Really???

ok how sad it this. The L.A. times did a whole story about the font that Obama uses.... his font?? seriously?? Man these people need to get a life. The other sad part is that the story was run in the local paper front page on the metro section last week...

Here's an outtake:

Typefaces with big round O’s and tails are considered more friendly, whereas linear fonts evoke overtones of “rigidity, technology and coldness,” according to British psychologist Dr. Aric Sigman who published a 2001 study, “The Psychology of Fonts.”

With artistic flourishes such as a tail on a lowercase “a,” serif styles “conjure images of trustworthiness,” whereas uncluttered sans serif styles “carry less emotional baggage,” he says.

If you care to read the story and have no life : Here

ahhhhh warmth

Finally warmish weather. Man it's seems like this winter has drug on and on. Saturday around 60ish. I was farting around the house trying to fix a friends computer, but was planning on taking the boys outside when Andrew got up from his nap. Andrew finally got up and we all took off outside. I was going to try and clean the garage out, but the boys wanted to slide so we ended up going out to the backyard instead. For Christmas I got a portable fire pit, so I drug that out to the back deck and started to assemble it with the boys "help". I was getting near the completion when Christopher started fussing. So we all headed in for something to eat for everyone. I was able to get Christopher happy enough to get outside and finish the fire pit. Now getting the time to burn stuff. Actually first I have to rake up all of the twigs and stuff that fell out of the trees during the winter, then burn stuff. I decided to call it quits and just spent the rest of the day inside with the boys and sitting next to an open window enjoying the breeze. I want to wait for a bit warmer weather to take Christopher outside for any long periods of time.
Sunday after church, the boys and I headed outside to work on cleaning the garage. It was warmer according to the thermometer, but there was a little breeze that was chilly. I did a quick clean of the garage including putting all the Christmas decorations up into the attic. I was going to wait until I installed my new attic stair, but who knows when I will be able to get help from my father in law. Maybe that's something my brother and I can handle. Next was washing the Jeep. That was well overdue. Again the boys had to "help" and the did for the most part, but Andrew doesn't quite have the concept of pointing the nozzle so I took a few direct hits to the back from the hose as well as William. In the summer when it's 80 degrees I wouldn't mind as much, but it was chilly yesterday. After that and some late lunch the boys and I headed outside for more "slide" time. I hung the swings up and Andrew wanted to be pushed in his chair swing. I could barely get him out of it after half an hour or better. I fired up the grill to cook some bratwurst, so I would push him, turn the brats, push him, turn the brats. I did notice that my grill did not have a good winter. I decided to leave it outside this winter, but I bought a new cover to protect it. The cover was basically ripped to shreds. I also noticed that the burner has a huge hole in it which gives off a huge flame in one area. Also the igniter went out last year as well. So I will have to put together a list and compare the price to replace all of the parts to buying a new one. If nothing else I am going to tear it apart for a serious cleaning which is waaayyyy overdue. So finally Jen was leaving for work so I decided to keep the boys inside to play. Andrew was a crank-butt with no nap and I had to actually kind of keep tickling him to keep him awake until bed time. It felt bad to close the house up again later on in the afternoon, but I feel encouraged by the thoughts that it is going to get warmer and warmer.

William's Birthday

Well the last of the party trifecta happened on Wednesday. After Easter and Christoper's baptism we had the final event at our house. Every year we wonder how best to do birthday parties for the kids. Some years like this one are pretty easy since Jen has to work on Saturday and won't know if she works Sunday until later on in the week. That makes making plans for the weekend an pain in the butt. Anyway we decided to just do a little something at the house on Wednesday (the day of his birthday). I am not sure if he would get more enjoyment out of a party at chuck e cheese or something like that, but he seemed to really enjoy his birthday that night. He was bouncing all over the place, saying that it was his birthday and that he was "5". He is talking more and more all the time which make me feel a little easier about letting him do things. We are talking about getting him signed up for t-ball or soccer this year. I do notice that when he approaches other kids his age and does his babbling speach they kind of look at him funny, but hopefully with more work we can get him back up to speed with the other kids. I think it might be a simple as just having him slow his speech down. I think he tries to talk to fast and it gets jumbled. Anyway back to his birthday. Jen ordered a sandwich tray at Walmart so I stopped by and picked that up. They were pretty tasty and not too much for a huge tray of little sandwiches. I get home and see Jen scrambling to try and get the house ready and things put together for the party. Another layer dip platter for those of us who didn't get any last weekend. Frosting the cake took her a little longer than expected, and she had "help" from the other two.
We had a nice little group with the in-laws, my mom and aunt suzie, and Dan. There was even an illusive sighting of the Crammers. We ate, visited, opened presents and had a nice gathering. The one present that was kind of the highlight of presents were the transformers that uncle Jim got for the boys. Now I missed the original transformers fad when they first came out in the 80's so I never had a chance to play with one of these things, but as uncle Jim quickly found out, you need a master degree in engineering to figure the stupid things out. Even with directions it took some work. I have since transformed them a couple times so I know how they work now. Also there was a car that makes noise and lights up, but the volume is low and not too annoying. The Crammers hung out after everyone else left and we had fun hearing about their trip to Disney. If only there was some way of Keith writing about it or posting pictures.... darn shame. It's hard to believe that William is 5 years old, and acting more and more like a big boy every day.

Christopher's Baptism

(Uncle Jim, Jen and Christopher, me, Julie and Marc)

Sunday we had Christopher's baptism. Lucky for us the house was still in decent condition from Easter last weekend so it wasn't the wholesale tear the house apart and clean kinda day. Jen had to work again on Saturday so I was able to get some stuff done before she headed off for the rest of the day. The boys let me get some stuff done, but once Christopher is awake he wants attention. I was able to throw together this years supply of coney sauce for the hot dogs. One batch freezes well and last at least a year. Jen got home around 11:00 and we were up past 12 working on last minute stuff. Sunday the crew was up early. You would think that would give us tons of time to get out the door, but no we were lucky to make to to church before the mass started. I was hoping to get there early so we could sit with the other relatives. After the service we all mulled around waiting for the priest to get his stuff together. Jen took Christopher to the bathroom to change into his baptismal cloth, dress, whatever. This dress has been in our family and activley used for almost 100 years and it still looks great. (I believe it is heading to Arizona or California next)Before we left for church, there were a couple of real messy sounding rumbles from Christopher's diaper and sure enough he had blown through that outfit. So Jen is in the bathroom changing christopher and trying to get him dressed. There is only one other baby being baptised on Sunday so that baby was trying to be changed in the hallway of the bathroom as well. So the priest comes out to start the baptism and no babies. Finally Jen comes out of the bathroom, and the other baby gets changed into his outfit for the ceremony to begin. The other baby did not want to be there as proven by the crying the entire time. We get started with the ceremony, but the only thing I can see and hear is the movement and sound of our other two children running all over church and yelling. I barely paid attention to the ceremony at all, trying to make sure that the other two didn't light the place on fire by running into candles.

Side Note: talking about burning the church down. My brother told me a story of Easter serviced last weekend. At one point the priest was blessing the alter with incense, which is basicly a large orb with hot ash being swung by a chain. During the the blessing the orb goes flying off the chain and lands behind the alter starting the carpet on fire. I think my brother said he used the wine to put it out. You can see the burn marks in the carpet behind the alter... I should have gotten a picture of it.

Anyway. Here is the video of Christopher being baptised. Yeah I know it's sideways, but I just pulled the camera out of my pocket and hit play. It happened so fast.

So we get down with the ceremony and mull around for a little bit to take pictures and whatnot. Then we all caravan back to our house for lunch. We decided to try and keep it simple by just cranking up the hot dog steamer (which I started before mass) and some sides. We probably should have estimated the number of people better because before we knew it we had blown through 40 hot dogs, all the layer dip, all the chips, all the fruit, and all of the cake. I don't think anyone didn't get food, but it was a little closer than I like to try and be. More visiting with relatives that we had just seen last weekend. I also hooked the Wii up again and let the boys play for a while. I was trying to get the adults to play a little bit too. Around 3 or 4 everyone left, and Jen and I did a quick clean up, which was very quick since there wasn't any food left anyway. I hit the chair and it was nap time. Next is William's birthday party tomorrow, but that isn't going to be that big of a deal this year, after that nothing on the horizon for a while. Whew....

Easter 2008

Overall a very busy weekend for bunny day. Saturday was cleaning day. Jen had to work so she dropped off the boys to grandma and grandpas for the day so I could clean uninterrupted. She left at 9:30 and I immediately got busy. I pulled all of the furniture out of the front room to clean the carpet. Our new carpet cleaner does a fantastic job .... almost too good of a job. While it steam cleans and scrubs the carpet it ends up pulling out clumps of fuzz and cat hair. So after sweeping the room, I steam clean, let that dry and then re sweep the room to get all of the fuzz turds. But another good point with the steam cleaner working so well the carpet's don't stay wet very long. So while waiting for the front room to dry and resweep I moved to the front room I had just spent the week mudding, sanding, and painting. It needs another coat of paint, but I ran out of time and it is good enough for Sunday. So I cleaned that carpet, and moved on to the next thing. Trying to plan out the best way to kill time to let the carpet dry to resweep it. I pretty much did that for 6 hours. I was going to throw in a cd to listen to, but MEE had a 80's weekend going on so I found that good enough. Between cleaning carpets, cleaning bathrooms, hand washing the wood floors, and numerous little things like cleaning the vents, my body was aching around 4:00.
The in-laws brought the kids home around 5:00 and we grabbed a pizza to eat. Jen didn't get back home until almost 7:30, and then had to do a couple things after bath time like coloring the easter eggs and a few other projects for the next day.
Sunday Jen gets up and goes to 6:30 service at her church. She comes home and gets myself and the boys and head out to my church for the 8:30 service. It was busy but not too nuts. We get home and start throwing some last minute stuff together and do last minute cleaning. Around 11:30 my mom and brother show up. I notice that there is a spot on the sidewalk that is still icy from the snowfall the last time and start looking around for something to put on the ice so it won't cause anyone to fall. Jen suggests kitty litter. It was a great idea, but I later regretted it since when the ice did melt it mixed with the kitty litter and just made mud that was tracked into the house. Overall it was a very good time with just over 30 people showing up. We had to hunt for eggs inside since the outdoors was just a little too soggy. After dinner I noticed the older boys getting bored sitting in the front room so I plugged in the Wii and let them play. They all did very good and took turns. IT was hard to tear them away from it when the finally had to leave. Some things of note that happened on the day. Aunt Carol had a problem with the potatoes and accidentally got pieces of plastic in them which Jen's Uncle Dan bit into. Then she thought she left something in the stove at home and tried for quite a while to get a hold of her husband to make sure it was off.
The boys had alot of fun and too much candy. Good to know that Andrew is a jelly bean fiend. Man he wouldn't leave that bowl alone. Now the attempt to keep the house relatively clean so it's good to go for this weekend and Christopher's baptism since we are having people over after that as well. You are invited if you would like to come. I guess I never really got into religious affiliations of our friends or if they are practicing. Probably should find out sometime.

Here comes the bunny

I am not sure if Easter just got more crazy or easier. We have a busy but set routine for Easter. Jen usually goes to the 6:00am service. She comes home and we pack the kids up and go to the 8:00 mass at my church. Then over to my mom's house for a brunch and general bunny stuff. Then we head over to Aunt Carols house for lunch, easter egg hung, and more general bunny stuff. And then usually home by 5 or 6. This year, one of Aunt Carol's daughters is moving back home and she didn't thing she could handle a move-in and Easter on the same week, which I don't blame her. So they asked us to host Easter at our house this year. I am thinking, cool, now we don't have to run all over the place with the kids this year, and I like to entertain anyway. But then a bit of panic set in. There was alot to do and get ready, working out the logistics of trying to get the house cleaned with the kids around and doing it at the last possible moment so it will stay clean.

Then we decided to use the front room to give the kids a place to play, which means I have to try and finish the room. We had pulled the wallpaper and the plan was to fix the holes in the wall and then repaint the room. That plan just got moved up to a priority. So far I have mudded and sanded the walls fixing all the holes and dings. I was up to till midnight last night putting primer on the walls to get ready for paint. Now the next big question is paint. We had bought two gallons of a paint color that we THOUGHT we liked, but when we put it on a small section of wall it was pretty bad. Crap. So a trip to home depot and another leap of faith on another color. We called around to see if we can get a 'tester' sample of paint, but either they don't do it or they want $4 for a small sample. no thanks, we will just take another chance.

Plans ewr made last week to drop the kids off to the grandparents saturday to give me a day to steam clean carpet and more general cleaning. Hopefully it will last from Saturday night until Sunday morning. Lucky for me my father-in-law is getting a head count so we know how many tables we need and we can plan where to put people. I think at last count is was around 25 or so. I don't know how Jen's aunt does it every year in a house that is alot smaller than ours, but she does it very well so I have confidence that things will work out for us too. The crappy part is that we have a fantastic yard for easter egg hunting, but the weather is probably going to keep us inside.

St. Patrick's Day

Had the Dan and Rhonda over for Reubens and beer.

I can see clearly now....

The digital revolution is comming more and more every day. When I first heard reports of the analog signals going away being replaced with digital I was a little uneasy. Yeah we only have the over the air signal, but we really don't need cable or the dish. There is enough programing on the 4 stations we get to keep us properly entertained, and if not we have quite a good DVD collection. Even if we could afford cable or the dish, I am not sure we would bother with it. Anyway, I heard about these converter boxes a few years ago that would be necessary. I stopped by best buy back then to price one of these things out and it was around $100. I am glad I waited around for a while. The government's plan was to give a rebate of $40 per TV to those poor schlubs like me who only use over the air signals. I call it my government cheese box. I figured even with the rebate it would be costly, but I found one at Walmart for $49. Friday the little rebate credit cards appeared in the mail. I was able to sneak away for some errands on Saturday morning and stopped by to pick up two of these little boxes for our TVs. After looking around a while I finally had to ask where they were, and of course they were right in front of me. I get the boxes home and have to wait for a while until the kids were properly bored with TV to hook them up. I worked on the big screen in the front room with multiple configurations trying to get it to go through the VCR, but couldn't get it to work. Finally I just hooked it up directly and turned it on. It is sooo cool. No more fiddling with the antenna to try and get a good signal for the different stations. All stations come in crystal clear. And I get even more channels than before, including two weather radars and a button that allows me to see the upcoming programing. It's great that I have gotten the boxes early to make sure I got them, but I can see them coming up with something a bit cheaper or with a few more options, but for now I am pretty happy with it. But there are two drawbacks to the cheese boxes. One is that the Fox station doesn't appear, according to their website their digital stuff isn't to full power yet. My question, Why Not? The are promoting the crap out of the digital stuff but don't want to do full power yet. The other and bigger problem is that one of the PBS substations is PBS kids 24 hours a day... crap. We used to be able to tear them away from the TV because the programming stopped, but now we are going to have to keep an eye on how much they watch. The other cool part is that I think I can get away without using an external antenna on the house, but I am curious how many more station I could get with an external antenna.

Happy St. Patrick's Day !!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day !!

Wishing you always...
Walls for the wind
A roof for the rain
and tea besides the fire
Laughter to cheer you
Those you love near you
And all that your heart my desire

Not much planned for tonight. Just having Dan and Rhonda over for Reubens and a few beers. Maybe throw in the "Quiet Man" with John Wayne, or it might be the Wii.

Snow fun

I finally had the chance to take the boys outside for a little fun in the snow. Unfortunately there was a little crust of ice on top of the snow which made making a snowman very difficult, but the snowballs were able to be made very easily. We don't go outside enough, especially in the winter and now the snow will be gone soon so another winter wasted, but at least we had fun in the time we were outside the other day.

Car Shopping

Saturday Jen and I pawned off the kids to grandma and grandpa and went car shopping. Like I have said before the 3 kids fit in the back seat of the jeep but it is real tight. The jeep itself has some mechanical issues too, so we decided it is about time to unload it before it requires major repair. We weren't ready to buy yet,but we wanted to get an idea of where to go and what was out there. Now I look for the cars on the net to avoid the sales weasels, but we decided to go out and look in case there was something Jen wanted to drive. With age I am not as intimidated in talking to the sales guys and can easily walk away from one in mid conversation if needed so that makes car looking a little easier. Of course you HAVE to talk to the sales weasels since just about every car lot in town is too chickensh*t to put the price in the window. A couple of the websites that I look at won't put a price on their either. They just lost a potential customer. So we are out and about and start hitting lots in the automall. We did see a REAL cheap mini van (under $5000) that said "as is" so you know it has issues, but you weigh the price of repair with a cheap car payment, but we decided against it. The first 3 lots we didn't see anything we liked or could afford. We got out again at the fourth lot to look at some Hondas and Toyotas. We were basicly looking at Chrysler's, but Jen had heard good things about Honda's. So we get out and start looking, and immediately get a sales weasel to come out of his hole. I am talking to him and he asks how much we are looking at spending. I tell him and he starts laughing at me. At the time I just blew it off, but when I recalled it later I was outraged. How dare this little a$$hole laugh at me! So yet another loss of a potential customer to this lot. I should have known not to go to this lot since that is where I bought my black 454 SS pickup truck that was a p.o.s. and paid WAY too much for. For anyone else looking, take some advice, and don't go to Bob Rohrman's in the automall. Next were the two lots I had the most hope for. O'Daniels where the sales guys are nice and the selection is great, and Barts where the selection is pretty good and the prices are reasonable. Nothing available at O'Daniels, but Barts had one that was almost what we wanted.
By this time were were getting pretty tired and hungry so we decided to head to the North side of town. We cruised past a couple of lots, but weren't inclined enough to actually stop. We lunched at Penera's. This place is good for a selection of bagels, but I have never been real impressed with anything else there, but it sounded good to Jen. So $17 later we had two sandwiches that were alright, but not $17 alright. Back to the in-laws and we ended up spending the rest of the day there playing with the kids. But at least we know now what's out there and where we want to go.

Indiana-no place

We made the trek yesterday to Indy to have Andrew's eye checked out again (follow up). We dropped William off at the in laws and hit the road around 11:00 which is almost the time we tried to hit the road. The drive down was pretty uneventful. We drove through numerous snow storms, but just little flakes here and there every once in a while. I am glad I live in a relatively small town. I can't imagine driving in the traffic of a large city every day. A guy in a camper came inches from side swiping me, but luckily I was changing lanes right as he decided that he wanted to be in my lane. Then you have quite the mixture of people going the speed limit, people going slower than the speed limit, and then those who think its the autobahn and weave in and out of traffic like total idiots. We were about half an hour early for the appointment which gave us just enough time to run down the the built in McDonald's at Riley's. As soon as Andrew saw the golden arches he was excited. (he love Mcdonald's). We quickly ate lunch and headed upstairs for his appointment. We had a relatively short wait and headed back to see the doctor. Basicly everything looks good for his eyes. We just have to keep and eye on his eye and if it starts having a problem where they don't track the same we need to contact them. If nothing then back in another 6 months for another checkup. Nothing like 7 hours of driving and farting around for a 10 min appointment. I got a chance to see the CT scan from the last time were were there and ask why we put Andrew through that hell, and got a pretty satisfactory answer. So back on the road to Fort Wayne. We again hit snow storms on the way back, and one by Marion was bad enough to make me kick off the cruise with the roads looking slick. I also had a van behind me that was just going slighly faster than me, but when she got in my blind spot she went the same speed. So I had to keep speeding up to pass people since she wouldn't pass me, man that was annoying. So back in town by 5:00 and the in laws were nice enough to run down to KFC and get dinner for us.

A cool thing that I saw on the way back is that they are building a new outdoor mall at the noblesville exit (Deercreak) and it has an IMAX theater. They have another IMAX theater in Indy but this one would be alot quicker to get to for us. We just might have to go down for a few shows if they have some cool stuff. Yet another reason for the Q's to move to Indy :)

New Imax theater (Hamilton 16) info : HERE

They Came... They Saw.... They Left

Quick recap of the Q's drive-by visit. Just kidding kids :)... Thursday night I get home from work around 5:00 and they arrived at the house not too long after that. After some initial visiting, we were trying to decide what to feed the kids. Of course the kids were too busy playing and running around that I think they would have forgotten to eat entirely. We initially thought about getting pizza, but the Q's had that Wednesday night so on to plan "b". After some discussion we decide that pizza two days in a row isn't too bad so John and I head off to the hunt. First stop is to the grocery store for essentials, Milk, Cereal, and BEER!! Then over to papa Murphy's for pizza. Luckily the now vegetarian-ish Q's don't see pepperoni as meat so we get a pepperoni pizza and a small vege pizza. We finally get the kids fed and then corralled around 9:00 and off to bed. A short time later the rest of us are fighting sleep so everyone heads to bed around 11:00ish. Friday was a work day for me and the Q's ended up spending the day with the Kannings. I get home from work and help Jen put together some stuff for the party and get the house ready. People start coming to the house around 6:30 or so. We had a really great turnout with just about everyone showing up. It was fun to be able to visit with everyone and in some cases just find out what everyone was up to. The kids were having a blast running all over the place and playing. After a bit the kids started playing with the Wii since Mary and Charlie had some experience playing it. The party stared to thin out around 10:00 and we were able to get the kids to bed with a little effort. With the kids down it was time for the parents to play the Wii. The Q's had brought 5 games with them, but we didn't have a chance to play with all the other stuff going on. We played a couple of the games that were pretty fun including a couple mario games. The last one we played was Resident Evil 4. This is a shoot 'em up game where you go into villages and kill zombie-like people. That was very interesting and very hard too. Finally around 2:30am we finally turned off the Wii and headed to bed. Of course the kids don't care that we were up until 2:30am and got up promptly at 7:30 (yawn). But after more playing around and feeding children, the Q's headed toward the long and winding road around 11:00, after almost forgetting their pillows and sleeping bags. It wouldn't be a visit from the Q's without finding something they forgot, but so far we haven't found anything. It was a real good visit, but just too darn short, but I think Carrie got enough of a baby fix. Jen and I are talking about making the trek in the summer to visit the Q's or trying hard to make Geekfest happen this summer. Either way we are going to have a van by then since I can't imagine driving that many hours shoehorned into the jeep.

I tried waiting

I waited for Jeff to post this picture of Joshua, but he hasn't blogged in weeks. Too busy changing diapers I suppose. For those of you who didn't get this in your email.. enjoy. TOO CUTE!!

I have humidity

One of the projects for this winter was to get our Aprilaire humidifier working. The first winter we moved in was November two years ago, but we were too busy dealing with moving in and painting and boxes and babies so I didn't bother. Last year was a mild winter so we barely noticed it being dry in the house and used a vaporizer in the bedroom to up the humidity. This year I decided to finally get the thing working. Yeah I know it's already February, but I have been busy with other stuff, including baby stuff again. So a couple of months ago I replaced the water panel which is a yearly maintenance thing that I am sure hadn't been done in 10 years with the previous owners. I replaced the water panel and decided to give it a try. I turned on the thermostat and didn't get any water flow at all. I decided to trace the water line back to the source. Hooked to the hot water pipe of the water heater was the saddle valve that controlled the water. Of course they placed it almost to the top of the ceiling, above the water heater, among the other furnace pipes and crap. But with the help of a ladder I was barely able to get to it. Of course it was stuck. I oiled the crap out of it and still could get it barely to turn. So I resorted to the wrench. The last thing I wanted to do was over "wrench" the saddle valve and have it break. I opened the water all the way and still no water flow. The next culprit to look at was the solenoid connected to the thermostat. (The thermostat tells the solenoid to let water flow to the unit. ) I tore that apart and found tons of water pressure before the solenoid, but nothing after. So I have to replace the solenoid (I think). I call around to authorized dealers of Aprilaire to look for the part and to see if they can test the solenoid to see if it's working. Doc dancer will bench test the solenoid, but charge $95 for the part. Yikes. Korte (where I got the water panel) has the part for $79, but can't test it, but will send out a guy for $70. Crap. I find the part on-line for $45. Now comes the leap of faith. Spend the money without the test and hope the problem is the solenoid and hope it's the correct part? I finally decided to give it a shot. I order the part and get it a couple days later. This starts another comedy of errors. As I am connecting the wires with the wire nut, I twist it too tight and break off the end of both wires. As I am stripping the wires to try it again I slice my thumb open (need to get a wire stripper). As I am turning the water back on I cut my arm on the copper wire ground for the water heater. As I am turning the water back on (with a wrench) the end of the saddle valve snaps off (thank God it didn't start shooting water). And lastly, after turning the water back on, the saddle valve starts to leak (luckily I fixed that problem just tightening the saddle valve nut). Maybe the $70 would have been a good idea..... Anyway after getting everything hooked back up and on I am getting good water flow through the unit and my little indoor/outdoor thermometer in the house shows the humidity around 32% which is good for winter. Someday I will have to fix that saddle valve and I might move it down to be able to get to it a little easier. The ironic part is that we had to get a DE-humidifier for the basement because it was too humid.

Screwed Again

Little news to anyone that my favorite group is Rush. Hard working power trio that has been together for over 30 years. The message in there music is always fresh and their tunes are never rehashed or similar. They always push the boundry of new and interesting songs with a true rock feel. The one thing this band lacks is recongition. They have a serious die hard following but never made into the main stream (not sure they would want it that way). Their tour last year was in the top 25 of ALL concerts last year so you know they still draw a crowd. This group is in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and win numerous awards in Canada, but not love in the U.S. I was pumped to hear that they actually got a grammy nomination this year for an instrumental song on the new "snakes and arrows" disc.

Let's look at the following picture... We have all taken the SAT's or other comprehension test. Which one of these things is not like the other?

Bruce Sprinsteen????? And he WON? Are you freakin kidding me? You can't put that hack in the same category with Metalica, Satriani, and Vai. Of course Satriani and Vai get little to no love from the mainstream either even though they are very talented artists. I just listened to this Springsteen tripe (HERE) and IT'S NOT ROCK. The song is something a guy recorded 20+ years ago and Bruce just put some guitar tracks over the top of it. He didn't do any work on a the freakin song. That does not deserve a grammy. This is total Bull Sh**. I probably wouldn't be so p.o.ed if Rush lost to anybody else than Springsteen. Only 5 grammy nominations over 30 years and 0 wins. Just another reason not to watch awards shows. Like the academy awards giving out statues to movies you never heard of and will probably never watch in your lifetime. Yeah I know it's not really fair to give an award to the movie that makes the most money, but they can make it a little more realistic to movies the public has seen.

Deep breath.......

Wii Training

Jen and I have started our wii training for the Q's visit in a week. This is actually the first time that Jen had even tried it, and I think she likes it. We were able to play all of the games on the sports disc that came with the game and she did really well. She kicked my butt in Golf!! Including a shot from the fairway that hit the pin and went in the hole!! Bowling is fun too. It still amazes me how much actual physical activity is required to get the game to work to it's full potential. Jen had a bit of a sore arm like I did the last time due to the physical requirments needed to play. Overall the graphics on the wii are pretty cool. It will be fun to see what games the Q's bring with them. We might run over and rent a couple for the visit. We would have done this before, but we just don't have the time to play video games like we used to. Back in the day, we would stay up till 2:00am playing Zelda on Nintendo (original recipe) all week long. Now by 10:30, Jen is flaked out on the couch and I am fighting it in the comfy chair. There is Zelda for the Wii, maybe rent that one. Oh and I finally got the wi-fi feature to work on the Wii so I can do some internet stuff. I am still reading on what exactly I can do with this little white box. Maybe see how to hook up with the Q's and the Crammers on-line and have a game night. That might be interesting.

Visitors from Afar

Just got confirmation that the Q collective is coming to town so Carrie can get a "baby fix". It just happens that the kids have break in school where they can come and visit with little fuss and muss. They should be rolling into town on Feb 21st (of course subject to change at any second). As of right now there is nothing planned except for baby visiting with us and Jeff and Paula (need to come up with a neat nickname for those two... i mean three) We were thinking of attempting to plan a get together again on Friday or Saturday night at our house. Besides that nothing on the docket. Jen and I need to get our Wii skills sharpened for the visit. The Q's are so much more experienced than we are. Jen hasn't even played it yet, but Carrie is addicted to a mario brothers game and hopefully she will bring it with her. Also, Carrie, if you are reading this, don't forget to bring your extra controllers with you, we only have the one. Last week I got a special offer from the Kalahari for a super deal ($299 a night) on the village room. I was going to suggest to meet up with them for a night on the way over, but the special deal didn't fall on those nights, and that would cut into Carrie's "baby time". Still, reminder to everyone to save up for Geekfest later this year (maybe). On the way to vollyball last night I saw a sign at a little bar for "Guitar Hero-oke" I assume it's like kerioke but with guitar hero. That would be interesting to watch. Maybe if the Q's skills are good enough they could take it to the next level..... bar competition. Now we are just going to be working on our Wii skills, getting the house cleaned, and getting the sleeping arrangements made which will be different since moving William into the Lightning McQueen room. Actually the Q's might like the new arrangement better since there will be more room to spread out. So be on the lookout for emails and let me know if anything else is going on that weekend.
Hopefully by the weekend John will be out of Carrie's doghouse. He forgot to tell her that Joshua came early. ooops.

Fun time... too short

So I get a call out of the blue from Keith. He tells me that he is organizing a little bit of a guys night out. Cool. Besides MR halloween and christmas we almost never get together at all during the year, which is a shame since we all have so much fun when we are together. But usually life gets in the way and between kids and other stuff our availability it a little tighter than before. Before we got married, Jen used to be a fixture at Keith's house and would spend alot of time there. Now she might get a few minutes to talk to Lori on the phone every couple of weeks. Anyway, back to the gathering. Keith recommended trying the new granite city food and brew restaurant. It just opened up near the mall and looked interesting. I have been to their website and it looked like it had a good menu and atmosphere. We figured we could take the evening to celebrate Jeff's upcoming father-hood, but leave it to Paula to mess up the evening by having the baby on Monday night. Just kidding, all of God's blessings to little Joshua and his parents. Actually Jen was trying to arrange a dinner with Lori and Paula before the birth date, but again little Joshua came early. So after work I stopped off at the rehab hospital to visit mom for a little bit. She is doing really well and should be home tomorrow if she has any say in it. I get to the restaurant and head for the bar. There is a ton of waiters and staff standing at the front door to welcome you. This is pretty typical for a new restaurant. Wait for 6 months and you might see one or two people at the front door. Anyway. The restaurant itself is pretty nice. It's not very big, but well decorated and has a wide open layout which is comfortable. I walk through the bar and no Keith, I walk through the restaurant and no Keith, I was just about to call him and I see him and the guys in a booth hidden in the corner (obviously they know where to put the riff raff :)). The service from Scott our waiter was fantastic. He checked on us continually and always made sure we had everything we needed. He annoyed me a little when he kept referring to everyone at the table as "my man", but it wasn't a big deal. Looking at the menu, there was a nice selection of food where everything looked good. I was kinda looking for the prices, but there wasn't any on the menu... strange. But there was numbers after the descriptions. I was thinking that they might be the prices, but the appetizers were higher numbers than the sandwiches. I found out later that those numbers were the prices, they just have BIG appetizers. I now it's a kitchy thing to do, but would it kill you to just print a couple of zeros. The only beer to drink there was their 5 microbrews which were pretty tasty even with my stuffy head and off taster. The special for the night was a $5 "growler" on the website. I had to ask when the heck is a "growler". Basicly it's a big bottle (2 litres) that you can fill up and take home. You can't drink it there, but you can take this huge bottle and take it out the door. It reminded me of a story my grandma used to tell how her dad used to give her a nickle and a bucket and send her down to the corner store to fill it up with beer. The "growler" is actually a pretty good deal if you go by the restaurant often, especially with the beer being $4.25 a glass. They also had a "Mug" club that was a pretty good deal too (again if you were there frequently). Anyway back to the food. I changed my order at the last second from a wrap to a basic cheeseburger, which was a mistake. The cheeseburger was overcooked (burnt) and dry. Everyone elses food looked very good and they all seemed to like their meals. But my bad burger didn't put my off trying this restuarant again in the future. I am not sure if I can attribute my bad burger to the Cramer restaurant curse, but nothing else went wrong, so probably not. We were having a good time ribbing each other and telling stories. Most of the group (Marcus,Keith,Mike,Tim,and Todd) have known each other for 25 + years at least so I got a little lost in some of their stories and references, but it will still fun to hear them. After we ate and paid the bills, I was settling in for more stories and ribbing, and everyone got up and started to leave. That kinda surprised me, but I am sure there was other stuff to do on a tuesday night. Overall a good time at a good place. A little pricey, but not too bad overall. I look forward to Jen and I having a "date night" there sometime soon to give it another try.

The next tentative plan is to get together at ThunderBowl the old Hilcrest Bowl on the South side of town. At least half of the group worked there in high school and thought it would be nostalgic.

PSA for guys

SAINT Valentine's day is a little over a week away. Are you ready guys? Well like me your answer is probably, nope. I am here to help you out. I am providing you guys a new and innovative way to shop for you honey. If you are one of those brave souls that attempts to buy your sweetie garments of an "intimate" nature, then this might come in real handy. This site might help you to avoid fights by making sure that you pick the correct size and having a very good night.

Click here to proceed. The link is a little NSFW so open carefully.

For those of you who use this site to buy your girlfriend or wife (or both.. just kidding) a little something, you are welcome. For everyone else... keep you hands above the table.

Again, I am just here to help a fellow brother out.

Yes Carrie I will get back to work..

more baby stuff

finally got a chance to download some more video and pictures from Christophers birth. In this video William and Andrew check out their brother while bumpa holds him.

Next are a couple of pictures from when we got back to the room after Christophers birth.

So far the new camera is working well, but with a 2 gig memory card I don't have to empty the camera every 25 pictures like the old one so it's a little harder to get to posting picures.

I put some other pictures on the flickr account HERE

Lightning McQueen

Clearly the boys favorite Disney character is Lighning McQueen. They might not watch the DVD that much anymore, but give them anything with a "cars" character on it and it's their new favorite toy. Of course being boys they love cars in general. I have learned to shuffle my feet around the living room since it usually entails stepping on a car or two if I am not paying attention. We need to start enforcing the Q's plan of cleaning up toys before going to bed every night. Anyway with the new baby coming we decided to move all the kids to different bedrooms. I am not real sure why, but I am sure there was a good idea for it. I believe Jen's thinking is that the older the boy the bigger the bedroom. Of course I feel sorry for poor Christopher since he will get stuck with the smallest of the bedrooms, but he also gets the room in the back of the house so he doesn't have to worry about hearing cars drive by all night and the thumping stereos as much. Maybe I will find something to make that bedroom a little more special for when he gets older. So the big plan was to clear out the 4th bedroom and make it William's new bedroom (so much for storing anything in there anymore). Finally we got everything organized enough to allow me to get to the walls to start painting. Jen had found this neat little plan-o-gram for a lightning mcqueen room at home depot a few months back. It included a two color paint job with borders and all kinds of stuff. We had been talking about a lightning mcqueen room for a while now so Jen went out and bought bedding and other stuff for the themed room. I decided to get a little creative and decide on a two toned room with a border in the middle. Hopefully he will get a little more enjoyment out of this room than from the "finding Nemo" room that he was in. I don't think he ever got that his room was finding nemo themed at all since he really didn't get into that movie. We were trying to get him moved in before or soon after the baby is born, so I head over to home depot to buy the paint. The guy at home depot strongly recommends a tinted primer for the red part of the wall. "if not you will be putting multiple coats on the wall" he says to me, and all I can think of is the Q's and their 8+ layers of paint on Keith's room. Then the big question, "what kind of paint do you want?". Uh crap I hadn't thought of that. I heard the term semi-gloss and it sounded familiar so I told him two gallons of that. The blue color is offically called "Cinderalla's Gown" but I call it "radiator springs blue" to sound more manly. I get to work on the first coat of primer and it is really pink. Now I knew it was going to be pink, but it was strange to see that color on the wall. At this point I find out from Jen that my semi-gloss decision was a major faux paus and that I should have bought Satin. They won't take it back since it was a special mix so I have to buy another two gallons of paint. Lucky for me the primer didn't matter. The guy at home depot gives me advice on paiting the room, which is basicly the lazy man's way. Hey I am simpatico with "lazy". Basicly it's giving the paint at least 24 to 48 hours between coats to allow it to fully dry. At this point we aren't really sure how William will like being moved into another bedroom so I start building up the excitement telling him how cool the "Lightning McQueen" room will be. He gets real excited about it. For the next week, after eating dinner, he would tell me to get to work on the room. Yes sir, right away sir. I work on the room for about a week alternating colors so I can allow the paint to fully dry. The red goes on really well, but still requires 3 coats. I could have gotten away with 2, but I think the 3rd really made it look nice. The blue goes on well and only requires 2 coats, but I must have been real tired when I worked on it since I ended up accidentally hitting the ceiling 3 or 4 times which I usually don' t do. I figure I will touch that up when I fix the kids bathroom ceiling or get to work on our bathroom ceiling. Next was the border. I thought the stuff that I bought was peel and stick, but it wasn't it was prepasted. Crap. I have never hung wallpaper or border so I have no idea how to do it, and don' t really feel brave enough to attempt it until I am sure the paint in totally dry. Then a little thing called "having a baby" got in the way of this project. After getting Jen and the baby home I decided to finish the job. I start on a small wall first with a bucket of hot water. It goes on well, but not as good as I thought. I can adjust the border quite a bit while it is on the wall, but the perfectionist in me kept tweeking it and I could see me tweeking too much. I finally ended up putting the bigger pieces of border in the bathtub to get wet. Lucky (or unlucky) for me the majority of the room was long runs which entailed only one long big piece at time. Man what a pain in the butt. Finally I get all of the border on, but it's not laying flat to the wall. Crap. I am using the sponge like the instructions say, but it's not doing the job. So, I decide to ad lib and grab my 5 inch putty knife and start to use it like a squeegee. It does a fantastic job in getting the paper to lay down on the wall,but it also presses out all the excess glue out and down the wall. Son of a B****. At this point it's late, the kids are fussing since it's way past their bedtime, and I am trying to help Jen out with the baby. So I get the border put on, most of the excess glue wiped of the wall and put kids to bed. I go back into the room and start to fiddle with the border some more, (it wasn't totally level) but finally yelled at myself to just walk out of the room. I come back into the room the next day and it actually looked real good. Most of the places where the border didn't quite lay down actually laid down by itself. Finally got furniture rearranged and a bed put in there. We are going to buy a new bed for him but he is using a trundle bed right now. The other night when we are putting him to bed we ask, "do you want to sleep in lightning mcqueen room tonight?". You would have thought we were sending him to Disneyworld itself or just gave him Christmas again. He ran into the room and right into his bed. I still have to sit in the room with him until he falls asleep, and he still comes into our room in the middle of the night, but it's fun to see the joy in his eyes with his new room. Next plan is to move Andrew into his new (old) room and make that one a lightning mcqueen room also. No painting!! I figure the blue color in the nemo room is close enough to mcqueen room. I am just going to hang some stuff on the walls. Next I think I might do a little work on the basement to see what kind of trouble I can get into down there.

Mondays are Mondays

So I wake up on time Monday, which is pretty good due to the lack of sleep with the baby. My schedule has also been thrown off with the 6 days off, work 2 days and 2 days off. But after getting ready with the usual routine I was actually a little early. I decided to wait for my mother in law to show up for a couple of different reasons. One reason is in case Andrew woke up early. Jen can't lift him for a couple weeks now so that's my mother in laws main job, lifting Andrew out of the crib. William was climbing over the side by 2 1/2, but Andrew isn't the mountain climber. The other reason to wait was because I have been having trouble with the garage door. When it gets real cold outside it tends to stop halfway up and close. Finally my mother in law shows up, and my early, actually on time, morning is now at least 5 minutes late (typical for me). So I head out the door and jump into the car. I turn the ignition and the car just does the slow rrrrrr, rrrrrr, rrrrrrr...nothing. Son of a Bi***. The car has been starting a little hard lately. It was hesitating a little bit before catching, but this was dead dead. I jump out and attempt to jump the car with the Jeep. The jumper cables JUST reach the terminals on both cars. I sit there for awhile and try a couple of times and nothing. Lucky for me Jen can't drive yet, William doesn't have school, and my mother in law has all the proper car seats in case she does need to go anywhere, so I take the jeep. I get to work 20 minutes late, so much for being on time. The rest of the day goes relatively well. I am actually pretty busy working on some marketing for a new website/magazine that we are launching.
I get home and decided to take out the battery to have it tested at an auto parts place not too far from my house. There is a bit of a scramble to get the tools together since they have been scattered over the house due to the numerous projects that I have done or are in process of doing. I haven't done work on my own car in years. Back in the day, I was always tinkering with stuff and wasn't too afraid to work on my car, but as I get a little older and the cars get a little more complicated I decided to leave the work to professionals. But a battery I can take care of myself. I get it out of the car, and take a break to eat dinner with the family. After dinner I take the battery over the Auto Zone. I walk into the store with the battery in my hands and just stand there until a guy tells me to place it on the counter. They have a few people in the store so I figure that it might take a while for them to get to my battery. Finally this old guy approaches me and asks if he can help me. I tell him that I need to get my battery tested and point toward the counter and ..... blank stare. I tell him again that I need to get my battery tested and point toward the counter and ... he asks where it is. Yeah its going to be that way. So finally he puts my battery into this tester thing and turns stuff on. I am standing there for a few minutes and finally the old guy tells me that the machine says "charge battery, test again". I ask the old guy what that means, and he says to me in a shitty tone "charge battery, test again". Does that mean the battery is no good? No it means charge battery, test again. Ok Numbnuts I am here because the battery is freakin dead!! How can I charge it if its dead. Finally another guy comes over and is helpful offering to charge the battery for me and help me out with it. He also offers to sell me a new battery, but why would I buy a new battery if it's not the battery, especially if I have to put money into an alternator or starter. I know that the life of this battery is definitely toward the end of it's life (factory installed), but until I hear it from the doctor I am not ready to replace it. Finally I decided to take the battery home, throw it back in the car, and try and jump it again. After a while of jumping it with the jeep I decided to use my battery charger rather than have the jeep run in the garage. My charger is at my mom's house since we used it alot with the corvette and prowler. My brother is at my mom's and runs it over to the house. Of course I press him into helping me move the desk in the Lightning McQueen room (pics coming) . After letting the battery charge for a while I finally get the car to turn over, but it's too late to run it back to the auto parts store for testing, so I just let it run for half an hour and turn it off. It actually started again. We will see what it does when I get home, and run it over for testing tonight.

Tire Nazi

The Jeep was in serious need for new tires. I had known that they were very bad tread for a couple of months now, but wasn't really sure of the fate of the Jeep. Jen and I have looked at and driven minivans the last couple of months, but weren't sure when to really make the move to the minivan nation. We know with three boys that we are definitely going to need one eventually, but weren't sure just when. I had placed the car carrier for Christopher in the back seat of the Jeep and it fit's pretty good with the addition of a different booster seat for William. It's a tight fit, but it will work for now. So Anyway... I was dragging my feet on replacing the tires on the Jeep since I didn't want to put the cost into the car if we were getting rid of it. With the revelation of the 3 seats working in the back seat and the few winter storms that we have had I decided to go ahead and get some. (Every time it snowed it really worried me for Jen to drive the Jeep). So I call around and find a common price for new tires to be $400 which I kinda figured. I considered putting used tires on the car, but wasn't too thrilled about that either, in case we decided to keep the car a little more. And again I was concerned about Jen driving in snow on even half tread. Anyhow (again) I decided to take the time off for baby time to get the tires replaced. I called around again and heard $400 from about everyone. I was talking to my mother-in-law about taking an afternoon during baby time off to replace tires. She then asks if I have called the "tire nazi". What???? She tells me of a business in Leo that sells tires at real good prices, but the guy is a very gruff person with no personality. You tell him what you want, he gives you a price, and then move to the side. So I called the "tire nazi" with my information, and I can tell you I was a bit intimidated calling him knowing all the stores that my in-laws and Jen have had with him over the years. But they all said the price was great. Here is the conversation in a nutshell:

me: I would like to get a price on new tires for my 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo
him: go ahead
me: I need a price on four p225 75r 16's
him: $280 complete
me: wow that sounds like a great price. I have a few more phone calls to make but I will get back to you.
him: (click)

There was a few more things that I wanted to ask him, but I was so intimidated that I just wanted to get off the phone. I kept hearing "NO TIRES FOR YOU!!" in my head ala Seinfeld. I call back a few minutes later and asked about an appointment to get it done where I was told they don't do appointments, just show up. So after picking up William from school I decided to take him with me as the muscle. We pull up to the building and walk into this absolute garbage dump of an office... or is it a showroom.... or is it a storage room. There is bits and pieces of cars everywhere. Even duck wallpaper on the one wall that must have been 100 years old. I wish I would have taken my camera with me since I can't really put into words how much of a dump it was. But hey I am paying $120 less then anyone else. So I am standing in the "showroom" and this guy comes slowly walking in the door. "For tires for $280?". Yep, here are the keys. William and I spend the next 10 minutes walking around the showroom trying not to touch anything. The whole time I am laughing to myself and saying this is a definite experience I will remember for a long time. While standing there the phone rings... well it doesn't ring, it "quacks" (novelty phone). He comes back in and we settle the bill. Believe it or not he has a charge machine. He sits there for a minute watching "Rachael Ray" while William and I try to entertain ourselves. I was curious to talk to him and ask about the business, but I decided not to. While in the "showroom" I see an old dirty dingy sign hanging in the corner. It's the kind you can change with letters, and I see that they list shocks as a service. I ask about shocks for the car and he says "let me see" and walks out the door. A minute later he is pulling the Jeep to the front of the the building and says "$300 for four shocks" (again a great price). William and I go outside and load into the Jeep. I look at the tires, and yeah they are off brand tires, but they have great tread, and worth it if we do end up trading in the jeep in a few months. The funny part of the story is that our friend Tracy went to him in the morning and paid $280 for tires for her car, and I head him quote another price while I was standing there at $280, so he must have quite the stack in the back. I think if I go back again I will just go across the street to subway and grab a sub next time... man that was fun.

We're Home

Monday night, we are finally home. Here is how the weekend went (as I can recall, I am a little tired). I last blogged Friday night after Christopher was born. Fortunately Tracy and the boys were available to spend the night with the boys. I spent a pretty restless night on the couch/bed with many interruptions during the night from the nurses. Saturday morning I woke up and headed home to relieve Tracy. I got home and took a shower and got the boys together to drop them off to Grandma and Grandpa C's house. I got back to the hospital around 1:00pm. The rest of the day was just watching TV and reteaching myself how to take care of a newborn including changing him. First poops of a newborn are a tar-like substance that looks weird. Christopher had a tough day with his circumcision ... ouch. Again I will say that Dupont hospital is the best place in town to have a kid. The staff is fantastic and the food is very good and affordable. And I love the snack room down the hall for a quick bite or can of pop. Saturday night we were able to have Tracy watch the boys again, but I had to wait for her to drop her boys off at her mom's house. So I got the boys to bed and straightened the house, and also got the last minute stuff together for bringing the baby home. By the time Tracy showed up and I got back to the hospital it was after midnight. I put together the couch/bed into a bed and crashed for the night. I actually got a pretty good night's sleep with only a few interruptions. Sunday morning I got up around 8:30. The in-laws picked up the boys on the way home from church and took them home for the day. It was another day of watching TV and baby stuff. We haven't had cable in quite a few years so it was nice to be able to watch it again. I still don't miss it and can deal with broadcast television. I will just be upgrading to an external antenna this year to help clean up the signal a little and prepare me for digital. Sunday night we were able to talk Jen into spending the night by herself. I took the boys home and put them to bed. More getting the house ready and finally got to bed after midnight. The boys slept in till 8:30. After getting them together and dropped off to Grandma's again I headed back up to the hospital. We decided to try and leave before 3:00pm and go home since Jen was doing so well. We ordered what they call a celebration meal that is a very nice dinner/lunch. I had the filet minion and Jen had the chicken cordon bleu. De-Lic-ious. After a bit of a wait we finally got to head out the door around 3:30. It's good to be finally home. Still have to get into a routine of feedings and other stuff. So far Christopher wants to be fed about every two hours so it's going to be a long night, or the beginning of alot of sleepless nights. I thought the one interruption a night was bad, now it's going to be multiple. The boys really like having the baby around and are being pretty helpful so far, we will see how long that lasts. A couple of days to help Jen adjust then I go back to work. Hopefully she can handle the baby and the two boys pretty well. Her mom is supposed to help, but she just got sick so it's going to be an interesting week.

Baby Day !!!

Well here it is.. baby day. Morning started out pretty fast. I was actually getting a good night's sleep and could have slept in, but lucky for me I left the alarm on. We all woke up and got going. We dropped the boys off to Grandma and Grandpa around 8:30am. After a quick visit there we headed for the hospital. We were a little late getting here but we found out after we arrived that the surgury was moved to 11:30. Jen had a bit of a panic attack as she was getting ready but calmed down. The two hours before surgury goes really quick and before we knew it we were heading down to the operating room. We walked down still trying to decide a name for the little whipper snapper. Jen headed into the room and I sat out into the hallway. I walked into the room and lucky for me at it being baby #3 I kinda knew what to do. I sat down at the operating table with Jen and they got started. They have a little screen between Jen's head and the operating area, but like Andrew, the screen wasn't that high and I could basicly see everything. I am not a squemish kinda guy and I had seen it before so it didn't bother me. I actually watched almost everything. Everything went well in the operation and nothing that wasn't expected. They finally took the little tyke out at 12:07pm and he weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces and 20 and 3/4 inches. Newborns are really gooey so I let them clean him up. I saw with Jen while they tied her tubes and then put all of the "STUFF" (stomach, uterus ect) back in. After rolling out of the operating room we sat in recovery still kicking the names around. We finally decided to name him Christopher Daniel. My mom, Aunt Suzie, and brother were waiting in the room when we got back. As I am sitting here in the room at 11:00pm. Jen is doing very well. I think she is actully doing better than the last two times. Nurses here are fantastic, Food is very good. I can grab a snack down the hall any time of day. We currently have a nurse Cathy who is uber-cheery, just short of annoying, pretty funny. Unfortunatly this place doesn't have wifi or high speed internet so we will see how the dial up goes.

tick tick tick

I was asked if I was ready....

Am I?

Hard to say.

Friday is baby day and the mad rush is on. Trying to get stuff done, things cleaned, supplies bought, and just general crap done to get ready. It's a little overwhelming knowing that in a couple days we are going to have another baby in the house. The logistics of getting ready is what is overwhelming me. You know that I am a planner. I need to have stuff planned out well in advance and not having things planned is driving me a little nutty. Yeah I know when the baby is due and what we have to go through and all that stuff, but this time there is alot more factors that aren't planned yet. The biggest one is watching the boys. I know we are going to lean heavily on the in-laws this weekend to watch the boys since my mom is still out of commision. But there isn't a plan yet. Jen doesn't like staying in a hospital overnight by herself so I have been harping on her to arrange places for the boys to spend the night or other people to spend the night with her in the hospital, but it's not done yet. tick tick tick. Yeah I know it's my anal self talking. I will calm down. Everything will work out fine.

I finally got down the stuff from the attic last night and took everything apart so it could be cleaned. Little more reality hitting now. Yesterday was my mother in law's birthday so we all went out to Outback (restaurant decided at the last second, of course. must be a family thing) for a very nice dinner. The in-laws don't do presents and cards, they do dinner, which is fine for me, especially as I get older. This was our first attmept to take the boys to a sit down restaurant in almost 6 months. One, we don't go to sit down dinners that much anyway, and two since the last time we went it was a bit of a challenge with the boys. With William constantly wanting to go to the bathroom and Andrew wanting to get out of his high chair and "explore" we didn't see the need to try it again. But the boys were pretty much behaved as long as I was feeding Andrew pop and anything else he wanted on the table. William is fighting the cold that Andrew gave him to he was pretty subdued all night long. When we were leaving I got Andrew out of his high chair and proceeded to put my jacket on. He takes off and heads toward the door, but then we notice that he is going up to another couple at another booth (we thought to grab some food). But as I get to the table I notice that he is giving them hugs and saying goodbye (to total strangers). He did this to another table on the way out the door. It's a darn shame he is so shy (yeah right). We went back to the in-laws for some ice cream cake and visiting. We headed home around 9:30. After putting the boys to bed is when I climbed up to the attic to get the baby stuff down. Of course William (with andrews cold) wakes up 3 times during the morning and I just found out just threw up all over the house...

Am I ready for another one?

Yeah. Bring it on !!

He's Back!!

For those of you that have lost hope or thought he was dead..... monkeyjack has posted on his blog. AND IT IS REAL GOOD. Man it's never boring around that house. Hopefully it will be the begining of his return.

I am just surprised he remembered his password.

HOLY CRAP !!!!!

Just over a week and we will have a baby in the house!! Dealing with the holidays and all that hub bub that fact kind of got lost on me, which is probably a good thing since I didn't obsess about it. But now I am in panic mode (kinda). I need to find and clean all of the stuff for the baby's arrival. I think the bassinet and car carrier are up in the attic. Of course they are pretty well buried since I wasn't really expecting to use them again, but now I will get that down and cleaned up. I continued painting William's room for the great kid move of '08. I am glad that I got advice from the guy at Home Depot and he talked me into tinted primer. There is no way that red would have gone on with two coats without it. I should finish up William's bedroom tonight or Saturday at the latest. Need to get the Christmas tree down and other stuff organized for baby-time. Jen is worried about getting the baby's "going home" outfit. You think by the third time we would have all the stuff we need and be ready for this. It's not like we didn't just do this 2 years ago. So, it's going to be a busy weekend and week. At least with Jen having a C-section we can plan for some of this stuff and not have to worry about it 24 hours a day for weeks before and after her due date. Yeah I know her recovery really sucks from the c-section, but there is something to be said for knowing when to get ready. Say a little prayer for Jen next Friday at 11:00 if you are of that persuasion.

Jen's Chrismas Present

Every year for Christmas I try and get Jen at least one neat or unique gift for fun. Last year it was the Lord of the Rings autographed poster. This years gift was a total fluke. Jen has been getting into talk radio lately. Some of our dinner conversations might include something Shawn Hannity or Glenn Beck said during their radio shows. Usually she catches portions of the programs taking William to school or going to work.
Here is where the fluke happened. A friend of mine, Gina, had started an account on Facebook and sent me an invite to start one as well. I wasn't going to since the myspace thing is pretty much a waste of time as well, but I decided to give it a try and see what the hub bub is. After setting up my account there is a thing where you can go to a Fort Wayne area group and it lists all of the stuff going on in the area and lets people post events. One of the things that I saw was a post from a kid trying to arrange a protest at a Glenn Beck book signing event. That's where I learned that Glenn was going to be at the Border's store in Fort Wayne on the Saturday after Thanksgiving signing his new book. If it wasn't for that anarchist trying to drum up trouble I would have never known about it since I don't listen to his show. The signing isn't on his website, but I call the store and confirm that he is going to be there and they also suggest buying the book beforehand and showing up at least an hour before the doors open. So I run out to the store and buy the book and set my alarm for 5:30am. The book signing is at 8:00am but I figure I had better get there at least by 6:00am since I struck out at Target on the Friday after thanksgiving due to getting to the store a little too late. I am trying to load the car with warm clothes since I know I will be outside for at least an hour or so and it's around 34 degrees outside, but I don't want Jen to see all the warm clothes that I am getting together in case she might figure something out. So I head out the door before 6:00. (I got smart and parked the car outside so I wouldn't wake up the Quinmores). As I arrive I see the line already out the front door and stretching halfway down the side of the building. I get out fully prepared with hats, gloves, turtleneck, sweatshirts, and a walkman to entertain myself. I actually have a nice conversation with the couple in front of me for a while. Also, I am lucky since the line at the side of the building also provides a wind break so it's not as brutal as the poor suckers in the front of the building. So I am sitting there listening to the radio and watching the line get longer and longer until it starts going out into the parking lot and almost to the Bob Evans. About 7:00 the line started to move. As I entered the store I was assigned a colored bracelet that essentially saved my place in line so I didn't have to stay in it, but most people still stayed in the line even after being told numerous times they didn't have to be. I wandered around the store for a little bit and then got in line myself just to make sure to have a spot, since he was only signing for an hour. Unfortunately no personalized autographs. Just his name and then next.We were all shown which page to open the book to and then we handed the book to one of three people who handed the book to each other before Glenn got it. The person before me stopped and said something to him which put me in a kind of awkward position of not knowing where to stand or what to do since they were trying to rush everyone through the line, but Glenn saw me and made sure to shake my hand and with me a Merry Christmas. I did the same with him and headed out the door.

So my fun present to Jen was an autographed Glenn Beck book which she has already read. Hopefully I can "luck" into stuff like this for future Christmas'.

By the way, I never saw any protesters......

Happy New year

Happy New Year.. It's Wednesday but feels like Monday. These last two weeks have put my body schedule into a tizzy. Off two days, work half a day, off two and a half days, work 2 days, off 2 days, work half a day, off a day and a half and now work 4 days. uggghhh. But here it is 2008.

Monday was a quiet half day at work. After work I decided to hit the store for a few things to eat. With the holidays and Jen's work schedule she hadn't been able to get to the store for a couple of weeks so the cupboard was looking bare. Primarily I was looking for the makings for Reuben sandwiches (new tradition of mine) and a few things to snack on for New Years Eve for in front of the TV. Of course, Jen find out that I am going to head to the store adds to the list. Mostly staple items like eggs, milk, bread and cheesy poofs (kids love them). Now I thought the store would be a little crazy like it was on Christmas eve, but I wasn't in a real hurry to get home anyway since grandma was watching the kids. Then I start hearing the forecast for snow for New Years Eve and new years day and think Son of a B**ch. Now not only are you going to have the nuts like me stocking up on snacks and beer for the night, but now all the people who hear the word "snow" and have to buy half the freekin store. And of course they are predicting 3 to 9 inches of snow. I was ready to say that was a load of BS until I remembered they were kinda right on the last snowstorm. So there I am in Meijer on new years eve afternoon with 200 (at least) of my close personal friends. I grabbed the cart and got all of the stuff on my list including the LAST, badly dented, but not leaking can of sauerkraut. So my cart has stuff in it, but of course too much to go through the 12 items or less isle, but not by much. Every isle in the store was at least 4 deep with almost every lane open. Most people had carts loaded over the top with tons of food like they were planning on being snowed in for weeks. And then there are people like me with a small cartload stuck in the middle of it all. But I figured no matter where I would go it would be crazy, so I just picked a line and just waited my turn. It was long but not that bad, but I will no be doing that again. If we need stuff like that then I head to the store at midnight like I used to do when I was single. I got home unpacked and played with the kids.

Jen actually got off work early so we decided to head over to Jeff and Paula's for there get together. We showed up at the same time as MR and headed toward the buffet. William and Brock played together really well and were having fun. Andrew found the Christmas decoration that blew the little snowflakes in the dome and had a blast pushing that button. I got a chance to see the baby's new bedroom as well as Jeff's banister project (snicker). Around 8:00 Andrew started getting real cranky. He really wanted some pop, but we are really trying to limit the amount of pop that he gets, especially the caffeine. But he went into full tilt screaming about that. It's so hard to know how to handle him right now since William didn't do this stuff at Andrew's age. I am not sure when to discipline him so he doesn't walk all over us as parents and how much of it is him just being a 2 year old and he will grow out of. I just know that I can't let him cry out these fits since he ends up puking all over the place when he gets really worked up, and I am sure the Jeff and Paula really wouldn't want that in their house. So after trying to deal with him for a little bit we decided to head home. We wanted to get home before "amateur hour" (as Jen calls it) started with all the drunks on the road. We get home and put the boys to bed. William had a little nap in the car so he takes real long to go down. Finally I get downstairs at 10:00 and Jen is asleep in the couch. I get out my Corona and make some bagel bites to snack on. I throw Pirates of the Caribbean in and start watching that. I think at about 5 minutes before midnight I fell asleep in the chair and woke up 5 minutes after midnight. Crap. Oh well it's just a big lit ball. So I watch a little more of the movie and fall asleep again (man I am getting old). Finally trudged upstairs at 1:30 and the boys are awake at 7:30. New years day Jen went to work and the boys and I just hung out at home.

Oh and that 3 to 9 inches of snow ended up being maybe 2 inches. Stupid weathermen.

But on a good note. I finally got the snow blower to work!!!! All it took was some fresh gas and it fired right up last night. At least if we do get another big snow fall,or when we do, I will be ready since it really beats the hell out of shoveling..