Phoenix. I like the distance, I like the course. The only thing I don't like is the starting point in Marana. :)

It was supposed to rain yesterday, but all we got was a lot of wind and plentiful sunshine. I like the sun, but I didn't really like the wind. I felt like the first part was much harder than usual. I think it's a combination of the wind and me being out of shape. I have been riding, but not on long rides and I haven't been going for the racer pace. I've been doing a lot of training with Sam, and she rides slower. I also haven't been motivated to spend more than 2 or 3 hours out on a weekend ride, so that keeps it down to 30 miles or so.

Either way, I went slower on the first half but I felt really strong on the second half. With the wind at my back I flew like the wind. I unfortunately spent most of the ride by myself, but I didn't know anyone riding yesterday anyway. I did run into a bunch of kids from Bicas, which was really cool. They were all on beat up old bikes but they were flying down the road. They also had a coach guy with them who was constantly cheering them on and encouraging them. It wasn't targeted at me specifically, but it still motivated me to ride faster. They saved me on Sandario road when my motivation was failing. :)

Elias rode in the Kid's Fun Ride again this year, and he enjoyed it a lot more. He has trouble waiting so long because he gets up at 5 am with us to drive out there. (Next year I'm going to camp!) He rode the whole thing and enjoyed himself though. He also enjoyed playing in the grass and rocks for hours on end while waiting for me to finish. :)

All in all it was a good day to ride, even though I didn't get gold and didn't do as well as I have in the past. It was nice to get out there on the new bike and ride around with a group. Plus, no accidents!

A night at the fair

2007-04-30T21:54:47Z

It's been very busy at work of late, so I haven't had much time to update. A lot has happened! I rode Saguaro National Monument with my son in a trailer behind me. That was hard. Very hard. But it was a good workout. You can't stand up with a trailer because it rocks too much, so I had to stay in my seat the whole time.

The family and I went to the Pima County Fair last Wednesday. It was very enjoyable for the most part. I'm not a big fan of fairs, but it was fun to watch Elias do all the rides. I also went on the ferris wheel, which kind of freaked me out (I'm a ride wuss). Elias went on one kids roller coaster with Sam. He liked it for the first couple loops and then he wanted off. Badly. He much preferred riding the ponies. It was 5 bucks but they let him ride for 20 minutes. He was thrilled.

After going on rides and playing in a fun house or two, we were about ready to go home but decided to get some food first. That's when we ran into, THE PIZZA OF DOOM! We ordered three slices. Kristin ate one. Sam ate one. Elias and I shared one. I went home with a bit of a strong desire to belch, but just chocked it up to normal fair fare. We went to bed pretty quickly after going home and I was ALMOST asleep when Elias woke up. I went over to his bed to comfort him and that's when it hit me. My stomach HURT! My eyes got really itchy, I started draining out of my nose, and I started coughing. My throat started closing up, which is a scary thing to have happen out of nowhere. I had had a few allergies hit that afternoon at work, so I thought it might just be pollen coming in through the open window. I scarfed a few Benedryl's that we keep around for our dog and went out into the living room. I felt the need to throw up or do some sort of purging, but it wasn't happening. I tinkered around on the computer for a couple of hours until it died down.

I went back to bed with a sore stomach, but I could still sleep. After sleeping for a couple of hours I was awoken again. This time by Elias (now in our bed), sat upright and vomited all over the place. Uh oh. Looks like we were both poisoned by fair food. Great! He was pretty upset, but we bathed him and comforted him back to bed. All night he was complaining about his stomach hurting. At one point (back in his bed with Mom), he woke up and told Kristin "Mom, I need to go to your bed so I can throw up." Haha, kids say the funniest things. Kris offered him a nearby garbage can which he gladly blew chunks into. We were happy he's reached the point to throw up in garbage cans. For parents this is a pretty major event! :)

It must have been the pizza Elias and I shared, because no one else was hit by it. I was worried I wouldn't be in the mood for pizza again, but alas, I have eaten it many times since then. :)

I'm not ready to go back to the fair for a while, that's for sure!

New Bike! (Again)

2007-04-17T21:29:01Z

I rode my new bike for it's maiden voyage this Sunday. It was awesome! The weather was terribly windy, but it didn't matter because I had my new bike. I didn't make legendary time or anything, but it was a really nice ride.

I rode in to work today as well. I was going to ride Monday but I decided to take my old bike to the shop instead. I am selling it to a coworker and I cleaned it all up this weekend. I have lifetime tune ups and adjustments, but it's only for me, not for him. So I gave my bike one last tune up.

I'm going to swing by the bike shop on the way home today and get my new bike adjusted. As expected it has a little bit of ghost shifting. All the parts are adjusting to the added stress of my 200 pound self climbing aboard my bike. Hopefully they will get me in and out quickly, so I can get home to my family. We're having friends over for dinner tonight and I would like to be there to help out. Or failing that, at least be there to play with Elias to keep him out of the way. :)

We're trying to get Elias to sleep more independent of his Mom the last few nights. He went through a period where he slept by himself most of the night, but lately he's been pretty Mom needy. I think he's sensing the impending baby-dom and it's making him nervous. I've been sleeping with him (or trying to) the last couple of nights to give Kris a bit of a break. She's having enough trouble sleeping being 8 months pregnant, and having a squirmy kid next to you doesn't help. I've been liking this quite a bit. In absense of Mom he's more than willing to "settle" for Dad, which means he cuddles up. It's great!

Some of Sam's friends at school are impressing her with their programming skills, so she has renewed interest to learn. I'm going to start teaching her a little more formally. I have been looking for a good online tutorial to find out where to begin. When you do something for a long time it's hard to remember how much you DON'T know when starting out. I really wish I had one of those programming books I learned on. They weren't perfect, but they had a good step by step process to them.

Life has been winding down of late, which is good. We can't really travel much with Kris being so pregnant, so we are locked down in Tucson for the next 4 months. It's kind of nice really, even if my wife will probably be nuts-stir-crazy by the end of it. :)

Generations are a changing

2007-04-11T16:01:52Z

My son is growing up in a completely different world than I did. It's pretty neat. I felt like I was at the forefront of technology and video games and information retrieval. I was nowhere close.

Elias came up to Kristin yesterday and said "Mom, I want to color a picture of a hippo." Kristin said "Ok." and went onto google. She did a search for Hippo Coloring printout, came up with 10 designs and asked Elias to pick one. He pointed to one on the screen, she printed it out and he proceeded to happily color away.

A friend's daughter wanted the bell from Polar Express and her mother told her "Maybe Santa will bring it." She said "We'll just order it!", grabbed her Mom's credit card and went to the computer and started clicking away on the keyboard. Then she ran to the door and waited.

It's nuts. But it's cool at the same time. The amount of information you have at your grasp with a simple google terminal is astounding. I'm excited for my kids. :)

I rode my bike to work today for the first time in a week. I took last week off to heal up. It's the best time of year to ride in Tucson. It's 65 degrees in the morning and 90 in the afternoon. I love it. My new bike should come in this Friday, and until then I am riding my old bike.

This morning was beautiful, and I was also thankful to be on my bike. There was a head on collision at Kolb and 29th street and traffic was being rerouted. Being on a bike I have my own bike lane so I didn't experience much slow down asside from the cautionary "don't go too fast with cars going slow" slow down. I took a detour around a bit, came out right where the accident occured and the officers on scene kindly directed me to walk down the sidewalk a ways and hop back on the road. I got to ride down Kolb with almost no traffic for a block. It was pretty neat.

While I was approached the accident, I saw another guy on a bike, no helmet, black jacket, bobbing his head to his headphones. He rode through a red light when he saw an opening, on a crosswalk and cut around some cars making a right turn. Then he hopped on the sidewalk and started cruising down it. I hate it when people do that. That guy is going to make drivers angry, and those angry drivers are going to end up being pissed at me, because that guy will be long gone.

He continued riding down the sidewalk until we came to the accident and he cut in front of all the cars turning right for the detour. His only saving grace was that he did it RIGHT IN FRONT OF A BIKE COP. YES! The cop yelled at him and chewed him out while I went on. I heard the cop yell "Were you even looking? At what? At the car that almost hit you?" I was hoping he would ticket him, but I saw the guy on the bike a little later, and it felt too quick for a ticket. Oh well.

I wonder if I can moonlight as a bicycle cop? :)

Lazy bum

2007-04-06T20:17:11Z

I have taken the week off. No gym. No bike rides. Nothing. I rode in the El Tour de Phoenix and felt pretty tired afterwards, so I rewarded myself with a week of pure relaxation. I almost picked up a new pair of Nike Cross Relaxers:

It's a weird feeling to drive my car to work every day of the week. I'm hoping my new bike will come in soon so I can ride it instead of my old one. I need to clean the old one and give it to my super tall coworker.

It's been a pretty good week, nothing much has been going on. We watched Waterworld last night on Netflix WatchNow. I love that movie. It got terrible reviews, but I really like it for some reason.

I've been listening to a lot of the Dropkick Murphys. I had 10 free downloads from EMusic.com and I found the Holy Grail of Dropkick Murphys. They do a cover of Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival. That combines my favorite CCR song with the rockin' Boston Irish tunes of the Dropkick Murphys. I was ecstatic when I found that!

Elias has been happy all week, which is always nice. He goes in grumpy phases and happy phases, and this week has been a happy phase. He's also been all about Dad this week, which I am always thankful for. When I get home I get drug from one part of the house to the next with a "Come over here Dad and look at this! Talk to me Dad!" :)

Sam came down with a cold, probably from pushing herself so hard on the bike race. She was really tired afterwards and I'm guessing her immune system was weekened by the ordeal. She bounces back quickly though so hopefully she'll be able to ride this weekend. We're hosting a ride around Saguaro National Monument for Saguaro Velo tomorrow. Looks like it's old bike time for me!

El Tour de Phoenix

2007-04-02T21:42:27Z

I couldn't tell if this weekend was out to get me or out to show me that I should have faith that everything will work out. I was injured earlier in the week, but after doing a test ride Friday I decided to just ride the El Tour de Phoenix. It was Sam's birthday, my son was in it, my friends were in it. I didn't want to miss it!

The family and I left my office at 3 pm and drove to Phoenix. After a few rush hour traffic delays we arrived at the convention center and picked up our packets. The lady giving out the posters was the artist, and she offered to sign one. I asked her to make it out to Elias and told her that he was famous. He's actually on the t-shirt for the Kids Fun Ride this year. She said "Oh we all know Elias!" and signed the poster to Elias.

We went to Fazolis for dinner with a group from the packet pickup. I had been looking forward to Fazolis for that pre ride dinner for a month, and it was terrible! The food was cold and just didn't have that fresh feel that I've gotten from Fazolis lately. It also took forever to get there. What a bummer! But oh well, we are riding the next day!

We went back to the hotel to prepare for the following day. After putting stuff on our jersey's and getting our supplies together, I realized that I had brought Kristin's spandex shorts. If you've ever ridden a road bike for 3 hours + straight, you know that it is very uncomfortable to ride long distances without padding and with clothing fraught with seams and rubbing spots. It was too late to get a replacement pair, and everyone I called only brought one pair. I was pretty bummed. I resolved not to ride. It wasn't meant to be.

I took a shower to wind down and get ready for bed (Sam still had to ride tomorrow, and we had to get up early). While in the shower I decided "Forget the pain, I'm riding in a pair of gym shorts I brought." I didn't drive all that way and get in a wreck and decide to ride anyway just to quit for some shorts, dang it!

We woke up at 4:30 in the morning, and Elias was in the middle of a midnight wake up, so the poor boy was up without going back to sleep on the drive. We threw everything together and left for the race. When I arrived I remarked to my car neighbor that I had brought the wrong spandex and was riding in regular shorts. He was apparently Mother Theresa in disguise, because he lent me, a total stranger, an extra pair of spandex he had brought. They were really nice ones too! No trip to the hospital to repair my poor bottom afterwards!

I rushed to the start line and Sam, Alan, Tom and I waited for the race to start. Once it began I found my recently wrecked cowardice coming out in force. I was constantly holding back behind people because I didn't want them to fall in front of me and take me out. Because of this people slipped into the gap I left open and I fell farther and farther back in the pack, until I was at the end. Luckily, when the first big wreck did happen I had plenty of room to get around them.

After avoiding the first wreck, I tried to catch up to the group again, realized I was really tired (still healing I think), and I dropped off. I saw my brother shoot ahead like a rocket though. He was gone! I held back for a bit and the pack that wrecked got up and caught up with me. I hung on to them until the first hill and then everyone broke apart into small groups. I felt pretty good going up the hills, but still not boiling with energy. Before the final major climb I was pretty beat. I went very slowly up it.

When I reached the top I stopped at a SAG and ate some cookies and oranges. At this point I didn't really care too much about what I got. My lower back was hurting pretty badly where the bruise was. My shoulders were achy from the ride and I was in general not feeling too physically peppy. Dang bike wrecks.

I finished snacking, felt better and went on my way. The rest of the race I spent thinking "I don't need to get gold, just finish happy. No big deal." Followed by "I can get gold, I'm really close! Go for it!" I alternated those two thoughts all the way to the end, only to end up missing a gold medal by 5 seconds! Dang!

I'm still really happy I did the race though. It had some painful moments, but it's cool to see what you can do, and it was a heck of a confidence boost after wrecking my new bike.

Sam is the one that really impressed me this trip. After the ride I was waiting around for her to finish with the family. They kept looking out for her on the finish line, and I said "Guys, she's going to be coming in a couple hours, not a couple minutes. You might as well sit down." What does she do? She BLOWS by the finish line in 5 1/2 hours! Holy cow! She did amazing! She beat her El Tour time by over an hour and race 8 miles more with significant hills! She's hurting today, but you could tell she got her birthday wish in performance. She rocked!

Elias rode in the kid's fun ride again, but he was way too exhausted to really enjoy himself. He never slept, and 3 year olds aren't supposed to get up at 4:30 am. Poor guy. He went to bed early that night. :)

This entry is getting long, so I'm going to cut it. I need to find the guy that lent me the shorts and return them. That's top priority. Due to more bad circumstances I wasn't able to find him after the finish line. I really need to repay his kindness. He was great!