Starting the weekend off right!

Our weekend started on Friday night when Jen and I spent 3 hours in the hospital. Jen wasn’t feeling very good and thought there might be something wrong. As it turns out her and the baby are just fine. It took so long because they took Jen’s blood and had to run some tests on it. We got to sit in a very small room with Jen on a not so comfortable bed and me in a very non-padded chair waiting for the test results. Jen had all kinds of sensors and probes hooked up to her, one of which was monitoring the baby’s heart beat. It was kind of relaxing to hear her heart. It beats really fast. Every now and then Caitlin would roll over out of range of the monitor and it would just stop making any noise. More than once Caitlin kicked the monitor, and it made a whoooosh sound. I told her to keep it up and kick it if it bothers her! Oh right, of course the nurses wigged out when they saw Jen’s blood pressure, which is always a little high when she gets nervous. The nurses non-the-less always think she is on the verge of preeclampsia. They just told her to stay off her feet this weekend and since she has a normal doctor’s visit on Monday anyway to just take it easy. We both crashed when we got home, it was only about 10:30 but being in the hospital sorta sucks the life out of you.

Saturday was really great for me, I bought a dirt bike! I’ve wanted one for years ever since I got rid of my old one and now and I finally got it. One of my brother’s friends just happened to be selling his Kawasaki KX 500, so I decided to go take a look. OMG!! This bike is awesome! I took it down the street for a test ride, after I hit second gear and rolled on the throttle the front end rolled up with it! This thing will wheelie on demand! I’ve only ridden a 500cc bike for a little while when my dad had his, and that was years ago, for the most part I had always had a 250, but again years ago. I was excited to hear about this guy’s bike because my brother has known him for years and we trust him. I know he has kept the bike in good condition. This is a bike that I will be able to ride for years and never out-grow. It has so much power on-tap but is also able to putt around and do trail riding on. We were going to go riding on Sunday with Ben, the guy I bought the bike from, but it rained this morning and my honey-do list was growing. I thought it would be a better idea to finish up some of the things around the house. Here are pictures of the bike.

So today, Sunday, I busted out my power tools and built the shelf that I’ve been meaning to do for a while. My new circular saw works like a champ. I changed out the 24 tooth blade for a 150 tooth. The cuts were really smooth. I even got to use the sawhorses. Here is the finished product. Jen and I headed over to Lowes and got some things for the bike. I thought it would be a good idea to get a tarp to cover it with since it won’t fit in the garage and the sun will eat it up in a hurry. While we were there we picked up a cable and lock for it too as our neighborhood has some undesirables roaming about. Hence the ADT on the house.

Hope everyone had as good a weekend or better.

Recap of last week

So much has happened in the last week, I should really gather all my thoughts so that this blog is at least a little coherent. Here goes…

Last Thursday Jen and I went out for our anniversary. We celebrated 10years together and 4years married! Mostly it was for the married one, but it is very cool that we have been together for this long. On the advice of a friend at work we went to this great restaurant called Ruth’s Cris. It is a very nice steak house, kind of uppity but not like smug uppity. I had a giant Fillet Mignon and Jen had the same but in a smaller cut. The food was outstanding and the service was great. The best part was the restaurant was literally a stone’s throw away from Jen’s work, so it was very easy for us to get there after work.

Then on Friday Jen and I went to get an ultrasound done. It was mostly just for Jen, I tried to get them to do my stomach but they wouldn’t, those jerks. Anyway, this was a different place than where we went last time. These guys had the cool new 3D ultrasound machine. It was really cool, they do the normal 2D view while they check everything out and do the measurements to see how far along the baby is and to make sure everything is progressing well. Then they switch it over to the 3D view for the face pictures. I think this is mostly just for the parent’s sake as I didn’t see the operator use the 3D view for any other reason other than to hear us say “Uh, ohhhhhh.” This place also had the ability to copy all the pictures they took to a CD, which made it a lot easier for me to post them as I don’t have a scanner. The other pictures of Caitlin at 9 weeks were just printouts from the other place, and then I took a digital picture of them with our camera and messed with them a little to get them to look right. Here are the new pictures. In the 3D picture Caitlin has her hands in the way so it looks a little funny. They took a few pictures of her like that but this one was the best. I like the profile shot of the 2D picture.

We didn’t have to go to the fire station after all for the baby seat. Jen’s brother and his girlfriend were able to put the seat in the correct way. As it turns out there were other latches that I didn’t know about in the seat. One crisis averted. Now we will be able to bring Caitlin home safe and sound in her car seat. We will eventually get pictures of Jen’s car and post them too, I know we have been getting requests but well, we are lazy.

The cat has been weird lately. I think we aren’t spending enough time with her or something. I think she is beginning to suspect that something is up around here. She has become a very affectionate lap-cat in the last few weeks, which for her isn’t normal. She will normally only sit on your lap if you have a blanket on, which of course is only in the winter and around here in Arizona that means you might use the blanket for about a week or two out of the entire year. Now the cat jumps in your lap every time you sit down.

Today, being Monday, Jen went to her doctor for a regular checkup. She is doing really well and is getting very close. After she told me I went around a grossed out my friends at work. That was probably a bad thing, but I had to tell someone and I didn’t think she wanted me to write it in the blog. We don’t think Jen is going to make it all the way to April 15th like they said she should. It looks like it is going to happen here in the next 1 to 2 weeks!

Finally to end the day Jen and I went to pick out a pair of glasses for me. I haven’t bought new glasses in years. My current pair is 2 prescriptions out of date, which makes them about 4 or 5 years old. We went to the Wal-Mart of course. Jen helped me pick out a nice pair that looks good on me, unlike the pair I have now that have been referred to as “Harry Potter glasses.”

I’ll try to post stuff more often. It will get a little hectic around here in a couple weeks, as you can imagine, but I’ll still try to get some stuff up here anyway.

More Painting

Jen and I got the baby's crib put together a couple days ago and today I painted Jen's old computer desk to match the baby's room. Here are pictures. No one would have any idea that just a few short weeks ago this room was the nerd's domain! It is really looking good. Mostly because Jen has the vision and artistic abilities that I will never have. If it were up to me, the kid would be staring at white walls and be sung to sleep by the soft whisper of the many fans in the computers while cradled in the soft glow of the monitors. For those that care, here is a picture of the new and improved computer room. This was taken while I was engaged in an all night battle of carnage and magic in the world of Final Fantasy. Yes the computer on the right is a video conference of my friends while they were all at another guy's house. I don't like to drive home at 5:00am after a 10-12 hour bout of leveling up and slaying anything that gets in my way. I'm actually known as a "tank" in the game. Cause while my friends are busy casting spells and healing, mostly me, I'm wailing away at whatever kind of monster stands between me and the ever so coveted - next level. I'm not so much into the whole wizards and magic stuff, I just like to kill things and get rewarded for it. Wow, that was a little too much geek, even for me.

So next on the list for the baby’s room is to hang a couple little shelves and just finish up odds and ends. I actually wanted to get some other things done today, but just wasn’t up to it. I still need to build a shelf for the computer room to go in the closet, hehe more power tools. And then, I have to build a tool hanger for the garage, you know you put shovels and stuff on it. I found that they are kind of expensive and the wood is cheap if you don’t mind doing it yourself. Of course, building it yourself means – I get to play with my new power tools. I got a new circular saw a couple of weeks ago and still haven’t taken it out of the box. I even bought all the wood, maybe writing this out will encourage me to go do something with them and actually get them built. Naa.

Oh so then I was defeated by an inanimate object, again. Jen and I tried to put the baby seat in her car today. That didn’t work out so well. The stupid little strap that they give you to hook to the latches isn’t long enough. So I “made” it fit. I don’t like the way it sits in the car and I really don’t think the way I “made” it fit is really a good thing. I ran the strap around the seat instead of under it, which is how they say to do it in the manual. So tomorrow Jen and I are going to take it down to the fire station and have a professional hook it up for us. Some things are just too complicated for someone as simple as me. Quick I need something to make me feel better - now where did I leave my advanced algorithms book?

Thats all for now. Jen and I hope everyone is doing well and we miss all you guys in the NorthWest.

Wow, that didn't take long at all. I got all of my previous posts moved over to Blogger in no time. So now all the new posts will be here.

OK back to work now.

Whadya know, I'm getting the hang of this blogging thing. Today Jen and I put up the wallpaper in the baby's room finally. We've been trying to do it now for like two weeks. We had to go get some wallpaper paste from Lowes because dunking it in water and using the glue that it came with just wasn't working. We were still having issues with the top and bottom edges not sticking, but as luck would have it my grandma called me today all the way from Idaho. We told her our sob story about the wall paper and she told us to put the glue on then let it sit in a bag for about 10mins then put it up. It worked great! Thanks grandma!! We still have some problems with the top and bottom edges but I think it will be OK. If people are looking that closely I'll thump them on the head. Oh right, here are the pictures. We also got the valence put up over the window. Have I mentioned how much I love my laser level?

I've got a lot left to do today. I'm going to try to get a desk painted but it's already 5 and it's not looking like I'm going to get to it. I have to finish cleaning up the mess in the room, you'll see it in the pictures. Then I'm going to start putting the crib together. After that it's off to the store for some dinner things. I've got the cat in my lap now which isn't helping with the typing as I have to reach over her. Oh well, she's cute so it's ok. If she were an ugly cat I'd send her flying. That's not true, there are no such things as ugly cats. My friend showed me this website that is hilarious, it's called kittenwar.com. You are given two pictures of cats, and you decide which one is cuter. Then is shows you what the percentages are for what other people thought of those cats, then you do it over again. I showed Jen today and we got hooked on it for a while.

Jennifer had her baby shower yesterday. She had a great time and thank you to all who came and to everyone who wanted to be there but couldn't, she really enjoyed it. We got a lot of stuff. I'm going to try to assemble some of it during the week. Jennifer already put the bouncing chair together today. I don't have pictures, but I will next time.

I think that's all I have for now. I've been avoiding the work long enought time to get to it.

3-5-06

Heh, so much for updating every few days. So what have you missed fare reader? I mentioned the landscaper in the previous post, so we go with that first. The whole back yard is done now. It looks great; here are some pictures. It is so nice not to have dirt be the only thing in the yard now. Well, dirt and weeds, which Jen and I worked very hard to keep at a minimum. But now it's great. It only took them four days to complete the entire project. The most impressive part was moving 10 tons of rock from the front of the house to the back in one day! Those guys worked fast. When the whole yard was done they even put the BBQ on the pad and cleaned the patio for us!

Lets see, what else. Oh, I had jury duty last Friday, whoo hoo!! Lucky me.

I started the day in traffic, just like every other day. But only had to drive about 12 miles instead of 25. It still took 45mins! The I get to the court house and I'm standing in line wait to get zapped by lord knows how much radiation from the metal detectors, I'm watching everyone else that is going through them and everyone is putting their change and other assorted pocket contents into the guard's plastic bucket and putting their jackets on a conveyer belt to be scanned. So I think, oh great, my hands are full because I brought my MP3 player, and a book to entertain myself as I've heard these things are the utmost of a fun time. So anyway, I thought 'Ha! I'll be smart and remove the contents of my pockets before I get to the guard and just hand it all to him and then I can remove my jacket and let it go through the X-ray machine and I'll be smooth cause I'll already be ready.' Yeah right. Now let me back up for a second, as I was leaving the house I remembered that the court houses frown upon people bringing in knives and other assorted sharp and blunt objects during their visits. So, I smartly removed my Gerber pocket pliers thinking 'Ha! now I wont set off the metal detectors.' However, I left the belt around my waist that had previously been holding the Gerber on, I would regret this later. Back to me at the guard, I walk up to the guard and I had already had the contents of my pockets on top of my book that I had brought and set the whole thing in the guards little plastic box. I swear I heard the guard say 'Sir, please put your stuff in the bucket and your jacket on the conveyer belt.' I was wrong. So after putting the book and stuff in the box I started to remove my jacket, the guard was now irritated (apparently) and said in a much more gruff and a "I'm much more important to you right now than anything else that could possibly be happening in your life" voice 'Sir!! I said, put your stuff in the box and your book and your jacket on the conveyer belt.' Of course my arm at this point was half caught in my jacket as I was trying to remove it. I apologized and proceeded to dump the items that had been on top of the book into the bucket and tossed the book over to the conveyer belt and then took my jacket and did the same. The guard was now obviously irritated. This is where my morning really started to suck. I stepped through the damn metal detector and of course the damn metal detector went off! Then the irritated guard asked me if I was wearing a belt, and of course I was because I for some reason thought that I should still wear it even though it no longer served a purpose as the Gerber was no longer attached to it. So I said yes. The guard then asked me to lift my shirt so he could see it. So I did. Then he told me to unbuckle it so he could see behind it. WTF! Here is a picture of the belt. There was obviously nothing behind it. So there I am in the middle of the building, one hand holding up my shirt, the other holding out my belt, at this point is was more that a little embarrassing as now there were several guards, all with itchy trigger fingers on their tazers. I thought for sure I was going to get to feel what 10,000V was like, several times. I was wrong again; although this time I was glad. The irritated guard told me to turn around and another guard then blasted me with more potent dose of radiation with and hand held wand and of course it went off at the belt buckle. He said 'He's fine.' And at that they said I could proceed. So know, after having set off two separate alarms at the security checkpoint they decided that everything was OK and I could go about my business. I buckled my belt and collected my things from the bucket and got my book, but my jacket was no where to be seen. I was no very uncomfortable because I didn't really want to talk to the jackass guard for help and the other guard still had the wand in his hand and I thought he might try to zap me again. As luck would have it another much nicer older guard was actually working the X-ray machine on the conveyer belt and flagged me over and grabbed my jacket from the inside of the still running X-ray machine with his bare hands and said 'Oh, sometimes they get stuck in there. I thanked the man and went on to where the signs pointed me, the jury room.

After that experience I was so ready to put some stranger behind bars. Unfortunately, of course, I wouldn't get the chance. I was there all day with about 50 other people and no one was chosen to serve on a jury. The only redeeming thing that came out of the day was that I got two free donuts and a free cup of coffee. Now, if I just liked coffee it would have been even better.

Moving right along, the baby's room is almost complete. We have moved all of the stuff that used to be in there to the other room. Jen and I painted the walls and I got to use my laser level again. We tried to put up wall paper but it was not working, the edges kept peeling up. We are going to try to use wall paper paste and see if that holds it down. Here are some pictures of what we have done so far.

Jen and I are getting anxious. We have another ultra-sound appointment coming up next week. We are going to try to get more pictures for the site. Caitlin Childress is all we have so far, this kid isn't going to have a middle name until she enters the world at this rate. Oh well, there is still time for names.

So, I'll try to be better about updating this, Jen has said that she might even write a snippet or two. Until next time.

3-2-06

Well, here we go. My first blog post. To start things off with a bang, we have a ton of new pictures to show. Obviously Christmas has come and gone, but we got pictures to capture the moments. We have new furniture and new curtains. We have new couches as well, but for some reason I can't remember to get off of them and take a picture of them. They are really comfortable, maybe that's why I can't get off of them.

Putting up the curtains was actually kind of fun. I got to use my new laser level that Jen got me for Christmas. It works great. It can project a line across corners and it mounts to the wall with pins so it is really convenient. I was able to hang it on the wall and get a line where I wanted it over the sliding glass door. Then when I had the brackets mounted on the wall for the curtains, I was able to simply rotate the laser around to the other wall and use the exact same height for the other window. Now I can hang things like a pro, and still not get paid like one :-)

We had a landscaper come out today to give us an estimate for our back yard. Wooo hoo!! No more dirt! Hopefully we can get the yard done in the next few weeks as we are running out of time before April.

I think that is all for now. Keep checking back, I'll try to update this every few days or so. I got a new job too, so I'm sure I'll be writing about that as well. I've been there for two weeks and it is going great, a little stressful but still fun.

1-15-05

Very First Post

Cool, my first blog post. I'll get my other posts migrated over to this one later, but for now this is what you get.