One Man's Eyes

I said no to Modern Warfare 2

2009-11-10T20:38:00.002-06:00

For the last few years, I have enjoyed playing games online with a community that I found at Austin Servers. First with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and then Call of Duty: World at War. Until recently, we had been looking forward to what, from all preview footage, looked to be a very promising next installment - Modern Warfare 2. It's a big game for 2009 and has garnered unprecedented advertising - I've even seen Wal-Mart commercials advertising that they would have the game on sale at 12:01am for today's launch.

But, I, like many others, are saying no to this game. In the last few months, disturbing stories came out about crippling of features that PC gamers have expected as standard for more than a decade. You can read elsewhere for details if you're really interested in the minutia of it all.

In essence, the company that makes the game series has given up on the PC gamers that made their series popular. They are pretty much focused on the console market - the Xbox360 and Playstation 3. Only a token effort has been made at producing a PC version of the game and it has been stripped of everything that has historically made PC games better than console ones. Activision/Inifinity Ward doesn't want us anymore. That is certainly their right. They can make whatever games they like for whatever market they wish. But, I'm simply not going to waste my money on a half assed and insulting effort that they have put forth. It would have been better, quite frankly, if they had just declared from the beginning that they would not be making a PC version of this latest game.

Early Computer Memories

2009-10-24T07:14:00.004-05:00

Over on one of the forums that I frequent, a thread popped up about early computer experience. My mind flooded open and I came up with what follows, so I thought I'd share here as well:

My first computer was a Commodore 64. My dad spent several weekends typing in the code for a word processor called Speedscript out of Byte magazine. I used it to type up my 15 page science fair project report back in 7th grade. There was no spell check, but it did allow for some formatting. It was pretty sophisticated back in the day.

We had a Commodore 1250 printer that was special because it had both the Commodore proprietary connection as well as the standard PC parallel port connection. It was a 9 pin dot matrix printer. It took half an hour to print that fifteen page report. My dad and I proof read the hell out of that first printout so that we only had to do it once more for a final report!

It had a cartridge port and we had a dozen or so games for that port. I remember playing Spy Hunter, GI Joe, and Transformers with it.

We used a cassette recorder for storage originally. We eventually invested in the Commodore specific one, as the control was fully automated by the computer. With the standalone recorder, you had to issue a command to the computer to load and then hit the play button on the recorder so that it would start sending data. It had a seconds counter and we had a notepad with an index to tell us how many seconds we would have to fast forward to get to the start of a program.

Eventually, we invested in the infamous floppy drive. I think the disks were something like 360kb (yes, KILObyte) capacity. You had to pull the disk out and flip it over to read from the other side.

My dad would play Flight Simulator (back when it was SUBLogic, which I guess Microsoft bought out at some point). The game would take about 2 minutes to load up from the disk.

With that floppy drive, my game collection increased quite a bit. Back then, there were a number of developers and lots of cheap games. I remember many of them published by a company called MASTERTRONIC. I remember their iconic logo on the the cover of their unique software cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastertronic

This one, in particular, I remember playing for weeks trying to master all the different stages needed to get to the final race:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Biker

My daughter would no doubt be horrified by all of this. The Nintendo DS that she totes around constantly has more power and capability by any measure you can think of than anything I had with that old C64 back in the dark ages :D

Las Vegas Trip - Travel Report...Part 3

2009-08-16T20:54:00.003-05:00

Alright, time to get back on this report. When we last left our heroes, they had just returned from an all day adventure to the Grand Canyon.
Knowing this would take a good bit out of us, I decided that Tuesday would be something unique. Honestly, had it not been for reading some Las Vegas review sites and the Tripadvisor forum, I don't think it's something I would have come up with on my own. We scheduled the major part of the day around the Qua Spa at Caesars. As seems to be the case with most of the Vegas hotels, access to the fitness center requires a separate daily fee. Caesars, along with most, give access to the fitness center if you also get a day pass to the Spa. And, above that, at Caesars at least, if you schedule a treatment, such as a massage, access to the Spa and fitness center for that day are also included. The reviews of Qua in particular were good, so I decided that, since we were staying at Caesars, we ought to try it out. Jen and I each scheduled a classic massage for the early afternoon. This allowed us to sleep in, catch a late breakfast, and then head over.
We were actually feeling pretty good after breakfast, and both spent time at the fitness center first. I had a good workout, starting on what was probably the nicest treadmill I've ever seen, followed by a round on the various weight machines. The fitness center itself is coed, so Jen and I were together for this portion. After that, we were each on our own as the Spa area has separate areas for men and women. We agreed on a time, a few hours after our treatments, to meet back at the room. We had a good hour and a half before our treatments to explore and use the spa. I definitely agree with the recommendations that I read to get to the spa before the treatments to take advantage of the facility.
There were several dry and wet steam rooms, along with "Arctic Ice" cold room, and the Roman Ritual baths. I spent time in all of them before my massage session. Having never been to such a place, we talked with the advisor when we scheduled our sessions about the etiquette of the area. On the men's side, I was provided with a robe and a locker to put my clothes into. I wore a towel for the most part when in the steam rooms, but went bare when in the tubs. That was pretty typical, though there were a few who wore swim trunks the whole time. The lighting is subdued and relaxing. There's water and towels available everywhere, along with fruit, teas, and juices in a central room where you can relax and wait to be called for your session. I enjoyed the scented steam room and the Roman Ritual Baths the most. The "Artic Ice" room was brisk, but the "snow" consisted of soap bubbles blown into the room and I found they irritated my nose. I noticed this was the case for a few others as well. The Roman Ritual Baths have three jacuzzi tubs. The largest is the Tepidarium, where the water temperature is about body temperature. I spent a good bit of time relaxing there. This is the launching point to the other two tubs, one hot (the Caldarium) one very cold (the Frigidarium). I could handle a fair bit of time in the hot tub, but just a few minutes in the cold. That cold tub definitely wakes you up and appreciate the return to the Tepidarium.
I used the showers to get cleaned up and relaxed in the lounge with a banana and juice when my appointment time drew near. There were a few of us with appointments at the same time and we were escorted back to the treatment room area and introduced to our artisans. When scheduling the appointment, we were asked if we had gender preferences for the artisan doing the massage. We both decided we didn't have a preference. Mine turned out to be a young woman.
Getting massages is something that my wife and I had talked about getting done for a long time, but we just never pursued it. I decided that, being in Vegas with access to these facilities, it was a good opportunity to give it a try. My treatment was essentially a full body "classic" Swedish massage. The room had subdued lighting and calming New Age type music played. I even recognized a few tracks from my own music library. The artisan asked if there was a particular area that needed focus. I figured my lower back was probably in need of most work. However, after she worked up to my neck and shoulders, it was clear that I was extremely tight there. The artisan paid extra attention to my head, neck and shoulders. Man, was it fantastic. When she was done, I felt more relaxed and loosened up than I can ever remember.
While we paid for the treatments when we scheduled them, as in a restaurant, there was a slip in the room at the end to leave a gratuity for the artisan. I was quite happy to leave a good tip. Afterward, she escorted me back to the spa area and I spent another hour or so enjoying the tubs and relaxing before heading back to the room. While, on the one hand, it is something of an annoyance that access to the fitness center and spa are a cost adder, I appreciated the fact that it also meant that the facilities weren't overcrowded with people and I was able to enjoy the space. I would have to say that Qua was probably our favorite part of our Caesars experience.
Since I had picked Le Reve as our "water show" for this trip to Vegas, I decided that we also would see an actual Cirque du Soleil show as well. Cirque is running a summer special in Vegas for all their shows - buy a regular price ticket, and "bring a friend" for $25. Based on a number of good reviews, and it's proximity to where we were staying, I had booked tickets for Mystere at Treasure Island for our evening's entertainment.
Having been through the Forum Shops a few days before, we decided to have dinner at The Cheesecake Factory before the show. Both our meals were very good and we each chose a different cheesecake for dessert. We ended up with extra time before the show and extra cheesecake, so we took them back up to our room to save for breakfast.
The showing of Mystere was at 9:30p and seating opened at 9:00p. We got there around 8:50p. Having walked up and down the area, I had picked up a few shortcuts (or at least paths to keep us out of the heat). We would typically walk through the Forum Shops to get to the strip. Near the main entrance, there was a covered walkway to go into the Mirage, which sits between Caesar and TI. There is a tram that runs back and forth between the Mirage and TI and we used it to complete the journey in relative ease. I learned that lesson the hard way coming back from Le Reve on Sunday. At night, TI features their "Sirens of TI" show a couple of times each night. When it is going on, passage in front of TI, and even across the street from it, is just about impossible. We never actually saw the show, but we did get stuck in the crowd trying to move through. The tram made it possible to avoid all of that.
When we arrived at the Mystere theater, there was a line almost all the way across the casino. We waited for about fifteen minutes for the line to pass so we could go in. Even though it was moving pretty quick and steady, the end never seemed to appear. People would keep walking all the way to the end and coming back with the line. Finally, we did the same, though it wasn't terrible. We got to our seats pretty easily and thankfully didn't become victim of the clown. Most Cirque shows feature some sort of clown element, in this case, it was a man in a rumpled tuxedo. Before the show, he would go to the main entrance where ushers pointed people to their seats. He would randomly take couples to "show them to their seats". He would end up taking them on long circuitous routes and cause mischief to the amusement of the rest of us who were already seated.
The show was not a complete sellout, but the theater was still pretty full. I was quite happy with our seats. The theater was such that you'd have a hard time finding a place where you didn't have a good view.
The show itself was impressive. The stage area had several animated sections that would raise and lower to bring in and take away various set pieces and groups of performers. This show was much more pure acrobatics than Le Reve was. If you've seen any of the traveling shows like Allegria or Varekai (which I've only seen myself on video), then you'll be familiar with the kinds of performances that happen. But still, having a dedicated theater for the show allows everything to be an order of magnitude more impressive than the traveling shows can provide. The stunts were impressive, though there were at least three miscues during the performance where jumps or catches were missed. Still it was very entertaining. The only real negative we felt was the amount of filler. The main clown made several appearances between acts and there were also several by a "baby" doing different tricks and causing mischief. The segments for both of them would tend to run too long and their entertainment value was not so high. Still, we enjoyed the show and were glad we went. After that, we took the secret path back to our room to turn in for the night.
I was going to try to get through two days with this post, but I ended up having a lot to cover with this one day. I should be able to get the final day and a half into the next post and then I'll finish with a summary as well as some general observations that don't fall specifically into the chronology of the trip.

Las Vegas Trip - Travel Report...Part 2

2009-08-07T21:11:00.002-05:00

Alright, let's do some more reporting. Sunday was a big "free time" day and we did a lot of walking around. We did a pretty good walk around at Caesars, including the pool. The pool area is under construction, but most of it was finished and there was always a good crowd whenever we looked at it. We never actually went in the pool. I must confess, I tended to avoid doing things that I could as easily do back home. Plus, we did something better than the pool....but that comes up later.
We walked around the Forum Shops. The Forums Shops are a pretty good size shopping mall attached to the hotel. There were several restaraunts and a number of fairly high end shops. The shops, like the hotel, are decorated with statues and columns. It also features a ceiling that is painted to mimic a partly clouded sky.
While the Forum Shops were nice, The Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian were a whole order of magnitude nicer. The theme was similar, but was more elegantly executed and also featured a gondola ride that runs through the middle of the shoppes. We didn't get around to the gondola ride, but, that's just something else for the list of things to do next time.
Part of the purpose of walking around was to pick up tickets for the other shows we were going to see. To that end, we visited the Wynn and Treasure Island during our day of walking. The Wynn was a really nice looking hotel and immediately felt cleaner and more modern than Caesars. Treasure Island was nice, but felt like a cut below Caesars.
For dinner, we ended up at the food court at the Fashion Show Mall. The food court was a nice large area with plenty of choices and offered us a place to eat for some reasonable prices. I tried a place that made a proper Philly Cheese-steak and it was quite good. After we ate, we started to walk around the mall, but didn't stay long. While the outside architecture was interesting, the inside was pretty much a conventional shopping mall. We didn't come to shop for clothes and shoes on this trip, so it didn't hold our interest.
But, the night finished big. We booked a 7pm showing of Le Reve at the Wynn. I took the early show because of our plans for the next day. To put it simply, the show was fantastic. It was the most expensive entertainment that we went to on our trip, and was completely worth it. The music, light, stage, and performers were beautifully choreographed into a spectacle that was a visual and auditory feast. It is not a true Cirque du Soleil show, but it created by the man responsible for many Cirque shows. While it does feature a good bit of acrobatics, there is also a lot of dancing and synchronized swimming that combine to offer a truly unique show. We seriously considered going for another showing later in the week, but that didn't work out. This is one we definitely plan to see again in the future.
So, what was so big about Monday that made me choose an early show for Sunday evening? An all day trip to the Grand Canyon is what. Thanks to Tripadvisor, I found a small tour company, Grand-Adventures, that offered small groups on day trips to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Darrell is the owner and main guide. He picked us up at the front of the hotel at 6:30am. There were three other couples and another assistant, giving us a total group of 10 people. On the way, we made stops for breakfast, for a photo op at Hoover Dam, and a quick side stop at Seligman, AZ - the town that inspired the Pixar movie, Cars.
Hoover Dam was impressive and we were able to get some nice pictures. The water level in Lake Meade was down well below normal and you could see the large expanse of white in the rock that should have been covered by water. Seligman was also a nice stop and has made quite the effort to keep the Route 66 concept alive.
We arrived at the South Rim around lunchtime. We swung through the gift shop to collect some trinkets and then the group started hiking along the rim. We stopped in a clearing for lunch. The tour package included lunch. We had box lunch sandwiches, cheese, crackers, grapes, and cookies. There was plenty of food and Darrel and his assistant also carried plenty of water. And it was a good thing too, as we needed it. From my previous post, you can get to my Flickr pictures of the Canyon. While I took quite a few, I posted only a few standouts. The Canyon is deceptively big. Your mind literally cannot process the size correctly. We looked down onto the Bright Angel Trail and it seems to be just a few hundred feet down to the bottom. But, then we saw a group down at the bottom riding mules. It was only then that it hit me that they were very small and thus very far away. What seemed like a few hundred feet by itself turns out to be a few thousand feet in reality was the human element comes into view.
Overall, we spent about three hours walking along the South Rim, enjoying some impressive vistas along the way. I took my GPS watch to track our progress and we covered about three and a half miles during the hike. It actually turned out to be a pretty tough hike due to the thinner air. The rim of the canyon is actually 7000 feet above sea level and it is a big change from what we're used to.
After all than, Darrell drove us back and dropped each couple off at their hotel. We were the last ones dropped off at about 9pm. It was a long day and we were well exhausted. Darrell was great. He's really taken the time to put together a day trip that is interesting and manageable. If you are going to take a day trip, I very highly recommend Grand-Adventures.
And so ended the third day of our big trip. Tune in next time to see how we recovered from that adventure.

Las Vegas Trip - Travel Report...Part 1

2009-08-05T19:11:00.002-05:00

Last week, my wife and I took a trip to Las Vegas. It was the first time for each of us. The kids spent the week with my parents, so it was just the two of us. In getting ready, I spent a lot of time learning about the town at sites like the Tripadvisor Las Vegas forums and Zeke Quezada's blog and articles at About.com. So, first a brief rundown of each day, and then some general thoughts and observations.
We arrived on Saturday afternoon. I had decided in advance that I didn't want to deal with a car this trip, so we planned to take a cab from the airport to the hotel. I was expecting to have to wait in a line, but when we reached the queue, there were plenty of cabs and only a few customers, so we got one right away. We got an honest cabbie as well, straight over to Caesars (no tunnel) and the fare came to what I expected. Nice tip for her.
We checked in at Caesars Palace. Being our first trip, I elected to follow the advice to find a center strip hotel for a home base. We had stayed at a Caesars property some ten years ago when we went to Lake Tahoe and enjoyed it, so I felt it was a safe choice. I managed a very good deal on the hotel and flight together through Southwest Vacations. It was a bit of a surprise, because the consensus was that the best deal was to book hotels and flights separately. But, the deal being offered by Southwest was at least $200 better than any other way I could assembly the flight and hotel.
We got a mini-suite in the Palace Tower and it was a very nice room. We were on the 24th floor with a view of the pool. The room was bigger than our first apartment and featured separate bathrooms for each of us (already planning to do that in our next house now) with a joint dual shower and a jacuzzi tub that was big enough to seat us both comfortably.
I had scoured the internet for deals on shows and had three booked before we left for the trip. The first night, we went to see Penn & Teller at the RIO. When we got to Caesars, I got a Harrah's reward club card and several coupons. One was for the Carnival World Buffet at the RIO, so we went there for dinner. The food was good and there was a lot of it. A good half dozen different stations with different food types, plus a whole separate space for desserts. There was a big crowd and a sizable line, but, since I was using a coupon, we actually got to switch over to a short line and were seated after about 20 minutes. Definitely be prepared to wait if you want to go eat here. We stuffed ourselves pretty well and went to the show.
I found a deal at Travel Zoo for 40% off mezzanine tickets. Apparently, so did everyone else. The lowest level seats had opening and the balcony above us was largely empty, but the mezzanine was pretty much full. Penn & Teller were entertaining. The tricks that they pulled off were amazing, even when they showed you how they did some of them. Penn was a little heavy handed with his political and atheist views during the show, but it was still an entertaining night.
Getting back Caesars was a bit of a challenge, though. The RIO is off the strip, across the highway. While it was about a mile and a half walk from Caesars, the path was not pedestrian friendly. I found out that Harrah's run a free shuttle from both the Paris and Harrah's over to the RIO. To get over, we walked down to Paris and waited about 20 minutes for a bus to come. However, when it came time to go back, it was clear that most of the Penn & Teller audience were like us, coming from hotels on the Strip. The queue was long and it took a good while for us to catch a bus back across. I'd recommend just catching a cab back from the RIO to the strip if you are coming out after a show.
You know, I think, since I've still got several more days to cover, that I'm going to close for tonight and make a few more posts over the next few days. In the mean time, you'll just have to entertain yourself with some of the pictures that I took from the trip.

Ed's Vegas and Grand Canyon Photos

And the winner is.....

2009-06-07T22:10:00.000-05:00

After much reading of reviews, comparing of price plans, features, and coverage, the winner is the Palm Pre! Saturday morning, we braved the small crowd that gathered at the local Sprint store in Pearland and Jen and I each scored ourselves a Pre...and something else that I'll mention later.

So, the tech geeks are asking "Why didn't you wait to see what Apple is going to annouce for a new iPhone on Monday???" Well, I'll tell you. First, a lot has already leaked about what Apple will be delivering for the third round of the iPhone and it just doesn't sound like too much of a leap over the current one. Sure, there will likely be a 32GB version that could probably serve as my main music device and it's going to have a compass...which will be cool if it can geotag photos with heading you are facing when taking a picture. Still, I've always been leary of the phone/mp3 player combo. My trusty 60GB iPod has outlasted several phones and there's really no need to replace it on that basis. Plus, I'm comfortable taking my Ipod out pretty much anywhere, knowing that, at this point, it would be pretty cheap to replace if I dropped it off a cliff or ran over it with a lawn mower. Not so much with a phone. Sure, they are fairly cheap with a two year contract subsidy. But, not so cheap to replace.

Also, AT&T just doesn't compare to Sprint for my family. We've got a family share data plan that gets us unlimited messages and data, along with 1500 minutes a month to share (and free time starts and 7pm and weekends, so that's a lot of time that minutes won't even get used!). We're now a three phone family - yes, the Princess has beaten us into getting her first phone (Jen and I were late in college before we got our first brick of a cell phone!), so that's three lines. It's going to be several hundred dollars a year less than AT&T and even more so than Verizon. So, the iPhone would have to be a whole lot better for the deal to make sense. Really, it's the two years of service that are the bulk of the cost, so you can't just focus on the hardware alone.

Which gets me to the hardware. Reviews are available everywhere and I read just about every single one of them since they started hitting on Thursday. All sounded good, save for two areas of concern - the keyboard has drawn a lot of criticism, and the battery life has been dissed. When we went to put our hands on it, these were my main things to check. While there's no doubt the keyboard is small, it is effective. It's taken me a little getting used to, but my speed is picking up nicely. As for the battery, if I can get through a full day and charge each night, that's something I can live with. I pulled it off the charger early this morning and have been using it fairly heavily today (as much as I would expect on a heavy day) and now near 10pm I've just hit the 20% warning. I don't expect to use the WiFi radio very often and I will pretty well just use the Bluetooth radio when I'm in the car, so that will help me battery life as well.

So, with the major concerns aside, the rest, as I've said elsewhere, is about 95% pure awesomeness. The screen is simply fantastic - sharp, clear, gorgeous color. Palm spent a lot of time on the ergonomics and it shows - it feels good in the hand and, unlike so many "smart phones" it is pretty easily workable one handed. The connection with my Google mail and calendar, at least with the flow from Google to the phone, is pure joy. Today, I when through my photo album, finding good head shots of friends and family to crop out and attach to my contact entries in Gmail. As I check the phone less than an hour later, all of my contacts have been updated with their new photo ID's. I can see all the Google calendars (one each for myself, Jen, the Princess, and the Tornado) color coded on my screen to keep up with our way too busy lives. The included applications work well and the multitasking is simple and effective. I can't imagine having to shut down an application to use another. It's like using a real computer. I've generally found it to be quite responsive.

As a phone, it is a big step up from what I had been putting up with. I know that you can assign a calling shortcut to each key on the keypad. I had originally planned to take advantage of the letters for some logical mappings (H for home, J for Jen, etc.) But, I've not bothered so far. Why? Universal search - slip open the keypad and start typing. The Pre automatically starts filtering contacts and within three letters I've pretty well got my intended contact narrowed down. While, I'm sure just pressing a holding a mapped button might be faster, I just don't see it being worth the effort to memorize letter keys. On previous phones, even with 99 speed dials available, I never used more than three as I couldn't remember what any of the others were. No more with that on the Pre. Between contacts, the calendar, pictures, the internet - the Pre makes it easy to locate information.

What's not too like? Well, nothing is perfect. I do have to agree with the observations that this thing is a magnet for fingerprints, both on the screen and the body. However, I've also found that slipping it into the simple pouch that comes with it does an excellent job and cleaning the prints off. I've gotten into the habit of carrying it around in the pouch. Probably the biggest complain I have is with volume. Even maxed out, the ringer volume is not very high. The speakerphone volume is also pretty low and the earpiece volume is fairly low as well. I would expect to have trouble using this in a noisy environment.

Finally, while I can understand it, it's still a little disappointing that ther aren't more 3rd party apps available yet. I know that Palm is releasing a developer kit to the general community soon, and I expect (especially with the way AT&T and Verizon are scared of Sprint's exclusivity and salivating over getting it for their networks) that there will be a good market of apps. There's only a few that I'm really interested in, most especially Ewallet.

Well, that's the view after a day and a half. I've read on the PreCentral forums of people giving up on is, which I just find mind boggling. It's true, WebOS is different from the old PalmOS and different from iPhone, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile. It does things differently and for the most part, better in my opinion. But, it does take a bit of getting used to. Finally in 2009 I am seeing some change I CAN believe in, and it is the Pre and the future of WebOS.

Which will it be?

2009-05-22T19:06:00.005-05:00

It is an interesting time in the mobile phone business. One thing I'm sure of, within a month, I will be done with Verizon. We've been with them for pushing eight years now and it's time to move on. I've put up with dull phones and expensive plans in return for the promise of the most reliable network. Well, I've had enough. For one thing, Verizon's network has gone into the crapper. I don't know why. Reception has always been marginal at my house, but these past few years, I have run into dead zone after dead zone, especially around Pearland. So, why pay a premium for a network that no longer is interesting in delivering?
What comes next? That is where things get tough. We're clear of our latest two year contract and I was pretty much expecting to go with AT&T and Iphones for the wife and I (and the daughter is also supposed to get a phone, God help me). I expected a third generation version to come out this Summer and that looks like it is going to happen. So, that is good.
But.....Sprint looks like they are trying to get very serious with the forthcoming Palm Pre. It escapes into the wild on June 6th and everything I've seen so far suggests that it is going to be a very good smartphone. It's probably going to be cheaper to own over the two years than an Iphone. But, while the Iphone has pretty well established itself as the 800lb gorilla of mobile phone and had plenty of support among application developers, Palm is essentially starting from scratch with an all new operating system and will probably take a while, if ever to get a good base of applications.
Plus, I had been planning on the Iphones replacing our current Ipods. For better or worse, we're married to Itunes and I don't expect the Pre to be an exceptional music platform. Still, our 60GB Ipods have been trucking along for many years and don't really need to be replaced.
For now, I will try to be patient (well, I have to for now since neither one is out yet). My only real deadline is the end of July. We're going to Vegas and I do want to have our new phones, in part so I can use them to post about our trip and also so I can have internet access without having to be gouged for $15 bucks a day, which seems to be the average cost for internet access at Vegas hotels.
Patience.....patience.....grrrr.

My new ride

2008-10-19T21:09:00.001-05:00

Even though the 401k has taken a big hit this year, my job looks solid, even with the unfortunate likelihood of an Obama presidency. For 12 years, my 1996 Accord has been a workhorse and was the first new car that my wife and I purchased when we graduated from college. A few weeks back, it crossed 200,000 miles.

But, especially over this last year, it's been having little failures along they way that have been putting it in the shop more often. The most recent forced some appointments to be canceled while we juggled getting the kids to school and me to work. We were going to hold off and replace the car next year. But, the weak auto market lead us to see if we could get a good deal now.

And get a good deal we did. I hate buying cars and dealing with the "stealerships", which is one reason I make my vehicles last as long as I do. This time proved a pleasant exception. For the first time, I walked out knowing that I got a really really good deal on my purchase.

Some of you probably won't be surprised at my choice. The wife and I tested out several cars, and while there were some serious contenders, we ultimately both agreed that we had found our car:

This thing is amazing inside and out. I had done a lot of research and thought I knew a lot about this car. Even I was surprised at the amount of thought, detail, and creative gadgetry that have gone into this car.

The whole experience with this particular dealer was actually pleasant. I'm actually looking forward to the next time I'll be in the market for a purchase.

I could have bought a Benz, BMW, or Lexus. But, I would have been buying something to impress other people. I don't really like any of those cars, for a variety of reasons. This car is a reward for me and I'm now looking forward to the work commute each day.

Nerdgasm - GPS

2008-07-18T13:23:00.004-05:00

Yes, Yes...it's been a while. I keep telling you I'm not really a blogger. I also keep saying I'll try to do better. So, I won't repeat myself again :)

Today, I'm having, as my friend calls it, a Nerdgasm. And I'm going to share it with you. I enjoy photography and I'm also a bit of a gadget nut. Over the last few years, I've taken to Geotagging many of the pictures that I take, especially if there from a place that we don't regularly visit. I had been using the built in ability of my Adobe Photoshop Elements organizer to tag photos, and it works well enough.

But, we're going on our first real vacation since the kids have been born and I plan to take lots of pictures in different places. I'll probably come home with a few hundred, and geotagging them manually would be a tedious and imprecise process at best.

I briefly considered laying down the coin for a replacement camera, a Nikon D300 that I've been lusting after a bit anyway. For this camera, I could have laid out some more coin for a GPS attachment that would write the location data to my pictures on the fly. But, I balked at the about $2000 that such a setup would take.

So, I did some more exploring and have found a way that breathes new life into several of my gadgets. The first is my old hand held GPS, a Magellan Meridian that I bought used several years ago when I was into Geocaching. It's been sitting dormat in my room for a couple of years. But, it will be coming with me on the trip, serving as a GPS logger, to record my progress at several places we visit. I've even put to use an otherwise worthless 16MB SD card. It's far too small to be useful for pictures, but it could store track data of me around the world several times. The last gadget is my trusty Nikon D70 that has continued to serve me well as my main camera.

To make it all work, I've picked up two free pieces of software. The first, GPSBabel, takes many of the different ways that different GPS units store track data and converts it into forms that work with other programs. The second wonder toy is GeoSetter - and this thing is truly magical. I made a test run today as I drove to work. I had the Magellan record my track as I drove to work and I took random pictures along the way out the car. Before I left, I made sure that the clock in my camera was set to match the time from the GPS satellites.

After that, I pulled the card of pictures out of the camera, and the SD card out of the GPS and put the files to my computer. GPSBabel took the Magellan format and converted it into a neutral form that GeoSetter could read. Then, I opened the images in GeoSetter and used it's sync function to read the track data and, based on the time stamps in the track, apply GPS Coordinates to all the sample pictures that I took. I had some problems at first, but once I figured out the configuration - WHAM! All those pictures were tagged and tagged quite accurately.

This is huge! We're going to San Diego, and will see the Zoo and the 1800 acre wild life park. On my own, I would have taken all the pictures and given them a common location, likely at the entrance to the Zoo or Wildlife Park, respectively. Now, with this, I can hang the GPS off my back pack and let it follow me around all day and then tag exactly where in the 1800 acres of wildlife park a particular picture was taken!!!!!

Now, if all that has left you giddy, then you've just had a nerdgasm, too. If, not, well, I suppose that's OK, too. Of course, saving $2000 is pretty exciting, as well.

Where have I been?

2008-04-11T20:58:00.002-05:00

2008 04 05_kids birthday party_0006.JPG, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's been a long stretch since I've posted. I keep meaning to and I've let a number of topics slip by on me. Truth be told, I've gotten sucked in to playing a good amount of Call of Duty 4 online. I hadn't seriously played an online shooter like this since the glory days of Quake 2.
So, what's been up? Here's the short recap. I made my weight loss challenge. 19lbs dropped in the 10 weeks of the challenge. I've slipped back up a few lbs in the last month, but I've reversed the slipping trend this week and I'm working my way back down again. I finished at 216 on the scale at work. I want to push to get down to 200 by the end of the year. I think I'm on track this time.

Now, as for the picture. That's the tornado taking a swing at the pinata we got for the combined birthday party we had for both the kids. With their birthdays two weeks apart, it becomes a bit of a struggle to do different parties. This year, we're getting them one big present of a playground for the backyard. So, we elected for a fairly simple party at the park for family and friends. It was probably one of the best we've had or been to. The weather was perfect. The kids had a blast on the playground. Everyone had just enough pizza and we didn't get stuck with a bunch of leftovers. And, the parents could hang out and relax and chat for a while. The pavilion is dirt cheap to rent for the day from the city and we didn't have any pressure to be packed up and out after exactly two hours so the next party on the production line could come in behind us.
Where have my weight loss pictures been? Well, I've definitely fallen behind on that as well. Can't post pictures I haven't been taking now, can I? I shall endeavor to start that up again this weekend.

A Perfect Weather Day

2008-03-01T21:37:00.002-06:00

Temperatures in the mid 70's, partly cloudy, light breeze, no chance of rain - a perfect Texas day for being outside. And that's what we did. In the morning, we did some much needed cleaning and laundry, but, after that, the kids spent a lot of time out in the sun. I took them to Jake's Grill for lunch, where they have an outdoor eating area and a playground. There were plenty of kids for my two to run around with and I was able to relax in the shade and enjoy the weather while they ran about. After lunch, we came home and Momma opened up some "infinite bubble" makers. The video above was taken by Momma with the kids running around in a shower of them. Some of the neighbor kids came over an played for a while and that took us to the early evening.
Unexpectedly, but not really surprisingly, both of the kids conked out by 7:30 this evening.

Gone Texan? We're already there!

2008-02-29T09:51:00.001-06:00

2008 02 29_Go Texan_0012, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

It's that time of year, so naturally, the kids are dressed up for "Go Texan" day at school.

A Fine Winter's Day in Texas

2008-02-10T21:10:00.000-06:00

Here in Texas, winter means nothing. One week it's rainy with lows near freezing, the next, highs in the 70's and clear.
Today was something borrowed straight out of Spring. High around 70, dry, light breeze, clear to partly cloudy skies. About as perfect a weather forecast as you could ask for.
And so, it made for a fine time, hanging out on the in-laws acre yard, playing ball with the kids and a niece while the wife and her family traded the latest news about the family.
I think I even managed to get a mild sunburn.

Sunday again

2008-02-03T22:30:00.000-06:00

I don't have a picture to upload yet, though I did take one today. I am down to 223.5 lbs, so the trend is definitely downward.
Now, why don't I have a picture? And what about that wife? Well, the good news is the wife was able to make her flight on Friday. She was fortunate to have an afternoon flight as many of the morning ones were canceled. Hers left about an hour late and she made it back home around 7p on Friday. She was able to see the princess score three baskets at her game on Saturday and enjoy the company of family watching NY win the Super Bowl this evening (and what a helluva game is was, too!)
Now, why don't I have a picture to post? Well, Wednesday brought my new power supply and video card upgrades. I proceeded to install the power supply first. When the computer came up, the hard drive behaved very badly and ultimately proved dead. Now, I think it's as much coincident as anything. The drive has always been somewhat flaky and noisy, so I wasn't terribly surprised by the failure. Besides, I had recently backed up my critical data to an external drive....so I thought. Turns out, my music and pictures are intact, but, for reasons I cannot figure out, some of the documents that I thought I had copied over were nowhere to be found. I can ultimately live without the stuff I lost, but it is still damn annoying.
But, I did have to get a new hard drive and rebuild it from the HP restore DVDs. Since then, I've been in the process of reinstalling my hardware, getting my pics and music back on and generally trying to get things back in order. At this time, I've not yet got my photo software back on yet, so my photo editing and uploading is hampered.
I did eventually get the new video card put in and it is truly sweet. I can now play Call of Duty 4 at the full 1680x1050 resolution of my 22" widescreen monitor and kill the bad guys good and dead.

Planes, Pains, and Automobiles

2008-01-29T21:26:00.000-06:00

This week marks another sojurn for the wife back to her company's home office in Chicago. Which marks another opportunity for me to live as Single Dad^tm. It started off well enough - Sunday we finished her packing and laid out the week's clothes for the kids. Monday morning comes and the wife takes the car out for Intercontinental and I take the van to get the kids to school. The deal has always been that, since a vehicle is just going to sit at the airport for a week, she takes the car and I get to use the van. We tried once for us to drop off the kids and then have me drop her off at the airport. But, that proved a major hassle, and she is able to just expense the parking and gas for the car anyway.

But this time decided to be a different adventure altogether. I'm coming up 288, about to exit onto 610 when the phone rings. The wife tells me the car is dead and she's somewhere near downtown off of 45. Great! So, I continue up 288 making my way to 45. I fight through traffic to the exit that she's stuck on. But, I can't get into the correct lane because it's jammed up with traffic....of cars trying to get around her.

Now, downtown Houston is pretty much an island surrounded by freeways and access to those freeways in the downtown area is very limited. I tried a couple of ways zigging and zagging around downtown to see if I could get back to the ramp. No luck. I eventually settled on the only way I was sure - I followed the loop of freeways all the way around downtown. Finally, I managed to get the van in behind the car. She had called for a tow truck and that arrived about 10 minutes after I got to her. We swapped all her luggage to the van, I gave the tow truck driver directions to my one and only trusted mechanic in Pearland, and we headed off to the airport, trying to make up for lost time and not miss her flight.

I got her to the airport about an hour ahead of her scheduled departure time. After I'm on my way to work, I get a text that the flight has been delayed an hour, so no worries about her missing it. The afternoon wears on and I get a call from the mechanic that the car made it and that one of the transmission lines busted and dumped all the fluid, so, no shifting, no power. This turns out to be good news. They replace the lines and tighten up all the connections and fittings. Refill the transmission and it shifts smoothly.

I get back home with the kids, drop the princess off at basketball practice, and the lady from the garage picks me up to get the car. It drives home as good as usual. It's been a long day, so I "celebrate" by going to dinner with the kids at CiCi's and very much enjoying the buffet.

The wife is going OK in Chicago, but the weather is getting worse. Snow started tonight and it's going to be in the negatives tomorrow. There's a good chance her flight home Friday will get delayed or even canceled. Tune in later to see if Momma makes it home!

A fun and busy weekend

2008-01-27T20:22:00.001-06:00

Daddy and Denali ready for the Dance, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

My parents came to visit for the weekend. We started off on Friday night with my Dad and I taking the princess to the Daddy/Daughter dance up at our church. The picture is of the two of us dressed for the evening. We went last year and had a lot of fun and this time was the same. It took my Dad and myself taking turns to keep up with the princess' energy!
Saturday lead to me sleeping in until 10am, when the wife finally woke me up. I haven't slept terribly well this past week, so I finally got a chance to catch up. My mom and I took the princess to her team picture day for basketball. After that, it was game time and we all watched the princess play. In the last afternoon, the wife and I went for workouts at the Y and we closed the evening by going out to see "I am Legend" while my parents watched the kids.
Today started off with church in the morning, followed by my parents taking the kids for breakfast while the wife and I packed for her week long trip to Chicago. Yes, It's just going to be me and the kids for a whole week again.
I spent the afternoon wandering around at the car show. I sat in dozens of different vehicles as I will be casting a wide net to draw from when I replace my car. I've set a date for two years from now to make a new purchase. I'll write about some of my impressions from the car show during the week. The one thing I can say about it was that it was jam packed. I usually go on a Friday afternoon and the crowds are nowhere near what I faced today. I shall definitely remember to return to the Friday routine in future years.

Weight Loss Check In

2008-01-21T22:22:00.000-06:00

I know, I was supposed to post yesterday. The day turned out to be rather full and I never got a chance to have the wife take a picture. But, I am here today with the report and picture. I'm down to 226.5 as of this morning, which is a couple of more pounds from where I was two Sundays ago. I've managed to do fairly well on both the eating and exercise fronts and I'm staying on target for the 7% drop at work. Of course, I need more like 20% to get to my real goal, but I'm taking it as it comes.
Last year, after the 10 week challenge, someone sponsored a maintenance challenge where we weighed in once a month. Most of us failed that challenge, but, it did give me the sad history of my slide back up. Looking at that, I'm back down to my pre-Thanksgiving weight. The Summer was my worst backslide, so hopefully in a few more weeks I can backtrack to where I was in the Spring.
Can't really see a change in the picture (other than my beard having filled in pretty well, I'll have to write that story sometime). But, I can feel a difference. Stay tuned.

Circuit City Offer????

2008-01-18T15:43:00.000-06:00

Now, I get a number of emails from various vendors. I have one of my accounts that I direct all of this near spam to. Circuit City is one of my regular deliveries. This week, I get an offer of 10% off my entire purchase of $199 or more using a code given in the email. So, I think, "great, I was looking to buy a few games and Turbo Tax and all". But, here's what comes at the bottom of the email:

"The offer is good for 10% off your next combined purchase of $199 or more. Offer good for one use only and applies to total qualifying purchase on a single sales receipt dated between 1/17/08 and 1/19/08. Not valid on previous purchases. Offer excludes GPS navigation units, Bose, Polk, Infinity, Velodyne, Kicker, MTX Thunder, KEF, Denon, Polaroid, Olevia, Element, Vizio, Apple, Zune, Verizon Wireless, cable and DIRECTV services, notebooks, desktops, PC software, outlet, music, movie, game hardware, Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3 instrument bundles, City Price products, Clearance products, pre-paid cards and Circuit City gift card purchases. Delivery fees, shipping charges and sales tax not included in total purchase calculation. Not combinable with select Circuit City offers. Not redeemable for cash. Void where prohibited or restricted."

It seems like it would have just been a short list to tell me what this coupon IS good for. I'm trying to think of what else CC even sells that isn't on this list. Of course, "PC Software" is what I was interested in, so no luck for me with the coupon. Thanks for a whole lotta nothing there, CC.

CTS Coupe Concept

2008-01-16T22:32:00.001-06:00

NAIAS '08, originally uploaded by gm_blogs.

Saw this one coming across the web from various sources. GM showed of a concept version of a Cadillac CTS Coupe at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
I think I'm in love.

More pics can be found here: CTS Coupe Gallery

Pearland Winterfest

2008-01-13T12:51:00.001-06:00

2008 01 12 Pearland Winterfest 018, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

Yesterday was a pretty full day. Once again, our city's Parks Department held it's annual "Winterfest" at the big park in town. This year was generally better than recent ones. Pearland is growing very rapidly and it has been the case in years past that the city has not been able to put on an event big enough to hold everyone in town that shows up for it. This year, there was a good bit more to do and things were spread out around the park. So, even though there were a lot of people there, it didn't feel as crowded.
Both the kids had a great time, as you can see here. Both took to the snow field and the snow mountain slide. The princess and I road the Ferris Wheel and she also ascended to the top of a 40 foot tall rock wall that was brought in.
It's things like this that I enjoy about living in Pearland.

The 2008 Running of the Fatboys

2008-01-06T11:55:00.001-06:00

2008 has just shown up out of nowhere. And, as in years past, I find myself on the heavy end of the scale. This year, I tip the scales at my largest amount ever - 235 lbs according to the official Fatboy scale at the office.
So, once again, I am participating and organizing the Running of the Fatboys at my company. For the next ten weeks, 90 people in my office have signed up at $30 each challenged with dropping 7% of our weight in that time. The contest has grown from humble beginnings in 2001 when there were about 10 of us.
For several of us, such as myself, the challenge has helped act as something of a reset for slipping back the previous nine months. Every year, we say we won't need to come back and do the challenge again, but we keep ending up back in the challenge the following year.
This year, I have to do better. For, while the 10 week challenge has helped me cut down the previous years gains, I find myself starting the following year heavier than before - I keep bouncing higher than last time. So, this year, I'll be making this post every other Sunday. A picture of my current condition and my weight for that morning. As of today, this is what I look like and this morning's scale reading is 229.0 lbs. There's probably a three pound difference between home and work due to clothing, so I'm down probably three pounds so far.
I'm also not alone. One of my friends in Podcasting, Tony Mast, has a podcast dedicated to his own efforts to get his weight under control. He's a good bit bigger than I am, but as I've listened to his show, I find we are a lot alike, particularly when it comes to how we have packed on as much as we have. He's working to turn it around and so am I. Otherwise, I'm going to find myself one day shopping for a specialty scale.

2007-12-28T13:48:00.001-06:00

Yes, yes, I know I haven't posted in a long time. I keep meaning to write about how I've been a slacker this holiday season....but I've been too much of a slacker to write about it.

So, enjoy this for now...

	I received 78 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Take the Sci-Fi Movie Quiz canon s5 is

Thanksgiving Weekend

2007-11-24T19:44:00.001-06:00

2007 11 22 Leaf Pile 046a, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

Well, we're home from San Antonio and we even brought the kids back with us :-) The weather turned bitterly cold (for us central Texas types, anyway) on Thanksgiving Day.

But, the food was good (mmm, pie) and the visits with family and one of my oldest and best friends was quite nice. My friend even suprised us with the gift of a new Nintendo Wii!

My father prepared a fine leaf pile in the backyard and we put it to good a proper use.

We even managed to score a few good deals and get most of our Christmas shopping finished on Black Friday. Now, we're free to focus on the reason for the season.

All in all, we managed to do a fine big of living this weekend.

Empty Nest

2007-11-20T20:10:00.000-06:00

The house is quiet...too quiet. Momma and I are empty nesters this week. My parents came to visit this weekend. When they returned to San Antonio, both the princess and the tornado went with them. We'll be catching up come Thanksgiving. But, for now, it's just Maw and Paw at the homestead. We're both taking off of work tomorrow to get some projects done around the house that we just never manage to have time for with the kids around. Still, it will be good to get back with the kids again.
In other news - the car. No, back up a minute - yesterday I went to the doctor as I had picked up some kind of eye infection. The visit went well and I got a prescription for drops, which are helping. On the drive home, I noticed steam venting from under the hood and got the car home quickly. An inspection showed the source to be a failed hose. I filled the radiator and got the car over to our trusted mechanic. After 190,000 miles, its no surprise the hoses needed replacement. Alas, it turned out to be worse - the radiator is also cracked and that needs to be replaced as well. But, with the holidays gearing up, the shop can't get a replacement until Monday.
In truth, it's working out for the best. It was only a matter of time before these things wore out. With the holiday trip and the kids out of school, it's about the best possible time for the car to be unavailable. So, overall I'm thankful that I was able to get the car to the shop w/o destroying it and that we have a good opportunity to get things fixed. I'm counting on another couple of years service before I put this one out to pasture.

Celebrity Look Alikes?

2007-11-15T22:52:00.000-06:00

Stumbled upon this one and thought I'd give it a try. Interesting results...

Boo!

2007-11-02T19:19:00.001-05:00

2007 10 31 Jack o Lantern 001, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

Alright, I've been in hiding long enough. I've been meaning to make some posts, but, life has been getting in the way.
I've actually been sick off and on the last couple of weeks, which has rather heavily cut into my posting motivation.
Still. other than that, things have been going reasonably well. Momma made it home safe from Chicago and the family was still alive when she came home.
Last weekend was full of parties and visits from grandparents. The princess had a karate tournament and she won her bout. She was also on fire at her soccer game.
This past week, naturally, there was much candy to be gathered and given out. Momma made the fine Jack o'Lantern carving in today's picture. We probably had a good 30 kids come by the house. Our little witch and Thomas the train went out and brought in a pretty good haul. Today finished the week with a school field trip to the zoo. Momma wasn't feeling well this morning, so I took the day off and chaperoned the princess around.

While Momma's Away

2007-10-16T20:22:00.000-05:00

A new quarter is upon us, which means Momma is in Chicago for the week. So, I'm alone with the kids until Friday. Thankfully, we're already so busy every night, that I don't have time to worry about what to do :) Even when Momma is in town, we have a full week. The princess has soccer on Monday and Wednesday (though I elected to skip yesterday as the weather was looking nasty). Tonight was Karate and Thursday is Ballet.
And, this Friday, the YMCA is having a fall festival and, if it's like last year, it will be fun and crowded. That's a pretty typical week for us now that the Fall is in full swing. Who needs evenings? They're over rated.

A Request for Prayer

2007-10-07T21:10:00.000-05:00

Greg and Jennifer Willits are two people whom I've never met. But, every week for the last year and a half, I've listened to their voices and taken strength and inspiration from their words. They produce the Rosary Army Catholic podcast, which is largely their family story of being living witnesses to the Catholic faith. Thanks to them and several other Catholic podcasts, my own spirituality has grown stronger.
Several weeks ago on one of their shows, they shared that they were expecting a new baby, who would be their fifth. But, on their latest show last week, they shared that they've now learned that the pregnancy is almost certainly a miscarriage. They went through this same loss two years ago with their last pregnancy and it broke my heart to hear they have suffered so again.
So, I ask that you remember them as they struggle through this painful time. Thank you.

Tornado Strike

2007-10-03T18:09:00.001-05:00

2007 09 21 Momma's 35th Birthday 008, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

Just a quick one. This is my son, the Tornado. He really enjoyed the birthday cake from Momma's birthday party.
So, Last weekend, the wife was out exercising, the princess was playing with the neighbors, which left me to entertain the boy.
we're playing with his new set of LEGOs. He used the blocks to build as tall a tower as he can. But, it gets too tall and buckles on him as he's trying to snap another block on top.
He ends up with half in his hand and half attached to the base. He looks at it and in a cute little boy voice says "Awwwwww, crap!"
And I know exactly who he learned that from. 'Course, I do have to be proud that he used the phrase correctly.

Enjoy.

The King has lost his Crown

2007-09-24T22:05:00.001-05:00

The King has lost his Crown, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

Well, a fine thing happened to me today. About an hour before lunch, while I was having a snack, my crown decided to come loose. I called in for an appointment and left work early to see the dentist. Fortunately, the crown itself was still intact. So, it was a fairly simple matter for him to prepare a new mix and put my crown back on.

Helluva way to start the week.

The Princess Back in Action

2007-09-22T11:55:00.001-05:00

2007 09 22 Soccer Day 039, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

She got off to a bit of a slow start the first couple of games. But today, she was on FIRE! Five points she scored today and was chasing after the ball the way we're used to. I think her confidence level is well back up after today. She had been concerned that she wasn't going to be able to play well enough, especially since she missed the first couple of weeks of practice. But, she stuck with it and I'm proud of her for that.

My Old Wife

2007-09-21T22:03:00.001-05:00

2007 09 21 Momma's 35th Birthday 001, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

For 19 days each year, my wife gets to be the younger woman. But, after a few short weeks, her birthday comes around and we're the same age again. Today is that day.
In our main aquarium downstairs, we've had an explosion of baby fish - somewhere between 20 and 30. Most of them have survived for over a week and are starting to get big. I'm probably going to have to get our older 10 gallon aquarium out of the attic and set it up again somewhere as these fish get bigger.
The wife commented that she'd like to have something small that she could have near her computer while she works during the day. I had to run to Wal-mart for a few things for her birthday party that we had tonight, and I picked up this little aquarium. While she was out picking up the kids from school, I brought it in and set it up as a surprise for her. Once the tank is stabilized tomorrow, we'll bring a few of the babies up here to their new home.

It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

2007-09-19T21:16:00.000-05:00

My pirate name is:

Bloody Morty Roberts

Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. Two things complete your pirate persona: style and swagger. Maybe a little too much swagger sometimes -- but who really cares? Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Life is good

2007-09-13T21:49:00.000-05:00

Not a whole lot unusual going on. Life is busy, especially with the kids back in school. The princess had her first soccer game last Saturday. It was a big step up from the last two years. Before, they played 3 v 3 for six minute quarters. This year, they play 4 v 4 for 12 minute quarters. It was a hot and muggy morning and everyone was soaked by the time it was over. Hopefully, things will be a bit cooler this weekend.
The wife went out of town for last weekend for a short business trip. So, this weekend will be her first time to see the princess in action for the new season.
The tornado grows ever more pissed that he can't get out and play. Next fall, he'll be old enough to play at the YMCA and it can't come soon enough.
And, thanks to the very high demand that my business is in, I got a pretty big raise today. Back around 2000, things looked pretty bad in this industry and I thought I was going to have to find another line of work to make a decent living. Looks like it's a good thing I stuck it out, because it is definitely paying off these days.

14 Years Today

2007-09-04T22:24:00.000-05:00

While it's OK for me to be away for my birthday (turned 35 back on the 2nd while at DragonCon), there's one thing that I definitely have to be home for - the anniversary!
Today marks 14 years that the wife and I have been married. Yes, Shell, 14 years!
Since then, we've graduated from college, changed jobs a couple of times, moved into a house and had two kids.
Some days it feels like the wedding was yesterday and some days it feels like I've been married forever. It hasn't always been easy, but it has most certainly been worth it.

Back from DragonCon

2007-09-03T22:10:00.001-05:00

2007 09 01 006_edited-1, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

Well, I survived DragonCon! The weekend was a blast, though totally draining. I got to meet up with many of the friends I've made online, especially the gang from Farpoint Media like Jack Mangan, Leann Mabry, and the Wingin It crew.
I got to meet and hang out with authors whose work I've enjoyed like Tee Morris, Scott Sigler, JC Hutchins, Michael A. Stackpole, and Matthew Wayne Selznick.
Plenty of Celebrities were on hand as well. Of course, getting this picture with the Mythbusters build team was massively cool. Their panel was a lot of fun and we got a first showing of an all new blooper reel from the those. I got to see panels featuring cast members from the new Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, and Farscape.
And, oh the costumes. I've shot about 250 pictures from the weekend and I need to sort through them and get more uploaded to Flickr. It's amazing some of the work that gets put into them.
I doubt I'll be back next year and it is a pretty good size expense all in all, but I do expect I'll make the trip again sometime in the years to come. If you're any kind of geek at all, you've got to make this trip at least once. But, for the love of God, make sure you pre-register! The lines to get through the daily ticket purchase were insane!

Mid week update

2007-08-29T21:46:00.001-05:00

It is a week of changes. The princess started first grade on Monday and is loving it. She really likes her new teacher and has several friends from last year in her new class. We had soccer Monday, but got rained out today. The weather has been hit and miss this week. Still, I show 1.5" of rain in the gauge so far this week. So, I've turned the sprinkler system off, yet again. No complaints about that one.
Yesterday was my sister-in-law's birthday so the wife and mother-in-law took her out to dinner while I watched all the kids. Which proved not too difficult. The tornado loves the boys, though I don't think either he or they really appreciate how much of a size difference there is between them. Fortunately, the boy it tough, so he came through OK.
Workouts are going well. I'm not seeing any kind of loss yet, but I can definitely tell the workouts are more effective that what I was doing before.
Early on Friday morning, I fly to Atlanta to meet a number of friends I've made online over the last few years. We're coming from all over the country to attend DragonCon. I've never been to it before (actually hadn't even heard of it until last year). I expect to have a very full weekend. I'm taking the old laptop to the hotel, so, if I'm not completely worn out each day, I'll trying to get somethings posted while I'm there.

Crunch!

2007-08-25T13:04:00.000-05:00

had a small fender bender in a parking lot. the sun was behind a pickup and i couldn't see it. Not to much damage to the truck. Car took the worst of it. Yuck!

Workouts to the next level

2007-08-22T22:09:00.000-05:00

The family have been members of the local YMCA since the beginning of last year. We actually have a city wide membership and have been to the Y in Alvin several times as they have a nicer and newer pool than Pearland.
But, Pearland is undergoing a $2 million dollar renovation and the first phase was completed about a month ago with all new machines for the fitness center. The Y has put in the Fitlinxx system and all the bikes, treadmills, ellipticals and weight machines are networked together.
Tonight, I got my account activated and went through the orientation. I've been using the new machines since they came in, but could use the tracking tools until completing the orientation. There was a big line to get in since the Y already has a lot of members.
Since I need to lose a good 45-50 lbs. or so, I put weight loss as my goal for now. The instructors set me up a routine to work through and oriented me on each of the machines. The machines track weight, reps, sets, and provide feedback to help me do the exercise correctly. Overall, it's a pretty impressive system and I can already tell the routine they set up for me is more effective than the somewhat random routine that I had been pursuing.
Lately, I've managed to quit the ascent that I've been on since finishing the weight loss challenge at work. Now, I need to turn it around and get moving back down again.

Another day at the beach

2007-08-19T16:43:00.000-05:00

Well, we survived another week with Momma in Chicago on business. My parents came in to visit for the weekend and we made a return trip to Stewart Beach in Galveston. This time, we came prepared for the big slide. The princess made her first run on the slide back when she was around two, so it was time for the tornado to continue the tradition.
The weather was about perfect. The water was a good temperature and the sky was mostly overcast. There was a lot of sea weed on the beach from Tropical Storm Erin coming ashore, but we still found a good patch of sand for a new sand castle. After a couple of hours, we got cleaned up, had lunch and then drove home. The tornado fell asleep on the way, and pretty much everyone else went down for a nap once we got home. Not a bad way to spend the weekend.

103!!!!

2007-08-14T18:42:00.000-05:00

hot hot hot

Summer has arrived in Texas

2007-08-12T20:57:00.001-05:00

2007 08 12 003, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

Well, after one of the wetest and coolest July's on record, Summer has come full force now in August. This past week, highs have been in the upper 90's and rain has been scarce. Today, I observed 101°F. Even going to the pool today was difficult as it was just too hot and way too bright outside.
As for this past week, it's been a busy one. The kids have had swim lessons at the Y. The princess swims well enough on her own in her class, and the Tornado is being difficult for Momma in his class. We've all be going as a family and I've been taking the opportunity to workout. Both the wife and I continue to struggle with weight, but we've been making some progress. The truth is we just eat out too damn much.
Today, as the picture shows, is a repeat of an annual tradition. My father-in-law and sister-in-law share their birthday and it has been tradition to go to Pancho's for dinner. The food is certainly not great, nor is the restaurant, but the birthday people get to pick where to go.
Both the in-laws donned the traditional sombrero and were sung to by the family and staff. The nice thing about the place is that is is already noisy and has a large back room, so having eight grand kids running around is not a big deal. You can check the FLICKR feed for some other pics of the evening.

A Day at the Beach

2007-08-05T21:20:00.001-05:00

2007 08 05 015, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

Yes, yes - i know I still need to do a proper write up about the rest of our vacation trip to San Antonio. It will come some time.

For now, here's a bit from our trip today down to Galveston. We hadn't been to the beach since before my son was born. So, today was his first time and we all had a ball. For a nice weather Sunday, it was perfect. I got a good parking spot and the beach wasn't crowded. The water was good and, as you would expect from Stewart Beach, everything was nice and clean. Getting him to leave was the toughest part.

Rain Rain....

2007-07-20T20:38:00.000-05:00

Well, we survived the first day of vacation in spite of a full day of rain that seemed to cover all of central Texas. We didn't get to do some of the things we planned, but we still had a good time. The Blue Bell 100th Anniversary Party was still a lot of fun and most of the area was covered. How can you not have a good time with all the free ice cream you care to eat?
I'm going to get some rest now as the wife has declared that I will be on a mission at midnight to procure the last Harry Potter book for her. We shall see if the weather improves tomorrow.

On the Road Again....

2007-07-19T22:25:00.000-05:00

While I see my posting has been pretty sporadic lately, it's about to get even more so. We're heading out of town for vacation, so I don't know how much I'll care to check in on the net.

The last few days of work have been pretty mentally draining. Things are going well, especially after today. But the process of getting there has been pretty taxing. I'm definitely ready for a break. Maybe I'll get ambitious and make some postings during the trip.

Transformers!

2007-07-13T19:33:00.000-05:00

I must confess, for the last year, I've not been too hopeful about this movie. The original toys and cartoon were an important part of my childhood and the early stuff (and the previews for that matter) made it look like a nightmare.
But, over the weekend, I heard a lot of good buzz about it from a number of sources that I trust. So, today, the wife and I went to check it out. It certainly wasn't perfect and there are some parts of it that you are better off just not thinking about. However, overall, it was an excellent experience and definitely a recommend. I would rate it as one of the best Summer movies of this season.

The Princess has Returned!

2007-07-07T15:02:00.001-05:00

Our daughter is back from her two week stay with her grandparents. It's nice to have her back. It feels like she's been gone a lot longer. I think the Tornado is a bit torn - he's happy she's back, but he's also gotten used to be an "only" child getting undivided attention and no challenges on what cartoons to watch. I imagine it will take everyone a few days to get used to being together again.

Lifeline restored!

2007-07-03T21:19:00.000-05:00

We've been dealing with spotty internet access here at the house since the weekend. On Friday I took our modem to the Comcast store for an exchange as it had been flaky most of the week. At the store, the reported the whole area was having trouble, but I went and swapped out anyway.
Well, come Sunday, the connection is spending more time down than up. So, we call in and a tech comes out this afternoon. Turns out, my old modem was crapped....and so was the replacement that I got Friday. The tech checked out everything and the only weak link was the modem. So, swapped out again and all appears well.
On the way out, the tech, who was an experience guy slipped up and thanked us for using Road run...er..Comcast :)
Now, if we can just get Comcast to start shipping those TIVO powered DVRs, life will be great.

Trip to Washington

2007-06-30T16:00:00.001-05:00

2007 06 27 006a, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

For my current project at work, our client invited several of the project team, including myself, to tour a unit similar to the one we are designing and meet with the people at that plant. The visit was very productive and useful.
We flew into the Seattle airport on Wednesday afternoon. As we came below the clouds on approach to the city, Mount Rainier came into view on the left side. Fortunately, I had a window seat on the left side of the plane. I got this pretty decent shot of the mountain through the window, so here it is to share.
This is the kind of stuff I had in mind when I created this blog.

safe on the ground

2007-06-27T21:54:00.001-05:00

I have just arrived safely on the ground in Seattle. Now i get to ride one and a half hours to the hotel. Good night.

The Nest is a bit emptier

2007-06-25T22:15:00.000-05:00

As part of the whirl wind adventure that is the Summer, the princess left today with my Mom and Aunt to spend the next two weeks in San Antonio. My parents have a lot of stuff planned to keep her busy.
While the boy is doing his part, he can't make quite as much noise by himself as he and his sister do together. So, the house is a little quieter today. We definitely notice her absence. It will be good for her to get away for this time, but we'll be glad to have her back home when she comes.

Random Update

2007-06-21T20:48:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a few days, so I figured I'd better put an update so that Shell still knows I'm alive :)

Yesterday was probably the high point of the week. For the past few weeks I've been somewhat nervous about a big meeting. My company is involved in a major project that is so big, several competitors of ours are all working together on it. Yesterday, I met with my counterparts at the other companies as well as engineers from our client regarding our part of the work.
Our company is a subcontractor in this case, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect meeting with guys from the top level partners. Overall, the meeting went pretty well. I had worked with and knew people from each of the companies and we got along well. It's probably one of the most productive meetings I ever attended.

Happy Father's Day

2007-06-17T10:02:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been an interesting couple of days. The princess went in for her first dental treatment a few days ago. One of her teeth ended up having to be pulled. It was just too decayed to be salvageable. Momma and I can't believe that it wasn't giving her some kind of pain. She did well at the dentist and I hear that the tooth fairy was pretty good to her, as well.
Then, the tornado has been going downhill this week and hit bottom on Saturday with some kind of nasty stomach bug. It's probably been going around at school as some of the other parents I've talked to have gone through similar troubles this past week. Yesterday, he wouldn't eat, and what little we could get down him would generally get thrown up anyway. He never had much of a fever, but he did have a lot of pain and wanted to be held most of the time. This morning, he looks like he is back to full strength.
And, it hasn't all been dark and gloom around here. Yesterday, the princess had her ballet recital. She did very well, though, as usual, with dress rehearsal (in full makeup) in the morning, it was a very long day. Thankfully, the recital itself started earlier and also ran quicker this time, so we weren't out so late. This is the princess third year with the class, so she, along with a few of her friends, earned their first trophy from the school this time. Now she'll get one every other year and it looks like she wants to continue. Momma and I aren't quite sure how we're going to make Soccer, Karate, and Ballet all work come the fall, but at least we have a few months break here this summer.

So, to all my fellow fathers out there, here's a Happy Father's Day greeting for you. May you give as much, and get back in return from you kids as I do.

How I Sound

2007-06-13T19:06:00.000-05:00

When people in other parts of the country hear my voice, they tell me I don't sound like I'm from Texas. I guess there must be some stereotypical sound that they expect. Anyway, it appears to be true:

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far)

Midland

("Midland" is not necessarily the same thing as "Midwest") The default, lowest-common-denominator American accent that newscasters try to imitate. Since it's a neutral accent, just because you have a Midland accent doesn't mean you're from the Midland.

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

The funny thing is, I've never even been to that part of the country.

Goodbye, Mr. Wizard

2007-06-12T22:25:00.001-05:00

It is a sad day. Don Herbert, best known to my generation as "Mr. Wizard" has passed away. Back in the day, when Nickelodean was a children's network, Mr. Wizard's World was a show that taught us about science through all kinds of cool experiments, most of which seemed to involve common household items.
It's been years since I'd seen or thought about that show, though the memories of it flow back fondly. It looks like they are available on DVD and I think I'm going to have to track them down for my kids now.

Obituary for Don Herbert

Weekend Update

2007-06-11T21:03:00.000-05:00

Life has been busy the last few days. First, the bad news - The Princess went to the dentist for a checkup last week. She has, unfortunately, inherited her mother's teeth. She had TEN cavities that will need to be repaired, and two of those are likely to need crowns. It was a pretty stunning blow to get that news. Admittedly, we don't always do the best at brushing and I have been blessed with pretty durable teeth, myself. But, that has all changed effective immediately. The one bright spot is, though it's going to take a lot of work and money to get these teeth fixed, over the course of the next six years, they will all be replaced with permanent teeth. So, we get something of a do over and a chance to start now with building better habits. At least now we know that we're going to have to work extra hard to keep her teeth in shape.

The weekend went better. The princess had two birthday parties this weekend and Sunday was a full day with our parish Bazaar. As usual, I worked on the parking crew under the blazing sun and sweltering humidity. The crowd seemed smaller than last year, but we still packed in quite a few people. The rides were different this year and generally something of a disappointment from year's past. Still, the princess went on what I'd call an astronaut training ride. She remains quite the adventurer. I caught this bit of video on my camera:

Back from Summer Camp

2007-06-06T23:39:00.001-05:00

2007 06 06 004, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

I've had to keep silent as part of my audience didn't want to know about this adventure until it was over. The Princess made a big step this week. She went away to a three night summer camp with the YMCA. No Momma, Daddy, Grandparents. And no TV or computers, either.
She had a blast - riding horses, canoing, swimming, rock wall climbing. Every day was full. We decided to try out the three night camp this year to see how she did. She's ready to go back and next year we'll let her go to a full week long camp.

And, yes, She has had a major haircut. With all the activity she's going to have, she and I agreed that a shorter hairstyle would be good for her this summer. Everyone thinks it turned out quite well.
And, yes again, she does have a new watch. We bought it for her just before camp and she loves it. Waterproof and a good size digital display. She's been able to tell time for a good while, so it was a natural.

phone post: i am being

2007-06-04T18:09:00.001-05:00

phone post: i am being very bad now. momma and i are pigging out on fresh rolls at double daves. they r soooo good.

Gamer at Heart

2007-06-03T20:08:00.000-05:00

I have always been into video games. Going back to the late 70's with the original Atari 2600 (which was simply "The Atari" back then) I once spent three solid hours playing Yar's Revenge, flipping the scoreboard a good six times in the process.
With the 80's, we had both the original Nintendo and eventually the Super Nintendo consoles. The 80's also saw me spend many many hours in the arcades, most of which no longer exist. Guantlet, Q-bert, Time Pilot, Zaxxon, Sinistar, BattleZone and a host of others sucked up much of my allowance quarter by quarter.
As the 90's arrived, I found myself with a PC and it has been my platform of choice ever since. Games like Wing Commander, The Ultima series, the Might and Magic Series, Knights of the Old Republic and especially my beloved TIE Fighter. I spent many a free hour from high school on immersed in virtual worlds. I spent many a dollar upgrading my rig getting ready for a new game.
But, in the last few years, much of that has changed. Especially with the kids now, I have much less time to dispose of on such pursuits. Now, all this is fine - I wouldn't trade anything for the time and experiences that I get to have with my family. 25 years from now when all the kids are out on their own, I'll have plenty of time to start building killer rigs again.
But, I do still get to satisfy my urges on occasion. There's a group of guys that I work with of a similar age and gaming background to myself. During our lunch hours, we engage in a variety of multiplayer computer games across the network with each other. Our current favorite is a somewhat older game called Rise of Nations. Depending on how many of us are available on a given day, we may create a scenario of all human teams, or we may group all the human players against a force of computer controlled nations. Typically, we play through a scenario during a lunch hour, sometimes two.
But, this week was something different. Two of our regulars were unavailable, so the remaining four of us took on four computer controlled nations. This week, we spent three full lunch hours, over two hours of game time, to defeat the four opposing nations. After the first day, we were essentially at a stalemate, and I was particularly hampered as I seemed to be a favorite target. By the end of the second day, we got the pendulum to start swinging in our favor, though the outcome was by no means certain. Finally, on the third day, we broke through on two fronts and eventually managed to break the four opponents. I would definitely call that effort and its result a high point in my gaming experience. Here below is a screen shot of the end of the game with mine and a buddy's forces pounding away at an enemy city.

EDIT: Damn! As I go back through and add links to the game references, I can't believe how old some of those arcade games are. I'm talking 1980, 81, 82!!!! Man I'm getting old.

The fat lady is singing for President Bush - Wall Street Journal

2007-06-01T19:54:00.001-05:00

I think Peggy Noonan has certainly written what many of us conservatives have been thinking for a while. W. didn't get himself down to 28% approval without gathering a bipartisan level of disdain and dissapointment.

read more | digg story

Pirates 3 The wife and

2007-06-01T16:17:00.001-05:00

Pirates 3
The wife and I just got out of Pirates 3. It was OK but not as good as the first two. We are out for dinner. Posting from phone

Midweek Update

2007-05-30T20:30:00.000-05:00

Alright, I'm going to try to keep up with it this time. The last couple of days have been pretty interesting. On Sunday, I turned out with my fellow Knights of Columbus for the adult confirmation mass that our parish hosted. Archbishop Dinardo was the presider and we had about 130 adults confirmed at the mass. Over the Pentecost weekend, about 900 adults were confirmed during several masses in the Archdiocese.

For Memorial Day, I would normally be at work as my company has never recognized it as a holiday. This year, I went ahead and took a day of vacation. Both the kids were home with the wife, so we decided to spend the day together. I had hoped to go back to the Y in Alvin for another round in the pool, but the weather had other ideas. We did spend the afternoon with the wife's family, so most of the cousins got to run around.

Yesterday and today were the usual back to work. My new project continues to ramp up and looks like it will be keeping me occupied well through the end of the year.

This morning, the tornado decided he wanted to wake up at 4am, so I've had a pretty long day. I was dead tired when I came home. But, we elected to have a family dinner at Gringo's, which was nice. The tornado actually behaved pretty well. From there, a quick trip to the library to get the princess signed up in the summer reading program. Yes, she reads...books, even!

While there, I finally picked up a book that I have been deliquent in reading - Willaim Gibson's Neuromancer. A Matrix/Blade Runner/Cyberpunk precursor work that set the stage for much of the genre. I'll let you know what I think of it in a few weeks.

And, finally, it appears to be the week for phone calls. My brother in California has called me twice this week. I've been helping him put together a new computer upgrade. He sounds like he's doing pretty well. Last night we also had a call from our good friend, the princess's godfather. He sounds like he's doing pretty well also. Though, I'm going to have to get on him about posting more, he's even worse than me about updates :-)

Rainy Day? No problem!

2007-05-26T17:32:00.000-05:00

We were planning to head out of town for the weekend to take the kids to see the new baby horses in the extended family. But, 22" of rain yesterday in Killeen with the promise of more today nixed those plans. So, what to do?

I took the kids to Bounce On It and let them have their way with the moonwalks for a good three hours. Momma stayed home and did some organizing around the house while I tried to keep up with the princess and the tornado.

Here's a snippet of the tornado in action:

We probably would have stayed longer, but the tornado finally ran out of steam and was ready for his nap.

I just got back from a workout at the Y here. I made a good run at weight loss during the company's annual 10 week start of the year challenge. But, I've since gained most of it back and I've been struggling to get back on track. I've been sick off and on for the last couple of months, just enough so for it to be annoying and keep me from getting good exercise. Unfortunately, it did nothing to curb my appetite. I think I'm finally over all that, so I'll have a better chance of getting back on the downward path.

I'm not dead!!!!

2007-05-25T21:18:00.000-05:00

Well, I doubt anyone thought I was, but just to be certain.

I'm faced with the reality that I haven't posted anything since before Christmas. There've been reports that blogging has been in decline this year, so I was just showing my support for the movement :)

Really, I've just been busy in other areas and active in some online communities and haven't made the blog a priority when I have access to my computer. I'll see if I can do better again.

To sum up the last six months - overall, life has been going really really well. The kids have survived their birthday's and are now all turbocharged for the summer.

Today, the wife, daughter, and I went to see Shrek 3 and greatly enjoyed it. I know it's not been doing as well in the reviews. While it may not have been quite as strong as the previous two, we still thought it was a fun ride and had a lot of good laughs. Actually, the daughter wanted to go back and see it again!

After that, we picked up the boy and all went to the new YMCA in Alvin. It's a very very nice facility and the pool there has a splash park for the kids. And, the pool has a shallow end that is a gently slopping ramp instead of steps, so the boy was able to move about freely and had water shallow enough for him to stand up in. Overall, it's been a really good day.

I am the 80's

2006-12-21T05:44:00.000-06:00

Alright, I didn't get as high a score as I should have due to rushing through, as well as a few spelling mistakes that the test creater dinged me for.

I fully expect Shell to get a perfect score.

Tis the season?

2006-12-16T05:30:00.000-06:00

....for being really busy at work. You'd think I was in retail trying to handle holiday shoppers with the hours I've been working. But no, I'm just working a really big, really out of whack project, leading a team with seven guys local and four more in India. One problem with a booming market is that, not only is the labor pool drying up, but the overall quality of labor is dropping. Listen to me, I sound like some kind of economist. Basically, companies are figuring out they need to pay well to hold on to their strong people - which has certainly been good for me this year. Problem is, there's too much work for just the good people. So, companies are now competing for people that no one would consider hiring a couple of years ago. It's tough because it is effecting all the technical disciplines. Which means, that guys like me are working extra to recover from some of the damage that others are inflicting. But, at least it's paying me more than I ever thought I'd be making, so I'll make due.

It's been busy on the home front as well. Tis also the season for Christmas parties and the kids have also had birthday parties scattered along as well. The tornado was supposed to have a Christmas program on Thursday night and I was hoping to have a video link to share. But, after having everything set up and ready to record, the boy got scared and Momma had to get him from the stage. We think Momma probably should have stayed longer with him back stage before they went on. The show got started late and, even though his class was first, he was away for a while. He'd already been at school all day and doesn't like to be away from Momma after he's had a full day at school. Better luck next year.
Finally, we did manage to get our annual Christmas card and letter sent out to friends and family this week and the response has been favorable. For anyone who's missed it, here is our Christmas greeting for the rest of the web. I hope everyone else is having a good holiday season.

Middle of the Week

2006-12-06T21:15:00.000-06:00

Well, it's the middle of the week. I just checked in to see how Shell is doing and figured I'd put up a quickie, myself.
Work continues to be busy and I've finally succumbed and started working OT. I'm still going home from work at the end to the day farther behind than when I arrived in the morning. That's not going to change soon. I'll probably be working extra at least through the end of the year.
And, more bad news - well, relatively anyway. I took the Princess to her Karate tournament where she had the potential to win a trophy if she won two rounds. She managed to win her first with a come from behind victory. In the second round, it was pretty evenly matched, but she lost to the other girl by one point.
The princess does not like to loose. She cried most of the way back home and I could not come up with anything to console her. She finally managed to settle down on her own and we continued to talk the rest of the way. I think she's pretty well over it, but it was still a tough thing for her.

Two posts in one week?

2006-12-02T22:03:00.000-06:00

Well, I managed to find a few quiet moments this evening, so I figured I'd post and update. The holiday season is in full swing at our household, even though things don't officially kick off until tomorrow as the first Sunday of Advent. But, the shopping is finished, most of the gifts are wrapped, the tree is decorated and the lights are up outside (I'll try to get a picture in the next few days). We even managed to get the picture for our Christmas cards. Now all I need is to write the letter, get the cards ordered, and get this year's Christmas missive out to the friends and family.
Other than that, today's big adventure was taking all eight (yes, EIGHT) of my kids plus nieces and nephews for the annual Cousins Christmas Picture. Things were looking good until we tried to put the Tornado into the picture. Momma and I figured out too late that he hadn't had enough to eat in the morning and we didn't bring any milk for him on the way. He pretty much had a meltdown and it was a massive struggle to even get him to stay in the frame. I think the final shot has my arm in it or some such. But, at least it is done.

I survived the Holiday!

2006-11-28T22:16:00.000-06:00

I was much more unplugged from the Internet than usual over the Thanksgiving holidays, though probably not as much as I should have been. Anyway, the family survived the usual return to the ancestral homelands for the Thanksgiving gathering.
As I reported last time, my mom came in during the previous week to help take care of the Tornado. That Sunday, she and the Princess returned to San Antonio so my parents could have her to themselves for a couple of days. It seems kids these days get the whole week off for Thanksgiving, but nobody told all our employers, so Momma and I still had work to do. As usual, work was difficult, although less so since many people were out.
We headed into San Antonio ourselves late Wednesday night. It was a pleasant and quick drive as traffic was light and fast moving, and the Tornado fell asleep about 20 minutes into the trip.
We slept in late Thanksgiving day and enjoyed a non Turkey lunch with my family. These days, it is just my parents and my aunt who are with us. Since my grandmother passed away and since all my generation of the family have scattered to the far corners of Texas, Thanksgiving is no longer the big family gathering that it used to be, but it is still a good time. In the afternoon, we rested, watched football, and planned our traditional Black Friday assault.
While we weren't in the market this year for the ubiquitous Flat Panel TV deals, we still found plenty of things to go after. For the first time, the wife and I split up (she took my mom with her). I lined up at Best Buy around 3:45 for a 5am opening to score a 22" widescreen LCD monitor. When the doors opened, I was able to easily get to the monitors, pick up a few other things, and actually was out of the store by 5:20 due to a lucky find of a register with a short line. I'm actually writing this post looking at my new monitor is all its 1680x1050 resolution magnificence.
My next assignment was Toys R Us. However, by the time I got there, the big item we were looking for was already sold out and the line to checkout wrapped all the way around the store to the front door. So, I bailed on that one. Your loss, Toys R Us.
Meanwhile, the women folk hit Wal-mart, Target, KB Toys, and even Walgreens. They came back to the house with a full minivan of stuff. We were both back at my parents by 8am and somehow managed to get all our Christmas shopping done. That is a first, I think.
After that, we kicked the kids and my parents out of the house so that we could get everything wrapped up in order to take it back home without the kids seeing what they were getting. We also enjoyed the quite surprising victory of A&M over UT that put the finishing touch of taking UT from defending national champs down to Big 12 also ran. After the way this season has gone, I'm still not sure I believe that we won that game.
Saturday was for recovering, packing, and traveling. The tornado had been doing extremely poorly during the nights, so we were not getting much sleep. We ended up napping on Saturday afternoon. The wife and I managed to get away to dinner by ourselves before making the final packup. We planned another late evening run in hopes that the kiddos would sleep. However, this time the boy would have none of it and decided to scream most of the way. We had to make a couple of stops to settle him down and he finally gave up about an hour away from the house. It was another rough night.
Sunday brought unloading, unpacking, and the start of holiday decorating. We've decided that we just can't have a real tree in the house. As much as we like them, they just make everyone in the house sick throughout December. The wife found a used artificial tree at the church rummage sale for $9. I put it together on Sunday and it turned out pretty well. I didn't get a chance to put up the outside lights yet, but I did buy some more today. So, perhaps I'll get around to it tomrrow.
And, my dad has turned into the shutterbug since he got himself a digital camera earlier this year. You can checkout his handiwork from the long weekend here.

I am not a Blogger

2006-11-19T05:08:00.000-06:00

Look at this - I've let a whole two weeks slip by without a new post. And it's not like there hasn't been anything to post about. Quite the contrary.
Work has been very busy and will remain so for well into 2007. Every day I leave work I'm farther behind than when I arrived in the morning. One of my friends says I just need to stop coming in so I'll quit losing ground. Doesn't sound like too bad an idea some days.
For the past week, the wife has been in Chicago for business, so it had been me alone with the Princess and the Tornado. Which, in itself would not normally be so bad. But, the Tornado decided to start running a 102F Fever the first night and I ended up staying home with him part of the week, pretty much staying awake the whole time trying to comfort him. My mom came in a few days ago to help watch him so I could get back to falling behind at work.
As I read postings on the blogs of friends, I must come to the realization that I'm not really a blogger. I can't really write during the day, especially these days. At night, after the kids and wife are taken care of, I usually just want to vedge out a bit, catch up on some news, and crash. Gathering my thoughts and writing about the day just doesn't rise up to the top of the stack.
I've got the time to write now because I've just gotten the Tornado back to sleep after being up with him for two hours. I've got to get ready for Church in a little while, so there's no point to trying to get back to sleep myself at this point. As you can expect, this is not the kind of free time that comes very often and certainly not the kind of free time I'm looking for.
So, I'll continue to check in, hopefully I can commit to at least once a week with some kind of write-up. But, I can see that this place is not going to be the spot for my pontificating about the issues of the world, unless it is something really big and I can make extra time.
As always, Life, the adventure, continues.....

A full weekend

2006-11-05T22:45:00.000-06:00

Well, the weekend draws to a close and it has been another full one. Friday, the princess and I spent the evening at a Daddy/Daughter dance hosted by our Church. The theme was Hawaiian Princesses, so the wife put together a nice outfit and the princess fit right in with the other girls.
Yesterday, we started off with a tough soccer game, though my girl did well and scored a couple of goals. After that, I took my two, and three of my nieces and nephews to McDonald's for lunch while the wife, her sisters, and their mother all went to the Olive Garden for lunch. The original idea was for all of us to go there, but I couldn't see this group of kids having much fun in that environment, so I loaded them up in the minivan and turned them loose on the McDonald's playground.
Last night, I got to see A&M lose a close game to Oklahoma. I was hoping we could pull it off, but it looks like we're not quite there yet. But, I think Francione has done well enough to warrant another year, especially if he can give a strong finish to this year.
Today, I started off as usual with my CCE kids. I have 19 in my class, although it seems like I never have more than 15 show up on any given week. I have assistants to help manage them and we have a good time.
We finished the weekend by taking the princess to her first Karate tournament. To see how that went, you can check out the video:

Now, it's time to head to bed. Another busy week of work beckons.

Pirates and Mermaids for Halloween

2006-11-01T22:03:00.000-06:00

I think Halloween is now the Tornado's favorite holiday. He really got into the spirit of going up to houses to get candy this year. Both the kids went as pirates this year and looked good doing it. Their cousin came over and joined us.
I don't know if there is some secret post somewhere that tells everyone in town to come to our neighborhood on Halloween. We had groups of kids and teens pour into the streets and some places the roads were impassable with all the vans and SUV's that were shuttling them in.
Still, the kids managed a good haul of candy this year. Now, if I can just keep from eating too much of it myself!

Puke

2006-10-29T05:46:00.000-06:00

Let me tell ya, you just can't top starting laundry and giving your sick son a bath at three in the morning becuase he decided to wake up and vommit all over your bed.

Good morning!

A Much Better Day

2006-10-27T21:35:00.000-05:00

Well, today proved to be a turnaround. The tornado was able to go back to school. However, I went ahead and took the day off to recover. We had a massive set of storms come through last night and I didn't get to sleep until about 1am. We are still in the process of cleaning and reorganizing the house, so I did a few things in my room until the storm passed.
Today, we had some cleaning people come in. I used to be able to take a weekend every few months to give the house a good cleaning. Now, with the kids, it's getting harder to make that a priority. So, I broke down and let the wife bring a cleaning crew in. They did a fantastic job and I have to admit that it was well worth it.
In the meantime, while the wife was getting caught up on work, I continued to do some cleaning and organizing of my own. TO make sure we got the maximum cleaning of the carpets earlier in the week, the wife and I moved a lot of stuff out of the game room and into a spare bedroom. I worked on getting some of that back into it's places. I didn't manage to get that second video done yet, but I expect to get it done over the weekend.
To finish out the evening, we went to two different events with the kids. The tornado's school had their fall festival and I worked the Wheel of Fortune booth that his class was in charge of. It was a big hit with the kids. Momma took our kids around to the other booths and the playground. As usual, there was a good crowd. After that, we stopped off at "The Italian Buffet", which is parent code for CiCi's pizza. Altough, I think the princess has figured that out already. After dinner, it was off to the YMCA for their Halloween festival. There were plenty of games, moonwalks, horse rides, and a haunted house to make for a full evening.
The kids should have fallen asleep on the way home, but the boy is fighting sleep now with momma. Still, a vast improvement compared to the last few days. Good night.

At home on a rainy day with a sick baby

2006-10-26T11:40:00.000-05:00

Yep, I'm actually blogging during the daytime. Yesterday momma took the tornado to the doctor to learn that he has a virus and we've pretty much got to ride out the storm. I took today off so momma could get some work done and also becuase the boy kept us up for about three hours last night. He continues to run a fever when the double shot of ibuprofen and tylenol wears off.
I haven't been able to get much done as the boy has been a full time deal today and does not want to go down for a nap. The one thing I have gotten done is uploading a new video of the princess from her school recital on Monday. Let's see if this whole embedded Youtube video deal actually works.

Momma took a lunch break and she and the boy have made a food run while I rest for a bit. To cap it off, the weather is once again nasty, so it is just as well to be away from work. Work sucks, btw.

Cleaning Up Again

2006-10-24T20:42:00.000-05:00

Man, the time just keeps getting away from me in between posts. Work is still busy. I started my lasted job about six weeks behind and I expect to be in that state for the next six months at least. Plus, being officed in the Galleria area now flat out sucks. My drive time each way is more than double, mostly because Houston drivers are idiots.
On the home front, the wife and I have been focusing on getting the house in order. We've been working to clear out stuff from all over the place. Nothing is safe. Well, the kids are safe :-) My parents were here over the weekend to watch the grand kids, so we were able to get a lot done. I think we're really going to make it this time.
Today, the wife had a crew come in from Dirt Free Carpets to clean the carpets in our bedroom, the kids bedroom, the game room, and the stairs. After nearly ten years, the carpets were looking pretty bad. I've cleaned them before with rental units, but I've never been able to come anywhere near as clean as these guys. There are a few spots that still have stains, but compared to what they were, you'd have to know where they are to find them. The rest of the carpet looks like it is newly installed. Definitely a worthwhile payout.
We got an estimate for the A/C duct cleaning, as that has never been done in ten years either. The price is high and the estimator suggested we may be better off just replacing the ductwork. It has mold all through it. Not toxic, but it has probably contributed to the ear infections and colds we seem to constantly get around here. I'm not really surprised. I'm going to get quotes on replacing the ductwork and I expect we'll get this done in the next few weeks.
Jen made her bonus this quarter and she wanted it to go to these cleanup works. She's even beat me into letting a maid come in to do some heavy cleaning that I never seem to be able to find the time for these days. I guess I'm getting old.
The tornado came home sick from daycare today. Momma will take him to get checked out tomorrow. The princess continues to excel in school. Last night, she had a program at her school and I had just enough tape left in my camcorder to get it all. I'll get that posted later this week.

Where has the week gone?

2006-10-14T21:22:00.000-05:00

Well, that should pretty well sum up how things have been. I've managed to let more than a week slip by without a new post. I did mean to post something. But, between work, soccer and karate for the princess, many activities for the Church, and a few hours of sleep here and there, the time has just flown. By the time I get to the evenings, I'm usually too tired to do much surfing at all, much less trying to compose a blog post.
That said, it has definitely been living. As for the kids, the princess has had soccer games and started sparing with other students in her karate class this week. I think she's really getting into it. Last night, her school had a fundraiser play night at a nearby gymnastics hall. We dropped her off from 7p to 10p and she seemed to have a really good time, though she was exhausted as it put her way past her bedtime. Tonight, her cousin is staying over with us.
It's funny now with the kids sleeping. When the princess was the tornado's age, getting her to sleep before 9p was an accomplisment. Now, both of them are usually konked out by 8:30p at the latest. We keep them both pretty busy so they are good and tired. The boy outgrew his crib quite a while ago (I actually took it down and packed it away in the attic, until another one comes along). So, he's bee sleeping in the bottom bunk of the bunk bed that we bought several years back. The big step is that the princess has started sleeping on her own in the top bunk. She had been through a phase of sleeping with the wife and it looks like we're finally moving beyond that. If we can get the boy to sleep reliably through the night, I might actually move down stairs to my own bedroom again. Although, the wife and I have slept in separate beds for so long due to the kids, that niether one of us sleeps well now if we are in the same bed. I guess we'll have to learn to get used to each other.
Work has been busy. I'm moving to a new project at our Galleria office. The location is the worst drive for me and four the last four years, I've avoided an assignment there. But, I'm moving over to lead one of the biggest jobs our group has ever handled and I'll probably be coordinating nearly 15 people between our Houston and India office when things hit top speed. I've just spent the last year working on the most challenging job I've ever worked, and now I'm going to do it again. The past year has been a technical challenge, pushing my to the limits of my knowledge and problem solving skills. This next one won't have the level of technical challenge, but it will be a massive effort in terms of managing the team. In truth, I won't get to do much of the technical work this time as I will be too busy watching over the work of the others. The project is located in California, about 26 miles from the San Andreas fault, so making sure the plant won't fall apart during an earthquake will be a challenge for everyone.
As for Church, I've spent the last few Sunday's recomissioning to be a Lector and Eucharistic Minister again. My CCE class on Sunday mornings has been going well - I have a great group of kids and I'm really enjoying working with them. Our Parish has a lot of good support and training to help me and I've been attending the various classes that are offered. I expect that I will work my way to be fully certified as a catechist. With two kids now who will be needing the classes and probably more down the road, I expect I will be involved with this ministry for many years to come. Finally, today we held a discernment to select new members who will sever with me next year on our Parish Pastoral Council. We had the best turnout I've seen with 13 people showing up for five positions. Any of them would have been a good fit and it was a tough choice. We are going to need 7 more next year when my group's three year term comes to a close, so we strongly encouraged those who were not selected this time to return next year.
I'm sure I'm missing some things, but that gives a pretty good flavor for what I've been up to since my last check in.

WHEW!

A Podcaster Lost

2006-10-06T20:57:00.000-05:00

I'm not quite sure why this one has struck me as much as it has. But, it has so I must deal with it. As I've blogged before, I am a podcast junkie. I've learned from various sources that one of my favorite podcasters, Bill Douthett, passed away suddenly yesterday. Better known as "Digital Bill", he was a pioneer in podcasting. He hosted one of the first podcasts I ever subscribed to and continued to enjoy, "The Wizards of Technology."
I didn't know him personally, but his style, wit, and all around class in producing his shows made his work especially enjoyable. He was a fellow geek who enjoyed sharing a love of technology in an accessible way with his listeners, but who also expressed a healthy skepticism of the major tech companies in play today.
I am still just stunned and in shock by this news. And I can see from other posts around the web that I'm not alone. It is just a reminder to me that our time in this life is short and we get to share it with other people for far too short a time. It is important to appreciate the time we have and make that time we have with other people count.
Bill, rest in peace and know that you touched many lives in your time. You will be missed.

Technorati Tag: Bill Douthett

Fighting with HP

2006-10-03T22:21:00.000-05:00

Remember that sweet laptop I bought for the wife last year? Well, last week, it crapped out. All data beyond recovery. Which, for my wife, was mostly her Itunes collection. But, thanks to CopyPod, I'll be able to recover that pretty easily.
Now, finally, the laptop is back up and running again, but it has been a major pain dealing with HP this past week. To start with, their call centers in India are sadly understaffed. We had to call them four times and it took us anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes on hold before we ever got to talk to anyone. And then, despite the fact that I bought this machine directly from HP and it's registered with them, we had to start over every time we talked with them - when did we buy the machine? What is the problem? Did you try xxx? How about yyy? Even though we had a case number from the first time we talked to them and referenced it each time, it did no good. I'm just about convinced that the case number is just some random string of digits that they feed you to make you think they know what they're doing. Every time we talked to someone new, they had no information on what we had already been through and seemed to know nothing about our particular machine.
After the first call, they decided the hard drive had gone bad (seems to be a lot of bad hard drives going around lately). So, they sent me a replacement. For starters, the replacement drive was a much slower model than what I had bought for the machine. I specifically upgraded the drive when I ordered the computer. But, I figured I ought to stick it in to at least see if that would work. Well, the Windows XP CD that came with the computer gave me an error message about a corrupt file. Great. So, does that mean the DVD drive or something else was bad? I pulled out my old copy of Windows 2000 and was able to install that to the drive with no trouble. So, I concluded that the XP CD itself was defective. I called them back, waiting for over an hour, to request a replacement CD and the correct hard drive, which took about an hour of struggle. But finally it was done and the new CD and drive arrived today. Thankfully, I had no trouble installing the drive or XP with the new stuff. The one saving grace is that there was still one month left on the warranty, so it cost me no cash, just a lot of time and frustration.
Still, I would have been even more monumentally pissed if the drive had crashed, say a year from now. I would have been able to buy a new drive pretty cheaply, but the defective XP CD would have been a show stopper.
After this ordeal, the wife has declared that we will not consider HP for computers in the future, and I can't argue with that. We will definitely spend a couple of extra bucks to find a supplier that is going to offer more capable service. Those who know me know that I'm a pretty tech savy guy. I don't require hand holding when it comes to dealing with software and hardware. But, when something breaks, I expect the manufacturer to be there to fix it. I had to fight too damn hard and spent too damn much time on this for me to put up with this from HP again.

And it's Gone!

2006-09-29T21:37:00.000-05:00

No, I mean really gone. My parents have come to visit for the weekend and the princess showed off the loose tooth to them. I guess momma and I are just too far removed from our tooth loosing days to realize how fast they fall out. Not 20 minutes after they got here, she was eating a cooking when my Mom noticed a gap in her teeth. Somehow, the cookie had dislodged it and it was nowhere to be found in the area. It is presumed somewhere in her stomach at this point.
So, we just had to write the tooth fairy a note, signed by Momma as a witness, of course, that she really had lost her tooth. I guess we'll see in the morning if it was good enough to cash in :-)

A Tooth on the Loose

2006-09-27T22:51:00.000-05:00

The girl is gowing up too fast. Today, she comes home from school and now has her first loose tooth. It's been decades since I went through that, so I don't remember how it goes anymore. Thankfully, I have the internet now to remind me.
Of course, the biggest thing I'm going to have to find out is what the current market value of baby teeth are. You know, have to make sure the Tooth Fairy doesn't short change my princess when it comes time for the under the pillow exchange.

Momma (verb)

2006-09-25T22:36:00.000-05:00

My son is about 18 months old now. He has a growing vocabulary and he clearly understands a lot of words we say that he is not yet speaking back to us.

But, one of his favorite words is Momma. Of course, he's refering to my wife. However, it seems he's not always refering to her as a noun. For him, Momma is a verb. He will say Momma, but what he really means is...

Momma, I'm hungry!

Momma, I'm thirsty!

Momma, carry me!

Momma, take me with you!

Momma, change my diaper!

So far, Daddy just means myself in the noun sense. But Momma is definitely a verb - she's what's happening.

A strange sight - "Cheap" Gas

2006-09-23T21:56:00.000-05:00

Just a quickie - I saw something today that I've not seen since I don't remember when.

Gas for $1.99 here in Pearland. Seems like it was just a month ago that $2.85 was scoring a good deal.

I may have to go trade that minivan in on a Suburban.......nah!

Meeting the Neighbors, again

2006-09-20T21:47:00.000-05:00

It's been a quiet last couple of days. Now that momma is no longer traveling away, things are somewhat back to normal. But, the really nice thing is that now that the weather is cooling down, we can start hanging out with the neighbors in the front yard again visiting while all the kids run around. The two houses to the south of ours have been owned by the same people for several years and both have kids of a similar age to ours. It's nice to just enjoy the weather, talk about how life is going, and give the kids a chance to wear themselves out before bed time.
I suppose it's the kind of thing the single and/or chldless set does at their coffee shops, except it doesn't cost me $6 a cup to do.

Ed, Where the Hell have You Been?

2006-09-18T22:16:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's been a whole week now since I last posted anything, so I guess I'd better check in. First off, apologies for skipping out on SPF this week. The last several days have been a blur as I've generally been at least double booked or worse the whole time.
My kids are still alive and we survived our time together with Momma away in Chicago. She came back Friday after a good trip. Actually, the kids and I had a pretty good time together and the days flew quickly.
On Saturday, the princess had her second soccer game of the season. The weather was awful - super humid and hot. Everyone was pretty much boiling in the air. But, the girl did great and played aggressively. She's going to be a tough one by the end of the season.
After the game, she attended her first birthday party for a girl from her new school. Close to half her class was there and I could see that she got along well with them. I got to meet some of the other parents, although, I'm sure I won't be able to remember their names for long. I truly suck at names.
Yesterday, I had my first day of teaching CCE at the Church. The princess started her Kindergarten class while I taught 1st grade across the hall. Overall, the first day went well and I'm pretty excited that it's going to be a good year.
Today, it was back to work on a normal schedule. Actually, work these days is the easy part.
I'll try to do a better job of posting and making the SPF rounds this week, but it's going to be another fairly full one. Stay tuned!

On my own

2006-09-12T20:55:00.000-05:00

My wife has a good job. She's slowly starting to realize it. She works 32hrs a week from home for a company up in the great white north (Chicago). It gives her a lot of flexibility, particularly when it comes to taking care of the kids.
Well, as part of the deal, she has to go up to Chicago for one week each quarter. You guessed it, this is the week. She flew out this morning and she'll be back Friday night. Until then, It's just me, a five year old princess, and a one and a half year old tornado. We survived our first day pretty well and I can tell I'm definitely doing well as I had them both asleep by 8:15pm, which is a major feat in our household. It even gives me a chance to do a little post here tonight.
The princess started a new Karate class. Momma would have to sign the daughter up for a class that starts while she's out of town. But, I got her there just fine and managed to keep the tornado occupied during the class. He was wiped out and went down pretty easily after we got home.
Well, I think I'm going to see about getting a early bed time tonight myself!

I've switched

2006-09-12T05:58:00.000-05:00

Alright, just a quickie post this morning. I've joined the modern world and switched over to the new Beta of Blogger. Guess we'll see how it goes.

A challenging Stuff Portrait Friday

2006-09-08T12:01:00.000-05:00

So, we're supposed to be challenged with the subjects for this week's SPF? Well, I suspect we will get to see some interesting responses. Here's what I came up with:

1. Your Freedom

This is my wedding ring. It represents my marriage, which is my freedom. Now you're asking "What kind of crack are you on, Ed? Marriage is freedom???" For me, yes. And I'll explain.
As of this past September 4th, my wife and I have been married for 13 years. We've had our ups and downs and it has often been a struggle, but a worthwhile one, nonetheless. My marriage means that I am free to be the man that I am and I'm free to grow to become a better one. I don't have to pretend to be something I'm not, trying to sell myself in the dating meat market. After thirteen years, my wife and I are free to go out to dinner in shorts and tee shirts becuase we know we don't have to impress anyone else - it only matters that we care for each other and accept each other.
Despite my regular quip to my wife that I got married becuase she clubbed me and drug me to the altar, I know that I freely chose this relationship and the lifetime commitment that it entails. I look forward to growing old with her.

2. Your Hope

This is the sculpture of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that hangs upon the cross in the church my family are members of. He is my hope for salvation. But, I also know that many have done evil, claiming to act in his name. A majority of Americans call themselves Christian, yet we have no shortages in this country of failed marriages, abused children, murder, rape, theft. I am certainly no saint, myself. It is my hope that, especially those who would call themselves Christians, will really embrace Christ's call to love and charity towards our neighbor, and that we will stop using him as a club, a prop, or a snobbish justification that we're better than anyone else. We are all God's children, and we should treat each other accordingly.

3. Your Wish

This is a picture of me holding my daughter, who was obviously a newborn at the time. This was about five and a half years ago and I had managed, through a lot of sweat and reasonable diet, to get my weight down pretty close to where I wanted to stay. I was still on the high end of the BMI scale, but I was in about the best shape I'd ever been.
My wish is to get myself back to this state. I'm now about 40 pounds heavier than I was in this picture for a number of reasons. Actually, several years before this picture, through no sweat and a lot of bad eating, I peaked at a good 60 pounds above what I was in the picture. So, I haven't completely slipped back. But, it means that I was able to lose the weight before, so I know I just have to apply myself and I can get there again.

An Internet Free Holiday Weekend

2006-09-05T11:19:00.000-05:00

Since my last post I have, for all effective purposes, been
Internet free until now.I spent the long holiday weekend away from the house.First, on the annual reunion gathering that my wife’s family has each year, and then over to San Antonioto visit with my own family.

We made our journey from home on Friday with some of my in-laws and that was a tough drive. I think I now know why. Both Texas and Texas A&M were having opening home games this past Saturday, so we were stuck in the migration traffic from Houston to both College Station and Austin. Once we made it out of Austin, things went smoothly the rest of the way to Lake
Travis, where the reunion was hosted.

Saturday was my 34^th birthday and we spent the day at the reunion. I’m old, but still not as old as Shell. I’ll try to get pictures posted to Flickr soon, but it’s probably going to take me a few days to find the time. We played games, went swimming, and just generally had a good time all around. Attendance was down some this year, and those who didn’t come this time really missed out.

On Sunday, we made our way down to San Antonio to see my parents (and so they could see their grandkids, you know how those old people get) We had a great lunch and then spent the afternoon resting while the kids splashed around and played with the grandparents. Later in the afternoon, we took our daughter on the promised returned to the Castle for bumper boats, golf, and arcade games. After that, we took her back to the grandparents and the wife and I went out for dinner on our own.

Yesterday was our 13^th anniversary and we spent it traveling home. The drive home was surprising difficult as traffic on Interstate 10
was the worst I’ve ever seen. Even in the middle of nowhere, traffic would come to a complete stop for no apparent reason. And, it was a banner day for the
state highway patrol as we passed dozens of points where they had someone
pulled over. At least the kids took a nap for the majority of the drive, so at least that part went well. We pretty much spent the rest of the day recovering from the mess we left behind, getting all our stuff unpacked, and preparing for the rest of the week. Even though it’s a short one, it is extremely busy for us, especially in the evenings. Next week is even worse, but I’ll get to that as events progress.

So, due to either not having internet access at all, or otherwise not even having time to sit at a computer, I was pretty much unplugged these last few days. I can tell that I’m never going to get caught up, but all in all it was a nice break. Now I just need to take a vacation to recover!

Stuff Portrait Friday - Round 2

2006-09-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

Yes, it really is two SPF weekly posts in a row from me. This is starting to look like a trend. So, this week's topics are:

1. Show your Support (everyone supports something right?)

This is my Chapeau and Sword that I wear as a member of the Knights of Columbus - a organization that I support. The Knights are a lay fraternal order of Catholic men committed to a number of principles, Charity being first among them.

2. Show me your sacrifice (everyone makes them right?)

I decided to try to be a little artsy with this one - I saw this effect once and I was able to use my flash as a backlight through the bottles. But, why is this a sacrifice? Because, I have had to give up sugar sodas and this picture represents them. I'm struggling to get my weight under control and I've struggled with rises and falls for most of my adult life. I could easily down a two liter of Coke or Big Red every day and often did. That's a whole lot of high fructose corn syrup calories that I've sucked down over the years. So, for a good while now, I've been transitioning to diet soda and now that transition is complete. Thankfully, Splenda is making the change a good bit easier as it gives diet sodas a taste that is closer to sugar sodas - close enough for me to survive on, anyway.

3. Something red.

Well this one was easy enough. The cape that I wear as a KC has a red liner as I am a basic honor guard member.

Apologies in advance to the other players. I'll be traveling over the Labor Day weekend, so my Internet access will be limited. I'll try to check out everyone else's entries as I can. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Find your Photos

2006-08-29T17:50:00.000-05:00

Alright, this one is cool enough that I have to add my own comment to the blogosphere. Flickr, the online photo service that I and most of the free world use to share pictures, has added a cool new feature. As noted on the Flickr Blog, you can now use Yahoo maps (Yahoo bought Flickr several months ago) to tag your photos with location data and display them on a map. I've tagged a few of the pictures I took on our vacation in July and you can see my map here:

My Flickr Map

Other applications have made this possible in much more roundabout methods, but this integrated solution that combines Yahoo's Mapping capabilities directly with Flickr is a big step. Some are complaining that Google Maps are better, which is true. But, Yahoo is never, ever, going to use the mapping API from their arch rival and this move is also going to drive Yahoo to improve their Mapping side as well.

What's also cool is that, if your pictures already have the location info in them (and there are ways to do this) you can have Flickr automatically read that and add it to your map directly.

I've been hearing about this and I'm pretty excited that it's finally here.

Now, a word of caution - be careful what pictures you tag and what locations you tag. So far, I'm only tagging pictures taken away from the house. I know where my house is and what pictures I've taken there, the world doesn't need to see that on a map.

So, start tagging those pictures and start remembering where you took them.

Hair Today, Gone....Well, Today!

2006-08-27T22:44:00.000-05:00

It was long overdue, but we've finally done it - Our son had his first haircut today. I hadn't realized just how scruffy he had gotten until after all the extra hair was cut off.
As seems to now be tradition for us, for his first cut, we took him to Cool Cuts 4 Kids down near Baybrook Mall. He took right to the race car high chair and behaved pretty well throughout the process. No crying or fussing. He even did OK when they brought on the clippers to clean up around his ears.
As you can see, he's clean cut and ready to go. He looks much more like the boy he is becoming than the baby he was.

A Time of Change

2006-08-26T22:47:00.000-05:00

Well, today marking a new phase in my life. Over the last few years, I've been reconnecting with my spirituality and I've been much happier for it. This year, my oldest daughter is starting CCE classes at our church. Since she is going to be there, my wife and I agreed that it would be good for one of us to volunteer to help out as well. So, it has fallen to me. I'm going to be teaching 1st graders this fall.
Today, I was at the church for the first of several training sessions for my fellow Catechists and I. The lessons today were very good and a useful preparation for me. I have no teaching experience in my background, so this has been especially important.
I'm doing this in part becuase I care about my faith and I want to share that. But also, because I know that I don't know my faith yet as well as I would like in some areas, and this will force me to stay on top of my own continuing education as well.
You know, now that I think about it, I have taught individual classes on different topics from time to time, mostly at my work. It's certainly been true for me that you really learn a lot yourself when you are preparing to teach others. I'm looking forward to these classes this fall.

Stuff Portrait Firday, Finally

2006-08-25T00:01:00.000-05:00

Alright, after much prodding from Shell that I participate in the Stuff Portrait Friday phenomenon, I'm going to give it a go.

1. Stuff that annoys the living shit ouf of you:

Traffic. There's plenty of it to go around here in the Houston area. It only takes a few really really poor drivers to screw things up for everyone.

2. My Space

This is my computer desk in my "office." Here is where I come to relax for a bit at the end of each day and unwind from the trials and tribulations of life.

3. Something in your life that keeps the makers of Xanax in business

Xanax is supposed to be about reducing anxiety. So, what makes me anxious? Why this five year old girl I know as my daughter. She's an amazing little girl, but I know she's going to go far beyond her mother and I. I am anxious becuase I know it's only going to get harder.

Sick of being sick

2006-08-18T11:35:00.000-05:00

Remember that post about my boy being sick? Well, he just couldn't keep it to himself. I've been home sick for the last couple of days, the wife has been sick, and even the daughter has caught some of it, though thankfully not as bad as the rest of us.
Momma and I went to the doctor yesterday and we're doing better today. The boy finally was well enough to go back to school today himself, which means Momma and I finally get a chance to rest and recover. The daughter had a touch of it, but she never got bad enough to have to stay home or get drugs. It's been a rough week on the homefront, but things are finally looking up.
I've probably spent the better part of the last two days just sleeping (13 hours straight last night). Today I'm finally feeling well enough to start doing some things around the house (with everyone sick, it turns into a disaster real quick).
The one thing I have finally managed to do today is update some pictures on the FLICKR account, including stuff from our vacation - back in JULY. I know, I'm a slacker, but you get what you pay for. So, enjoy.

Sick baby = no sleeping daddy

2006-08-14T21:51:00.000-05:00

Since my son got tubes for his ears back and the beginning of the Summer, he's been doing quite well....until this weekend. I think the extra mixing of kids with the start of the new school year was too much and he came down with an infection this weekend. Apparently it's the trendy thing among the 15-24 month olds in his class right now. The wife took him to the doctor today and our old friend, Omicef, is back in the house.

As such, he's been sleeping even worse than usual, which means I've been sleeping much worse than usual. Now, his ears will get better, but the antibiotic gives him the worst gas, so he'll be waking every couple of hours in need of Mylicon drops. Now, that stuff is just liquid gold. I think the 1 fluid ounce bottle is about $10 or so. In the last five years, between two kids, I bet we've gone through 30 such bottles easily. I wish I could just get it by the gallon at Sams instead of the dinky bottles that it comes in. It's a racket, but it works for him, so I pay away. Good thing I love those kids :-)

She's off to school

2006-08-10T22:16:00.000-05:00

The day has finally arrived - our daughter started kindegarten today at the new school. My wife took her in early and stayed with her until it was time to go to class. I told her to get there as soon as she could. It was a good thing, too. She was able to find a place to park. When she was leaving, cars were parked all up and down the major road that runs in front of the school and it sounds like the neighbors didn't care for it too much. She'll do it again tomorrow, but on Monday, the kids are required to just be dropped off.
She made it through the day alright. She already knew two kids in her class from the Montessori school she's been at, so that certainly helped. It sounds like the first day was pretty much just getting used to being in the school. She's staying after school in the YMCA's on site care and that seemed to go pretty well also.
My wife made the mistake of trying to park in the front when it came time to get her. Even though school had let out an hour before, she still had to wait 15 minutes for the queue to move up enough for her to get to the parking lot. But, she learned that she can park in back from now on to pick up from after school care, so that should go better tomorrow as well.
While she hasn't been napping at home on the weekends for a long time, she had still been taking naps at the old school. No naps anymore at the new one and I think that's going to start catching up with her so she'll start going to bed earlier. She was tired after her first day and had a little upset stomach, but she was feeling better by bed time.

Weekend Roundup

2006-08-06T21:12:00.000-05:00

Well, I've survived another weekend. This time, my parents came to visit us - well, acutally, they come to see the grandkids :-)
The wife and I were able to get a few things done around the house and we also got to go out to dinner and a movie - JUST THE TWO OF US!!! We finally saw the new Pirates of the Carribean movie. We enjoyed it, although it could have been trimmed up tighter than the 2 1/2 hour run time w/o losing anything. Still, I'm definitely looking foward to number 3.
Our daughter starts kindergarten on Thursday (yikes, it's really here!) and there was an open house at her new school today. The school is brand new and looks amazing. We got to meet her teacher and some of the other parents of the kids in her class. She is already going to know two others that have been going to the Montessori school with her these last several years. She's been at the Montessori school since she was one, so this is going to be a big change for her. Overall, she seems excited, especially since she already knows some other kids. Her cousin and some other kids that she knows will also be there in the other kindergarten classes (I think they have eight of them), so there will be plenty of familiar faces. Thursday is the big day. I think Momma and I are more nervous that she is.
Finally, we finished the evening with the traditional birthday gathering at Pancho's. My father-in-law, sister-in-law, and her husband all have their birthdays at this time, and they always pick Pancho's for the birthday dinner place. The food isn't the best, but, there's not many places that you can gather with eight young kids that don't involve animatronics. We had a good time and now it's just time for settling down and getting ready for the new week.

New Addition to the Family

2006-08-05T11:57:00.000-05:00

Well, now that my parents are here for a visit, I can let this out w/o spoiling the surprise anymore. Up to now, the new vehicle in our household was a nine year old Chevy pickup that I drive. The family car had been a Honda Accord that is now ten years old itself. Both have served well and I expect several more years out of each of them. However, getting around with two kids, especially if we want to take any kind of trip, was getting pretty cramped in the car. Our vacation a few weeks ago with the rental van clinched it for the wife. We had been talking about holding off for another year, but having the van for a week lead to the wife to push me to start shopping.
We considered most of the options, but it very quickly came down to the Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna. Finally, a day of test driving both of them back to back made it clear that the Ody was the better fit for us.
So, last Saturday, we went down to Clear Lake Honda, did some quick negotiating and got our minivan. It's a slate green metallic EX with leather and we when ahead and got the DVD. The kids have already taken to the new ride and my daughter in particular is in to the DVD system. The first thing she does is pop on the head phones. I'm sure we're going to have to work on that, especially for short trips. But, for now, we're still figuring out how things are going to work.
One adjust is parking. While the new van will fit in the garage, it is a good bit longer and wider than the car. I had to rearrange the garage a bit, and I've gotten the wife into the habit of folding the driver side mirror before she pulls in. I imagine it will get easier as we drive it more. Although, driving it is proving very easy. The van takes everything we've liked about the Accord and added ten years of refinements and improvements. I expect that this will serve well as the family hauler for the next ten years at least as well. I see many road trips in our future.

CopyPod saved me!

2006-08-01T22:22:00.000-05:00

Alright, I have to post about this one now that I know it's all working. When I lost my hard drive a few weeks ago, one of the things that pissed me off the most was losing my Itunes database. I had pretty much all of my actual music backed up, but things like playlists and ratings for each song were lost. I have over 3800 tracks in my Ipod and, after much work, was down to about 700 that still needed a rating. Of course, the Ipod knows all this stuff, but, thanks to Apple, I couldn't pull the information back from the Ipod.
Well, after some searching, I found a program called CopyPod that claimed it could do just that - pull my files from the Ipod and rebuild my Itunes database. So, yesterday I took the plunge and bought the program. It has turned out to be the best $20 I've spent in a long time. With a writep from the website, I was quickly able to configure the program and it spent the next hour or so pulling the tracks from my Ipod and then rebuilding my Itunes database. At this point, I am essentially as good as before.
And that is pretty damn cool. So, if you get an Ipod, I highly recommend keeping this program in mind, as it could save your collection someday as well.