Foolishly Punctual

At some point, it’s become socially acceptable to show up “fashionably” late to parties. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t understand this, because I seem to always be the first person to show up to social functions, foolishly punctual. (Foolishly Punctual… that’s a good band name!)

My impression is that parties have a bit of a lifecycle, starting off kind of slow and awkward, then getting loose and fun and comfortable, reaching a glorious plateau, and then trailing off. Showing up late to parties means that you can get there when things are already in full swing. You can just walk into a fully formed party, like it was created just for you. No small-talk, no waiting for others to show up, just instant fun.

The problem with this is two-fold: First, if everyone did it, it wouldn’t work. If everyone showed up at the same time, just an hour late, the effect would be identical to everyone showing up on time. Therefore, it implicitly takes advantage of the poor suckers (that is, ME) who shows up at the appointed hour.

This heretofore nagging frustration crystallized into a rational thought when discussing tonight’s new year’s plans. A friend mentioned that, according to the published plan, we were all meeting up at 6pm and then going out for drinks. She (not me!) said that this means that people will show up late, and so we probably wouldn’t actually get going until later. So, she (again, not me) suggested that we move the start time back an hour to 5pm, thereby creating the desired effect of actually getting underway at the originally planned time, 6pm.

I tried hard to keep my head from exploding.

Christmas Recap

So another Christmas season has come and gone. The holiday events really started on Saturday, with Thanksgiving 2.0. My parents and another family we were going to have Thanksgiving with were sick on the original day, so my parents prepared a nice turkey dinner. Diana and Allison and I cruised over, and with my aunt also in town, we had a nice evening of all the favorites: turkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce. The dinner was great, but I have to say that the sandwich the next day might have been best ever.

On Christmas Eve, I had a half-day at work (which is always kind of a joke), and then met up with Diana and Allison again for another nice dinner at my parents, followed by some gift-exchanging. Diana and I made a calendar on Snapfish.com, using pictures of Adam, Diana and Allison as well as Dave, Elaine, and Ben. It came out really well, and made a really nice gift. We gave my aunt a DVD player (along with some DVDs), slingshotting her right into the 1990’s.

Christmas morning, Diana and I woke up and exchanged gifts, and then headed over to Diana’s parents house for more gift exchanging and a delicious brunch. Diana’s mom annually gives us a cool gift: some Monopoly money which we can then distribute as we see fit into some pre-made charity envelopes. She then donates that money for us. (I looked for a Human Fund envelope, but couldn’t find one :). I decided to donate to “One Laptop per Child” (http://laptopgiving.org), which is an organization that produces cheap laptops with specific educational software for kids in poor countries. The concept is trying to answer the question of what would happen if every child were given a tool to learn and explore, as well as access to the worlds informational resources. Seemed pretty cool. I seriously considered supplementing the donation amount in order to get my own XO laptop, but figured I didn’t really have a use for it.

Awkward Christmas Moment: My family and Diana’s family have things called “MIBBs” (Make It Better Bags), which are cloth bags filled with corn kernels. You microwave these puppies (or freeze them), and they stay hot (or cold) for a long time. Great for taking to bed on a cold night. Anyways, Diana’s mom has one that was filled with cherry pits, and supposed to serve the same purpose, only smell like delicious cherries. So, I was talking with Diana’s mom and sister, and wondered if, related to all that, there were other seeds that popped like popcorn when you heated them up. For example, if you heated a cherry pit, would it pop? “Cherry-corn”, I said. “No, wait, that’s not right. Popped cherries!”

Awesome.

Christmas evening, we had my family (mom, dad, and aunt), Diana’s family (mom, dad, Alicia and David, and friend Angela), as well as the Schatzs (mom, dad, Andy). So, a pretty good group. People brought desserts, and we had various hot and cold drinks. It was a lot of fun. At some point, Guitar Hero was broken out (it wasn’t my idea!), and some rocking out ensued.

I learned something about Guitar Hero, I think. Playing a song on Expert isn’t the best way to introduce people to Guitar Hero. In fact, it’s probably a pretty good way to scare people away from trying it. Anyone who might be on the fence about giving it a shot but worried about public humiliation probably will get even more intimidated. I’m going to try to remember that.

I used my “floating holiday” for the day after Christmas, and that was a nice quiet day to decompress a little. The three of us went out on some errands in the morning (a trip to Fry’s to look around, and a trip to Best Buy to return something, and then some lunch). Allison was fun to watch at Fry’s: lots of neat things to look at. At Best Buy, while I was standing in line to return something, she got really spacey, and then I looked down and she had her eyes closed. Just crashed out. That was nice.

That evening, we headed over the Quail Gardens, where they had some holiday stuff set up. Lots of lights around trees, as well as marshmallow roasting and hot drinks and stuff. Most of the lights they had were little LED lights, which were pretty cool. Very bright. They might be pretty cheap to buy now, so I think I’d like to get some for next year.

And that was my Christmas! Hope all yours was good, too.

I Still Rock...

Google Adsense

You get paid when you reach $100.

This is going to take a while. :)

Voting...

So, what, no one likes voting in my new little poll? (Look on the right side of the page)

Work has been kicking my ass lately, but I think I've finally starting to get the better of it. I'm not sure if I love BizTalk or hate it.

Jamie Lynn Spears disappoints me. What a mess.

Money

I've recently been alternative ways to make money. I had a lot of fun with my stint in Second Life, but since all gambling was banned, my sales have tailed off sharply. I still make an occasional buck or two from the one or two items I have for sale, but I'm in search of something new.

Metacafe.com offers money for videos that get over 20,000 hits. On a whim, I created the below video. In about 24 hours, it has about 4,000 hits.


Amazing Candle Trick - Free videos are just a click away

There are some rules you need to follow... the video has to be over 20 seconds long, and you have to have all the rights to everything shown (including background music, etc). What's a little unfortunate is that you could make a video of a girl in a low cut top folding origami and you'll get 20,000 hits easily. No really that sporting, but if I knew a girl willing to do it, I'm not sure it would be beyond me. :)

The other little experiment is Google ads. You may notice on the right side of my blog little text ads showing up. I have no idea how much it pays (it pays either per click or per time it is just seen). Probably a dumb idea, but I figured it would be worth a shot.

We're not particularly strapped for cash or anything, but it's fun to try new schemes and see what works.

Mommy likes...

On the night before her 12th week birthday (in other words, last night), Allison thought it would be cool to sleep from 9pm to 7am for the first time without waking up. Mommy likes that.

In other news, I found a fun game at work: discover that the button in the fly of your boxer shorts is undone as you get into the elevator on the first floor. Try to button said button by reaching through the fly of your pants before the doors open on the 4th floor. It’s a pretty good time, give it a shot.

In even more news, tomorrow is the annual Baditude’s Secret Santa Holiday Party. With friends all working various days and hours, or busy with young children, it’s a rare opportunity for all of the SoCal crew to actually get together in the same room. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s going to be even crazier this year with even more little people in tow.

I'm a Frayed Knot!

A while back Diana’s sister gave her boyfriend a big book on how to tie different kinds of knots. I don’t remember exactly how many knots, but a lot. Maybe more than a single person should need to know. He showed me a few, and I was really interested. Knowing a few useful knots seemed like a Cool Thing that I Would Want to Know. I expressed, however, that I wasn’t interested in knowing a hundred different knots. I just wanted to know the best knot for a couple different situations.

He very thoughtfully remembered this, and on my birthday got me a little quick-reference kind of guide. It has illustrations for 14 different knots, basically one knot for each kind of specific situation. Tying two pieces of rope together, tying a rope to a pole, putting a loop at the end of a rope, or the middle of the rope, or creating a slip-knot, etc. That kind of thing. And he even got me some rope, too.

So, I’ve been working on learning a knot a day, and (surprisingly or not), I’ve really enjoyed it. Knots are neat. It’s easy to tie bad knots that either aren’t secure, or are impossible to untie, or whatever. A bad knot might slip a little the more you pull, and eventually come lose. But a good knot is kind of a thing of beauty. The more you pull, the more it actually tightens inward on itself and the more secure it gets. Thank about that for a second: the more strain it’s put under, the better it works. That’s a cool concept.

I joked with Diana that I looked forward to the time I could actually use my new knowledge in a real-life situation. We immediately imitated an airline captain: “Is there anyone on board who can tie a knot?! We have a loose overhead compartment and a piece of rope…”

Anyhoo, it’s been fun.

A coworker just showed up to work with her first baby: a three month old. All the hens were gathered around, clucking like hens do. I went over to say hi and see the baby, and it was neat to compare her to Allison. Two striking differences were her size (quite a bit bigger), and her hair. She had a full, complete head of hair which she’d apparently had from birth, while Allison is still losing hers in a very patch-work fashion.

The conversation soon turned to how long she was sleeping, bassinet vs. crib, swaddling techniques, feedings, etc. Up until recently, this is when I’d exit (running and screaming) from the conversation, but I was into it. I was RIGHT THERE, man. It was fun. I felt like part of a club.

In other news, I’m in a quandary about Rock Band. It’s coming out soon for the Playstation 2. However, I’m nervous about that. First of all, I haven’t heard any information about it for that system. I understand that it’s being developed by some group other than the original developers. It won’t have any online capabilities or downloadable song packs, both of which are a huge strikes against it. It sounds like a pretty gimped version of the game, honestly.

However, the option of buying a PS3 or Xbox 360 just for this one game is a pretty hefty investment. I’m none too excited about that idea (and my financial adviser even less so). For one thing, we just dropped a good chunk of change into solar power. And I’m still figuring out how my Adman game-playing time fits into the rest of my life.

BUT… it’s ROCK BAND. I’ve loved every minute of every Guitar Hero game (excluding the Boss Battles), and Rock Band is like Guitar Hero^2. And it has drums! DRUMS! I’ve wanted to be a drummer since I can remember, and this is probably as close as I’ll ever get. Not only that, but the drums are USB, and people have already made freeware drum applications for Windows. *I* could make a freeware drum application for Windows! Also, the Playstation 3 also doubles as a Blu-Ray DVD player. We could play movies at full 1080p, which is one of the reasons why we chose the TV that we did. Netflix even ships Blu-Ray movies!

And to top it all off, I just got an unexpected holiday bonus check that could pretty much drop a new PS3 and game in my lap.

Justification of luxury expenses is an interesting science. Everyone goes about it differently.

Happy birthday to me!

I’m 33 years old today. I’ve sometimes thought that I was 33 off and on for the last couple months, so now that I’ve actually ticked over, it doesn’t come as much of a shock. I’m not usually one to get down on birthdays, and today is no exception. Diana’s family had us over for dinner the other night. It was great to see them, and they gave me extremely thoughtful presents. I was quite touched. Diana and Allison visited today for lunch, and I think we’re celebrating with my parents this weekend.

In other news, Bruce Bingo was won today, not too surprisingly by someone who works closely with Bruce and sits at the desk next to him. I was on the other side of the building when I heard “BINGO” shouted out. I ran back and a big crowd was gathering. The winner announced all the squares that he’d gotten, as well as the time and place. The winning quotes were:

“We’re talking in circles…”

“Whatever!”

(Freebie square)

“Sucka!”

“How do you spell (something)?” (When Bruce makes a repeated typo on a simple word, he’ll say “how do you spell ‘application’?” and then slows down and writes it correctly).

As predicted, Bruce thought it was really great, and understood that it was not a malicious or teasing game, but done out of affection and fun. He was into it, and has posted the winning game sheet in his cubicle. Good times, and I’m sorry it’s over.

Grandpa… Made a Purchase!

When I was a kid, my brother got a copy of a Steve Martin comedy album from our next door neighbor. On it, Steve suddenly breaks into song: “Grandpa… bought a rubber!”

At some point, my brother sang this out loud in front of our mom, who didn’t think it was very appropriate, and from then on we weren’t allowed to sing it anymore. So Dave (bless him), changed the lyrics to “Grandpa… made a purchase!”

Even to this day, I find that infinitely more funny than the original. It brings a smile to my face every time.

You want another rant, Discostup? You got it.

I have some jeans that I bought at the Gap outlet store up in Carlsbad a while back. They are comfortable and I like the way they look. So I got online recently and bought some more of exactly the same size (actually the new ones are an inch less in the waist, but the same length).

I tried them on, and they felt a lot longer. They dragged on the ground, in fact. I laid them both on the ground, and in spite of both being 32” length, the new ones were a full two inches longer than my original ones. I measured with a tape measure, and my old jeans were actually 30 inches, and the new ones are 32 inches.

What’s the deal with that? Were my original jeans mislabeled? (I doubt it… I don’t think I’ve ever worn 30” length pants recently) Or do they shrink that much when washing them? (If so, then what’s the point of trying them on in the store?)

It shouldn’t be that hard. If I wear a pair of pants with a 31” waist and a 32” length, then EVERY OTHER pair of pants with the same quoted measurements should fit the same way. Period, full stop, end of story.

What am I missing here?

Bonus holiday rant: rewriting the words to Christmas carols for the purposes of advertising. I know that Communications and Advertising majors in college weren’t necessarily known for their intellectual prowess, but come on, people… you’re better than that.

Bruce Bingo

There is a guy at work named Bruce. Not only is he a very likeable guy, but he kind of has his own lingo. He has certain phrases that are just kind of Bruce’isms that no one else says. For example, if you ask him “how’s it going?” he’s likely to respond “Just kickin’ around, man!” Or if he’s worried he’s interrupting you while you’re working hard, he might say “Do you have time for a question, or are you in a mode?” If he thinks you’re mistaken about something, he’ll accuse you of being drunk. Stuff like that.

At some point I and others got the idea of collecting all these phrases, and creating Bruce Bingo. So we collected over 40 such phrases, and I wrote a little application to create bingo boards (5x5 squares with a star in the middle), and randomly select phrases to go in each box. I printed out about 30 of these game sheets and have secretly distributed them amongst the software developers here, all unbeknownst to Bruce. And since then, it’s been kind of crazy around here.

Whenever he talks, now, people listen really intently. During meetings, people can be seen scribbling notes and smiling at each other when he says one of his key phrases. There is a specific “no Bruce-baiting” rule, meaning you can’t try to lead him into saying something on purpose, but I think after a day or two, I’m going to lift that rule. I’m pretty sure all hell will break loose at that point. So far, at least, he doesn’t have any idea about it, but I expect the beans to be spilled at some point.

I was a little worried when I realized what a distraction this could turn into, but luckily my supervisor not only is totally on board with it, but actually commented that this came at the right time (meaning a time when we’re all a little demoralized at having to work extra hours through the holidays and so forth). So that’s good.

God, after re-reading this it sounds like it’s straight out of The Office. That’s kind of sad. 

RIP Evel Knievel

Ok people, I need to get these things off my chest. I generally don’t like to bitch, but I need to vent.

1) Old people: No one likes it when you count out exact change at the supermarket counter. Seriously, no one. It slows down the whole operation. The checkout person doesn’t like it, and the people behind you don’t like it. Trust me. Just pull out another bill or use a credit card. True, you’ll accumulate a lot of change this way. When you do, take it to one of those CoinStar machines, and convert into credit at Amazon.com or some other retail. It’s free and easy, and actually pretty fun. Kind of feels like free money.

2) This one is a personal gripe. If you’re eating, I don’t want to be on the phone with you. I’ve had a couple recent conversations with people eating. I don’t think it’s impolite or anything, it’s just an issue with me. I don’t like the sound of people eating, and therefore, I REALLY don’t like that sound amplified and right in my ear. So if I ask you to call me back after you’re done eating, please don’t take it personally.

3) If you’re in an elevator, it’s actually not that funny to jump or otherwise bounce. I understand the risk of anything bad happening is very small, but the severity of that risk certainly outweighs the pleasure you get out of it, doesn’t it?

That’s it for now. I’m pretty sure posting about things that bother me is a sure way to make them happen more often (“Dude, I really don’t want to be called ‘Birdman’”), but here goes.

I've seen a million faces... and I've rocked them all...

Last night, after hours, I joined Baditude and some of his workboys at their work for a session of Rock Band. And I'm pleased to report that it was as fun as I was hoping and expecting.

When I first showed up, I sat out for a song or two, watching how it all worked out. There is one player playing lead guitar, one playing bass guitar, one person drumming, and the fourth singing. The two guitars play exactly like all the other Guitar Hero games. The drums plays in a very similar manner, in that you have to hit the correct pad when the falling note hits the bottom of the screen. The singing, however, is completely different. You get the words scrolling across the top of the screen, as well as a wavy line (like a heart-beat EKG readout) that indicates pitch. Somehow the mic senses timing as well as pitch, and you get indications of how well you're doing.

So I jumped in on guitar for a song, and it was pretty standard. I played on Expert difficulty, and maybe we were just on an easy song, but it wasn't too challenging. After the song, the guy at the drums said "Do you want to try the drums?" I said "I've been waiting a year to hear those words." :)

Drums was fun. Hard. But fun. I've practiced drumming off and on for years now, very informally, but I think I have only a little more knowledge and practice than the average person off the street. I'm not sure how much that helped, but I was able to jump right into Medium difficulty (and one Hard) without too much problem. What I found really interesting was when a Real Drummer (someone who actually owns a drum kit and plays in a band) was put on the drums, he couldn't get by at all. He was failing out of Easy. What was funny was that, like a real drummer, he just kind of kept his own rhythm, albeit rocksteady, but wasn't really able to adjust to what the game was prompting him to play. I think once he learns how to read the notes, however, he'll be awesome.

We rotated around a bit, and it came to my turn to sing. Ugh. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I loaded up "Enter Sandman", since I'd just seen a video of some Mom doing an awful job at it. What was reassuring, however, is that everyone was a pretty bad singer, and no one seemed to mind. And when I was playing a different instrument, I was so busy concentrating on my own stuff to even think about how the singer was doing. So I got through it the best I can, and no one laughed at me. Later that night, I sang "Wanted Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi, and felt a little more relaxed. The singing was weird, since it was a lot of changing pitch and adjusting to feedback, rather than just being relaxed and singing.

All in all, I think it's a totally solid game, and would be AWESOME at a party (especially with enough beer to get Iwan on the mic). It will happen someday.

In other news, we just got word at work that we're in a big push on the project I'm a part of, and we can't request any new vacations through the end of February. In addition, we're asked to work overtime for the same length of time. I'm pretty bummed about it, but realize that I've had it pretty good for a long time, and it's time to pay some dues. It couldn't really have come at a worse time, though, since I already feel guilty for not being home, and missing out on my baby's life enough as it is (which, coincidentally, even makes Rock Band nights bittersweet). But things could be worse, so I'm not too complain-y. Just kind of sucks.

Time to wake up the kiddo. My favorite time of the evening! :)

Hi Everybody!

Let’s take a moment and review the past few weeks, shall we?

Little Allison is doing well. She’s growing really well, and already we can look back at pictures from previous weeks and see a big difference. She’s started smiling more, and definitely talking more, and generally is more attentive to the world around her. She still remains pretty good natured, although she can get pretty pissed off when she’s tired (she’s like her Daddy that way). She has a doctor’s appointment today where she’s going to get some number of shots. That’s not going to be a pretty scene. Her new thing is sleeping for hours at a time, which is pretty cool. She’s pretty consistently sleeping from 9pm to 3am, and then again until 7am. Diana appreciates that.

Diana’s been doing a great job as stay-at-home Mom. It sounds like it’s not really hard work, but just constant. Even breaks during naps are filled with other things that need to get done. She’s been making lots of playdates with friends and grandparents, so that sounds like it breaks up the days a bit, which is nice.

We were supposed to have Thanksgiving with my family, Diana’s family, and another family. However, my parents at the other family got a pretty nasty stomach virus and were horribly sick, so Thanksgiving was officially cancelled. That was kind of a bummer, but we still spent the day with Diana’s family, and that was still nice. I’m glad we didn’t get whatever sickness was going around… it sounded awful.

This weekend I officially entered myself into the holiday spirit. Friday evening found me at Home Depot for some reason, and they were setting up Christmas tree sales in the parking lot, and holiday music was playing, and I got all caught up in it. I think last year I let the holiday season just sort of come and go without making much note of it, but this year I’m into it. My parents visited on Saturday, and I roped my Dad into helping me get a tree. So we got that all set up Saturday afternoon, and Diana and I decorated it that night. That was a really memorable evening. I was sitting with Allison sleeping in my arms while Diana decorated the tree (under my careful supervision, of course). We had Christmas music playing, and I just was filled with a happy feeling. It was really nice.

I’ve been able to get out and see some friends recently, too, which was nice. The Buhr’s came down and it was nice to see them. I got in some quality gaming with Eryn and Little Buhr and his roommate. We played a new game (whose name I don’t remember), which was very Puerto Rico’ish and very fun. I’ve logged some good Team Fortress 2 hours, including a session with Mike and Eryn and a workboy, which was pretty cool. I learned this weekend that even Iwan was getting set up with TF2, and I loo forward to meeting him online sometime.

I beat “Raining Blood” in Guitar Hero 3, which I’d previously thought was impossible. That means that I’ve completed ALL songs on Expert, getting me to the final Boss Battle against “Lou” the devil. The song is a metal version of “The Devil Came Down from Georgia”, and it’s really tough. And unlike the other boss battles, I don’t think I can wuss out on this one. You have to pass it to continue. I’m pretty pissed, since I want to get the final song unlocked, but I think I need to beat Lou first. Ugh. Fucking Boss Battles. I hate you. In other gaming news, Rock Band has come out, and official reviews are glowing. Some user reviews on message boards are a little complain-y (mostly about defective equipment and compatibility issues, not the game itself). I’m pretty sure that I really, really, REALLY want it. People looking for gift ideas could do a lot worse. I still haven’t played it yet (aside from the broken demo at Best Buy), and it’s killing me.

That’s about it for now. November is quickly passing, and December is quickly filling up with social plans, including family birthday and Christmas celebrations, as well as company holiday party, Eryn’s traditional gift exchange party (which I look forward to ever year!), and so on.

All things considered, it’s a pretty good time to be an Adman.

I love stuff like this...

I absolutely love this "Web 2.0" stuff. I love sites that make it easy to create new content.

This site, animoto.com, is totally easy to use. Upload pictures, upload music (or choose from a collection online), click a button, and you get a neat video. It's so easy even my parents could use it (hi Mom! :)

Here's a quick sample:

Back to Work

So, it’s with completely mixed feelings that I’m back to work this morning.

It’s kind of funny how much things are the same around here, and why shouldn’t they be? It’s refreshing to see that the sarcastic guy is still sarcastic, the nice guy is still nice, and the know-it-all guy still knows everything. I really enjoy the people that I work with, and it’s really nice to be back. I don’t yet have any responsibilities, aside from just catching up on emails and stuff, so that’s nice.

On the other side, obviously, I miss my wife and baby. I hope they’re doing well without me. I close my eyes and see a tiny little face, and hope she doesn’t forget about me. I hope I don’t miss out on too much. I’m confident, though, that everything will be fine at home without me.

This weekend, the whole family packed up for a day out. We drove down to Del Mar, and walked on the beach. We then headed up to Seagrove Park for a little feeding and hanging out. It was there that we had our first real overflowing diaper. After a brief panic (mostly tempered with disbelief at how much stuff there was), we retired to this middle of a big grassy area to get all clean and changed. We handled it well, and luckily there were not too many people around (is it “were not too many people” or “was not too many people”?), but there is a bench that I’d advice avoiding the next time you’re down there.

We hit up Board and Brew for lunch, and decided to take our sandwiches up to the local elementary school. I was feeling nostalgic (weird), and it was a nice Saturday morning, so I figured there might be soccer games going on. I spent a HUGE amount of time at the Heights school, and it was fun to go back. We ate sammies and watched the little guys play soccer. Good times.

We got home in time for me to hook up with Discostup and Baditude for some Team Fortress 2, which I thought worked out pretty well. Mike is in Germany, separated by a 9 hour time difference and a 200ms ping time. But I was able to set up a Ventrilo voice server, and after we all connected to that, it was like all three of us were in the same room. I miss Mike a lot, so it was nice to spend some time with him. TF2 is surprisingly playable with a high ping, since some of the classes don’t really require a whole lot of precision (Heavy, Engineer, and Medic jump to mind). So that was a good time. I hope we can do it again sometime soon.

And finally, I’m still completely stunned by the Charger game last night. I was on the edge of my seat during most of the game, and can’t believe we walked away with a win. That was probably the most exciting game I’ve ever seen. Allie spent the day in her Chargers jumper, and I had my “LT” jersey on, and that probably had something to do with it.

Now is the time when I talk about Guitar Hero 3.

First and foremost, I wasn't really all that excited about GH3. When I told this to Discostup, being the fine doctor that he is, he was concerned over my health and well being. Was I feeling all right?

The truth is, even since I learned that GH3 was being made by a NEW company, and the people who made GH1 and GH2 had moved on to Rock Band, I knew (or hoped) that Rock Band was going to be the next big thing. And I'm pretty sure I still believe that. I saw some demo footage of early GH3, and it looked awful. So I was dubious.

However, looking at the song list, there was enough on there to get me excited enough to give it a shot. So I picked it up the other day, and have gotten some opportunities to play it. I jumped right into the Expert career ('cause I ROCK).

The early songs were fun, but nothing too exciting. The first things I noticed about the game was that the Hammer On/Pull Off notes were very brightly lit. A nice touch, I think. It also appeared that the HOPO timing was greatly relaxed, which kind of translated into finger-mashing being an acceptable strategy. I found myself many times in the middle of a hard solo not knowing what I was really doing, just smashing buttons and strumming as best I could, and hitting a lot more notes than I expected. Kinda took away a little from the technical feel of it.

Another note: The lead singer is DAMN ugly. I have no idea what they were thinking.

They've also sexed the game up a bit. My girl Casey Lynch now has g-string panties that ride up over her pants. One of the venues, so far as I could tell, was an actual strip club, complete with (scantily clad, but still clad) go-go dancers. It felt a little too obvious and out of place.

After playing through the first couple sets, I got to my first "Boss Battle". GH3 introduced a new "battle" playmode, where you play against someone else. Instead of getting Star Power to increase your score, you get battle power. When you activate your battle power, it causes mayhem on the other player: their notes blink, or they get lefty-flipped for a while, or a button on their guitar doesn't work, or they have to hit the whammy bar a bunch before they can hit notes.

I was really, really hoping that this would remain a multiplayer option only, but alas, it wasn't to be. Sprinkled throughout the career mode, you have to face off against a computer controlled Boss. The object is to make them fail the song by using your Battle Power against them, and the do the same to you. It was dumb. It totally drew me out of the game. All I wanted to do was pass it and move on, which I eventually did with Boss #1 (Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine). Boss #2 (Slash from G'n'R) kicked my butt repeatedly. Luckily, I found that if you fail a couple of times, you are given the option of "Wussing out" and skipping that boss. I took this option in a heartbeat. However, the song is still listed in the playlist, and it says "Wussed Out" next to it, so eventually I'm going to have to go back to it. Ugh.

The concept of turning Guitar Hero into a fighting game really bothers me to the core. I'm NOT a musician by any means, but music has always struck me as totally collaborative and synergistic. The music that is played in these duels is actually really cool two-part back and forth guitar parts, but it gets totally stomped on by the Battle Powers. It would be super fun to play it in a Cooperative mode, rather than a battle mode. I hope that's possible.

(Rock Band, as a contrast, I think really understands this. Playing with a full complement of singer, drummer, guitar and bass is going to be a really, really big deal. I can't wait to try it out with friends.)

And speaking of multiplayer, I was able to talk Diana into playing a song or two with me during some free time. I loaded up the game, and went to Multiplayer, and found there was no Co-op mode. Wha?! It turns out that there is a Co-op CAREER (which is cool) but what that means is that you need to play and unlock the songs like you do in a career. That's fine for me and Baditude, but Diana likes to pick and choose her songs. Forcing her to play through the entire set list isn't going to fly. I found it all pretty confusing.

There were some high points, though. Coming up on an encore, and finding it was "Even Flow" by Pearl Jam got me all sorts of excited. Playing "Welcome to the Jungle" is awesome. I recently heard a song on the radio and told Baditude that it would be a great song for Guitar Hero. Turns on the song was "La Grange" by ZZ Top, and it's included, and as awesome as I hoped. Finally, there's "Rock You Like a Hurricane". 'Nuff said.

So, there you have it. I give Guitar Hero 3 a big "meh". It has it's moments, but I think Baditude summed it up best: "Mostly, I found myself thinking that I'd rather just be playing Rock Band."

In other news, Allison is doing fine. :)

Big day!

Today, Diana and Allie and I headed to the mall in Carlsbad. We took the ol' stroller, and wandered around for a while. It was nice. It's liberating to be able to leave the house, and confidence building as well.

This afternoon, we tried out bottle-feeding for the first time. For those of you who don't have kids, this is a pretty significant thing. Apparently drinking from a bottle is a bit different than breastfeeding, and can confuse little minds. However, once a baby can do both, it opens up a lot of possibilities. Not only can I now help out with middle of the night feedings (um...), but we can leave Allie with a set of grandparents while we go out and enjoy a movie or evening with friends. That's huge.

So, we're feeling pretty good about that.

And, continuing my theme of love for Google Maps: I wanted to make an appointment for my car. I wanted to take it to the car shop in Del Mar, but I didn't remember what the name of the place was. However, I knew the location of the shop. So, I popped up Google Maps, and centered my view in Del Mar. Then, in the search bar, I typed in "car repair", and a couple different car repair locations popped up on the map, including the one I was looking for.

I just centered the view on my house, and did a search for "Italian food", and it showed me Italian restaurants nearby. That's neat.


View Larger Map

Home, Safe and Sound

Well, we returned home today, from our hotel in San Diego. We're probably the only ones who actually left our neighborhood, but sometimes that's how it goes.

Our house is in good shape. It's a little messy outside, but inside is pretty clean. Some areas where ash got in through the some cracks, but the air quality is completely manageable and livable. I'm happy to be back.

It's been a pretty harrowing couple of days. The fire reached out with its burny grasp towards my house (slightly), and my parents and Diana's parents' house (more seriously), and for a while, we didn't quite know what the news would be. But the winds changed, and the fires are moving to the north and east.

It's hard not to feel a selfish relief that we were spared when so many others have lost so much. We're thankful that we have a home to come back to.

Here's the state of things. Note all the red dots on the north-east section of the burn areas, rather than the south-west parts.

"Google maps is the best! True dat! Double true!"

The local PBS station is maintaining a Google Map with the latest fire information and borders and advisories. It's pretty cool.


View Larger Map

They also have a Twitter site with lots of frequent information updates:
http://twitter.com/kpbsnews

The ability for any user to make their own Google Map with updateable information and embedded HTML (and therefore embedded pictures and video) is pretty damn cool. My dad recently took a walk around Del Mar, and I went and made a Google Map that tracked out the path, which also automatically calculated the distance walked. I could then share that specific map with the people who took the walk. Pretty cool.

Not a lot of news from here. Apparently the wind is blowing from the coast, which is good, and apparently has kept my parents and Diana's parents houses safe. Del Mar has had its evacuation orders lifted, which is great news. Now as long as the Witch Fire doesn't blow west over to our house, we (at least) will be in pretty good shape.

It's a sad day, though. Lots of people have lost a lot of property. Over 500,000 homes have been evacuated. Crazy.

Fire! Fire!

It's been a crazy day!

Yesterday, we visited my parents and Diana's parents. During our visit, we noted the VERY strong Santa Anna winds, and eventually smelled smoke. Not to uncommon to smell smoke from brush fires miles away - we didn't think much of it at the time.

Cut to last night. Diana and I were up at 2am for a usual baby feeding, when we smelled smoke ourselves. It turns out a separate fire had sprung up overnight somewhat nearby. Diana got freaked out and began to pack. I admit to feeling it was a little premature, but helped out. It turned out to be a good move. At 6am, we got an automated call warning us that we may be evacuated, and we might think about packing up stuff. We sprang out of bed and packed up all our important bits. After an hour or so, we had everything packed, and decided that sitting around wasn't going to do any good, so we might as well leave while we had the chance and that traffic wasn't too bad.

We headed to Del Mar (into some serious smoke from the multiple fires to the east), and hunkered down at my parents house for the day. The fire was dead east of my parents house, but a long ways away. My parents live just west of Interstate 5, and there was a "mandatory evacuation" for everyone east of Interstate 5... basically my parents were just out of the range, and on the downwind side at that.

The "mandatory evacuation" area is the biggest I've ever seen. It's almost too big to be taken seriously. I think all our neighbors have remained at their houses, as well as friends. They've also subsequently issued further evacuation orders WITHIN the mandatory evacuation area, which makes it a little bit of a "crying wolf". Anyway, Diana hates to sit and wait and do nothing, and we figured if everyone sat and waited, then the traffic could be pretty bad, so we hit the road early.

We hung out at my parents house all day, watching the news and stressing a good bit. At some point we talked about getting a hotel room somewhere safe, and my resourceful father got the last three at a hotel downtown. Around 4pm, we decided to hit the road. My parents weren't comfortable going to sleep in their house, and we didn't want to return to our own smoky house, so here we are. I found an open wireless internet access connection, we've got the news on, and are doing pretty well.

The good news is that the fire nearest our house has had evacuation orders lifted for the nearest neighborhoods (not ours). So I think that fire is pretty much under control. Not sure about the latest status of other fires (the ones that could threaten my parents house). Hopefully that all works out. My parents house is embedded pretty well in suburbs (rather that bordering a canyon), so a lot of houses would have to burn before theirs did.

It's been a nutty day, and I'll be glad when this all dies down and we can return to a smoke-free house.

Mohawk

For about as long as I can remember, I've wanted a mohawk.

I remember the son of a neighbor (a teenager at the time) had one. I remember watching him give a friend of his one, shaving his head in the driveway. It was always something I thought was so cool, and vowed that someday I'd have a mohawk.

Today is that day.

There are a few major obstacles that have held me back thus far. Foremost is my obligation to my generous employer. I figured that a 'hawk wouldn't fit in very well in the hallowed halls of an investment management company (casual and forward thinking as they are). But since I'm taking this extended leave of absence, that obstacle is temporarily removed.

The second factor, which was really more of a motivation than a detraction, is my quickly receding hairline. The front center is solid. The sides of my forehead, though, is quickly extending back into my hair. It's basically now or never.

So, for the time being, here's how I look:

mohawk

Note that I didn't shave the rest of my head. I'm guess I'm not THAT baditude. It's really not that extreme, actually, looking at the pictures. But I like it. And Diana likes it. Allie thinks her dad is AWESOME. It's really win-win-win.

Two Quick Thoughts

We got some flowers when Allison was born, and after some time, the flowers died and need to be thrown away. I took them to the trash and dropped them in. For some reason, the visual image of flowers in a trashcan has always been profoundly saddening to me.

---

This has been on my mind for a while, and only more so since Allison arrived. There's not a good conversational word for... well, here's my point... for "poop". Not that you talk about "poop" or "pooping" a WHOLE lot in everyday conversation, but sometimes it does come up. And what are our options?

"Poop" is too childish. "Shit" and "crap" too vulgar. "Feces" is too clinical. And the same applies for the act of creating one of these things. Nothing feels conversationally appropriate to me. Is it not possible to have a normal, everyday conversation about poop? I'm finding the answer is no.

This leads me to another concept that I'm absolutely fascinated by: the concept of swear words in a language. The fact that saying to a toddler "Do you have a poopy diaper?" is perfectly appropriate, but saying "shitty" instead of "poopy" would be frowned on, in spite of their meaning the EXACT same thing! Body parts have their own gamut of names, some of which can be used with impunity, and some strike fear int the hearts of men and women everywhere (the dreaded "c" word).

I'd really like to learn more about the history and linguistics of cursing, because the concept really doesn't make any logical sense to me, but yet is very real and holds me in its power.

Fascinating.

"This baby is making me thirsty!"

So things are going pretty well around here. I am free from my quarantine, and excessive measure or not, neither Diana nor Allie got sick. An added bonus was that I got to play a lot of new fun computer games, and Diana got to take care of a baby all by herself. The latter was hard work, but confidence boosting, and since I'm eventually going back to work, good practice.

It sucked being away, though, and not being able to be close to either of my ladies. So I'm happy to be healthy and free and back to changing diapers and snuggling babies.

We've made some big milestones recently. Diana and I took Allie to the park, as well as for a walk along the beach. Allie slept through both, but it was nice to get out of the house. We also had Grandma Dawn come over and babysit while Diana and I went out for lunch and a little walk on the beach, which was great. Allison behaved well for her grandma, and Diana and I were relaxed and had no qualms leaving her.

Other than that, it's pretty much business as usual. Feeding, diaper changes, some playtime (which really just just sitting around and staring while we "entertain" her), and then nap time. Repeat as needed every couple hours until 7pm or 8pm, at which point there's a final feeding, and Diana and Allie go to sleep, and I play until the next feeding (11pm or so).

Nights are sometimes hit or miss, but even the misses aren't too bad. Allison really has a very mild temperament, and has probably only cried for a cumulative hour her entire life. As I type that, it strikes me as pretty incredible, but it's true. She likes being held, and if she's ever upset, picking her up has been sufficient comfort. It's really been pretty easy.

In other (very low-priority, unimportant news) I've been playing some really fun games, all a part of the Half Life "Orange Box" package. Peggle is a really addicting little casual game (kind of like Pachinko mixed with Breakout). Team Fortress 2 is awesome. I'm really enjoying it. And Portal just came out, which has totally blown my mind. It's really re-invented the first person puzzle genre (really the only other thing I can think of that comes close is "Tomb Raider"). Good quality gaming to fill in my short hours of free time.

Life is good.

I'm quarantined.

Yesterday morning, I started feeling my throat getting sore. By yesterday afternoon, it was swollen, and I could absolutely tell that I was getting sick. It's progressed to a nice head cold by today. I've had worse, but it's not much fun, either.

Normally a head cold wouldn't be that big a deal. But with a newborn in the house, some drastic measures have been taken. If Allison can't breathe through her nose, feeding is going to be pretty difficult for her, so we'd like to avoid that.

To that end, I'm quarantined to my office. And the guest bathroom. Which, with my computer and some games to play, wouldn't be that bad. Except the two people I love most in the world are out there, and I'm in here. I have the baby monitor, though, and I get to hear Diana be very silly and cute with Allison.

I've got some online shopping to do, as well as pictures to order prints for, but damn Kart Rider has totally sucked me in. It's basically Mario Kart, but online. Good fun.

This blog probably looks different than the last time you checked it. I decided it was time to upgrade the look a little. I think I like it, but I'll probably tinker with it as I get time.

Things around here are going really well. Allie is about a week and a half old, and Diana and I are just having a lot of fun with her. We've got her on a pretty good schedule, that basically is one hour for feeding, one hour of awake time, and then an hour nap. That's rough, but the general idea.

She is such an easy baby, our confidence levels are getting higher and higher every day. Diana is really enjoying breastfeeding, and Allie is feeding like a champ. We took her to her second pediatrician's appointment today, and she's gained a full pound since being home. So that's great news.

We've had lots of visits in the past week, including both sets of grandparents, as well as Auntie Alicia and David (can I call him Uncle David without making any commentary on their relationship?), as well as Uncle Una for the Charger game, and Uncle Eryn stopped by briefly on his WAY to the Charger game. It was nice to see them all.

It's so great to have this time off from work to hang out at home and be with the family (it feels funny to say stuff like that... I need to get used to words like "daughter" and "family"). It's really nice to not have to worry about anything except for our new project. Friends and relatives have all been very generous with their offers to come over and help, or bring us anything we need, but so far, we're doing pretty well on our own.

I'm not sure how much to think that we're lucky and have a calm, relaxed, easy-to-manage baby. I'm pretty sure that her demeanor isn't going to be totally constant in the coming weeks and months as she wakes up and becomes more aware of her surroundings. But for now, we're taking what we can get and loving every second of it.

One of the best parts? She was born right before Halloween. Have you SEEN baby Halloween costumes? Cutest ever.

More later. Thank you all for your kind emails and support. We appreciate it.

On Friday, September 21st, at 10:07pm, little Allison Dawn poked her head out into the world.

I don't think I have time to go through the whole "birth story", but the short version is that on Thursday night (during Survivor!), Diana started feeling contractions that felt different. Not painful, but different. We actually started timing them, and wondering "is this really how it's supposed to be? This isn't anything like the movies!"

Apparently during the night, Diana had some more painful contractions, but slept through them. The next morning, however, starting around 6am, things definitely started picking up. Her water never broke, but her contractions were often and strong enough that we called the hospital and came in.

The rest of the day was long and intense, and I won't go into detail here. The end result was the birth of little Allie after a full day of labor and about two hours of pushing.

We spent the night, next day, and next night in the hospital, and received really superb care. A+, 5 stars, however you want to put it. Everyone from start to finish was just great.

Yesterday we drove home, and have been in sort of survival mode ever since. Diana is still a little slow moving around, but managing well. Allie loves to eat and sleep during the day and cry at night. We've found that it's pretty easy to get her to stop crying by holding her and shushing loudly. It's what to do after that that was challenging. But we made it through with no real problems.

Emotionally, I'm on top of the world, in spite of being tired and still a little shell-shocked. Newborns are snotty and poopy and spit up; I never doubted my friends' affections with theirs, but wondered if I'd feel the same way with my own, and I do. Every little bit of her is perfect to me.

We have our first doctors appointment today! That will be exciting.

More later. Thank you all for your kind words and well wishes.

Some people say that dreams are kind of like your brain’s rehearsals for real life event. I’m finding myself in full-on daydream mode today, trying to imagine exactly what it’s going to be like when Diana calls or announces that her water has broken, or that she’s having strong contractions and we should head to the hospital. I guess I figure the more I prepare and visualize it now, the smoother things will go.

(It should be noted that my actual sleep-dream last night was about Philip Rivers throwing a touchdown pass to Tomlinson in the back of the end-zone, and he dropped it, not only missing an opportunity for the Chargers, but messing up a potential double-dip opportunity in my Fantasy league.)

Diana had her weekly doctor’s appointment this morning, and everything is doing well. Hearing other women’s “dilation and effacement” numbers always creeped me out a little, so I’ll refrain from that. I will say, however, that things are progressing well, and the doctor was pleased. So hopefully that translates into an easier labor when it finally arrives, but who knows.

We had dinner with my parents last night, who are back from Montana, and it was nice to see them. We somehow found ourselves in a good, constructive conversation about how to deal with differences of opinion and various conflicts that might come up in the next couple months. I don’t really anticipate any serious problems, but I’ll be blunt and say that with two sets of grandparents in such close proximity, there just has to be the potential for conflicts and hurt feelings at some point. I don’t even know what, exactly, but my gut says SOMETHING will come up at SOME point. So it was nice to preemptively get ourselves on similar footing. And if there aren’t any problems and it was all for nothing, no harm done.

We gave my parents a combined birthday present which I’ve been really excited about. It’s the eStarling 2.0 digital picture frame. It’s a small LCD screen in a picture frame that will display a slideshow of digital pictures. What’s really cool about it is that it connects to your wireless network, which means you can do cool things like point the frame at an RSS feed (for instance, a Picasa web album, or a Flickr channel), and the frame will update itself as pictures change. You can also email pictures directly to the frame itself. The plan is that I’ll maintain some sort of web album, so my parents will wake up one morning and have a fresh set of pictures displaying on their frame. I’ll also share the email address with my brother, so he can email pictures to it, too.. It’s pretty neat, and seems to work as advertised. We’ll see how it goes.

Another thing that’s been on my mind lately is if/how my relationship with my friends will change after little Spraggette is born. It’s hard to know exactly how things are going to go at this point, and therefore hard to predict how much time I’ll have for a game night at Eryns, or a round of golf with Iwan. And even if I have time, will I have the energy? And if I have the time and energy, will I even still want to do those things? I don’t know the answer to any of those. I can’t emphasize enough how much I enjoy the time I spend with my friends, and I anticipate that remaining a priority in my life, but I also realize that priorities might need to be shifted to some degree.

I guess to sum it up, I enjoy my relationship with my friends, and the idea of that changing (in isolation to everything else) doesn’t appeal to me. Lucky for me, my friends collectively excel at flexibility, so I’m sure everything will work out. In fact it has to, with Rock Back coming out so soon!

No big news yet. However, the bags are packed and in the car. The baby car seat (a prerequisite for taking a baby home from the hospital) is installed and checked. Cell phones and cameras are charged (is the camera charged?) We’re pretty much on high alert, so I think it’s time to move to DEFCON 3.

Diana’s doing fine. Getting out of bed is a little difficult, but once she’s up and around she seems fine. She reports feel more internal pressure, and generally feels like things are getting close (although, this being our first time, it’s hard to know what feelings mean what). Her official due date is a little over a week from now, so sometime, anytime, soon, it’s on like Donkey Kong.

For my own part, I’m excited. I’m ready. I have the usual pre-game jitters, but I’m confident and feel that all systems are go. (Remind me to read this in a couple weeks, I wonder how it will sound to me then. :) I actually have a lot of feelings going on right now, and so many open questions about how my life will change. We’re kind of driving off the edge of a Thomas Guide map, and the only thing we have for directions are some pamphlets and scribbled notes written on coffee napkins. It’s thrilling and scary and mysterious altogether.

A while back Diana bought some decorations for the baby room, including stickers that stick on walls. Some of those stickers were alphabet stickers, where the letters have a picture on it of a thing beginning with the letter. The Z has a zebra on it, the M has a magnet, etc. As a test, she peeled off the “A” sticker and stuck it on the wall to see how it worked. Then she peeled the lower case “a” sticker and stuck it to some furniture, to test how they stuck on that surface. And for a time, we just left it at that. At some point my Iwan and Little Buhr came over and saw the A’s on the wall, and became convinced that we’d chosen a name beginning with “A”. Now every time we see them, they say “Good luck with little Amanda, Alyssa, Amy, Adrianna….” Funny stuff. They crack me up.

For the past week or so, Diana and slowly started to notice more and more light contractions. From everyone I’ve talked to, it’s pretty normal to feel contractions in the weeks before birth, so we’re not freaking out about it. However, I have officially moved us to DEFCON 4. Other than that, not a whole lot of baby news to report. We’re about as ready as we’re going to be, and have pretty much settled into waiting.

In other news, we’ve had a meeting with a man about installing solar panels on our roof. The guy we met with analyzed our location and roof area, as well as previous year of electric bills, and presented a proposal to us about cost of installation, savings per month, etc. If we bought and installed solar panels that covered 90% of our current usage, it turns out they would pay for themselves in about 12 years. The panels are under warranty for something like 20-25 years, so, in theory, it’s a pretty good investment.

At least as important as the financial decision, though, is we try to be environmentally friendly when we can, and this seems like a great way to do our part. (And I have to admit, the idea of an electric car, fueled by self-generated solar power, is pretty cool).

The guy we spoke to was from a smaller, local company. We have another meeting with someone else from BP, who is paired up with Home Depot to do residential installations. It will be interesting to see who the two presentations compare and contrast.

Solar power seems pretty cool. I don’t know anything about how the panels are actually made (maybe it involves cutting down acres of rainforest, or spewing thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into the mouths of baby seals), but it sounds like it’s a Good Thing. No moving parts, no side effects, no day-to-day maintenance. Just grabbing free power out of the air and using it. We’ll see how it all works out, but so far, I’m pretty amped (ha!) on the idea.

Well, so far, so good.

Diana is doing well, aside from some minor aches and pains and soreness. She woke me up last night with a gnarly cramp in her calf, and I had to pry her ankle back to stretch it out. That was pretty exciting. But no major complaints.

Little Spraggette, as far as we can tell, is doing well. She continues to dance around, and like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, appears to be systematically testing the perimeter of her enclosure for any vulnerability or structural weakness. It’s still so weird to feel her rolling around in there. Last night, we could pretty much tell where her body was, and when I put my ear up to Diana’s belly, I’m pretty sure that I could hear her heartbeat. That was pretty exciting.

Aside from some finishing touches, I think we’re about as prepared as we can get. We have cribs and clothes and diapers (and other various “ass accoutrements”, as we privately say around the house), and all sorts of other tools and instruments and toys. Since I’ve never changed a diaper before, I figured I’d check them out. Diana went and got a monkey stuffed animal, and I did some practicing on that. Easy-peasy, except for the tail getting in the way. Hopefully that’s not a problem with the real version. The car seat has been installed, since that needs to happen to get the baby home from the hospital, and, of course, the monkey (still in diapers) had to test it out.

Diana said she read somewhere that 80% of people install their carseats incorrectly. My gut-reaction, decidedly un-PC response was “Yeah, well 80% of people are retarded”. I installed the carseat, and was pretty sure I did it correctly. It goes without saying that safety is important, and I wanted to do it correctly, but after my little comment I wanted to make VERY sure I did it right. Diana took it to some place where they check carseats, and apparently they said it was “way too loose”. So either Diana got scammed somehow (unlikely), or I’ve got some words to stuff back in my mouth (much more likely). Oh well.

We graduated from our childbirth class, which proved to be the worst class ever. The teacher was friendly, but awful. I wish I had Eryn’s aptitude for mimicry, because she had a really distinctive way of speaking, but I could never do it justice. She seemed to start off a thought, then switch topics multiple times during the same sentence, and finally trail off with a little giggle, and move onto the next thought. At the end of the class, she handed out an evaluation form. “Let me know if you run out of ink”, I said, as Diana offered some friendly advice on how to be a better teacher.

We had a baby shower a week ago, thrown by Diana’s sister and a family friend, and it was very nice. To be honest, I was a little worried that it would be filled with activities that I wasn’t comfortable with (not only for myself, but for my friends), but it all turned out well, and I think everyone had a good time. My mom even flew in from Montana to surprise us there, which was really fun.

That’s about where we’re at. The busy summer of friends from out of town, night classes, and various other events has basically come to a close, and we’re officially entering countdown phase. I can’t say we’re prepared for every eventuality, but I think we’re in pretty good shape, all things considered. Ask me again in a month or two.

We drove by a big truck that had a sticker that said "Wu-Tang" on it.
"Wu-Tang... Posse?" Diana asked.
I smiled. She's so cute when she talks about gangster-rap.
"What is it? Clan? Gang?"
"Clan", I confirmed.
"Yeah!" she said proudly. "I knew it was something like that!"
"Insane Clown Posse", I reminded her.
"Oh yeah! Are they boys? Or, you know, like East Coast vs. West Coast?"

SO cute.

MLOM Draft 2K7

Pictures from the MLOM Fantasy Draft...

With a tear in my eye, but a lingering smile on my face, I'm sorry to announce that Best Weekend Ever 2K7 has come and gone. And it lived up to its name.

Mike and Gwen arrived on Wednesday evening, and the weekend was one big party until the following Tuesday. We went to the zoo. Downtown was painted red. We went to the beach one day, and eschewed the beach for a beachfront mansion the next day for our fantasy football draft. Guitar Hero battles and jam sessions were had, as well as old-school Mario Kart and wrasslin', as well as even older school SNES NHL '94. BBQs were fired up, and games were played on dining room tables. I'm really not sure I could have asked for a better weekend.

By far, though, the best part was just having Mike around, and the whirlwind of jokes and laughter and goofiness that follow him. I don't really know how else to put it, other than it's just fun to watch "Mick be Mick". Anyone who reads his blog should get some insight into what that means. It's especially reassuring to know that he can be so far away for so long, and return to old friendships without even a hiccup.

It was also really great that Gwen could visit as well, and that we could all get to get to know her better. I don't particularly envy a new girlfriend being introduced to such a close-knit group of friends, but I think she survived successfully. I expecially enjoyed asking her about neurology stuff (migraines, seizures, etc), and watching her completely "activate" as she spoke about the area of her expertise. It's neat to see someone's passion for a subject shine through as they talk about it. I think Gwen is someone I'd like to be friends with, regardless of her relationship with Mike.

If I were to be totally selfish, I'd hope that they finish their military service and move to San Diego. It might be a lot to ask, but a boy can dream.

The other best part about Best Weekend Ever, as a side-effect of Mike's visit, was that Eryn and Iwan and Gabe and Little Buhr and Norm (and associated girlfriends and families) were all out in full effect for part or all of the weekend. It's always a ton of fun when we can all get together, and this happened multiple times over the course of a weekend. I don't have particuarly many friends, and I really adore the few that I have, so having them all in the same room is always a great thing.

And so there it is. The football draft went well, and I'm completely giddy for the NFL to start. Diana and I have a busy week ahead of us, with our second childbirth class tonight, as well as a hospital tour tomorrow, then a rehearsal dinner, then wedding, then family brunch for her cousin's wedding this weekend. We took our first childbirth class last week, and I'm sorry to say I was pretty disappointed with it. It was one of those situations where half-an-hours worth of information was stretched out over 2.5 hours (including a full 1.5 hours of "ice-breaker" games and introductions. Jeez!) We also went to a breastfeeding class, which was actually pretty good, and I think we learned some good information, but it's unfortunately a little hard to practice before "go time".

Diana and I were talking about the upcoming Charger pre-season game, and getting it set up to record on our DVR, and Diana said that we should look up a baby "LT" jersey. It caught be a little off guard, the emotion and realness of it all, and I pretty much burst into tears. I'm excited to become a father, but just to warn you all, there may be waterworks involved.

That's all I've got. Smell ya later for now.

As I alluded to in my last post, things have been pretty exciting lately!

On the Friday night/Saturday morning that the latest Harry Potter book burst onto the scene, I was up and about at around 11pm, and decided to stay up until midnight and head over to my local Barnes and Noble to see if anything was going on. I headed over there a few minutes to midnight, and was a little surprised that the parking lot in front of the bookstore was packed! I had to park far away and walk. As I approached the stored, it became clear. There were multiple lines of people streaming from the store and down the sidewalk. There were kids of all ages, and a lot of people dressed up in costumes, which was all very cute. There was some sort of grouping arrangement for people to get wristbands and get into various lines, but I decided to forgo all that. I chatted with a Dad who was standing nearby, and he said they were planning on staying open late into the night. So I went home and played Guitar Hero for an hour, and came back at 1am. At that point, I was able to stroll right up to the counter. "I'm looking for a good book," I said. "Anything popular these days?" (I'm SO funny!)

That weekend, Diana and I made an arrangement about how we could read the book out loud, together. Any previous attempts to read a book together has failed miserably, mostly because Diana's secret super-hero weakness is that the sound of my voice reading almost instantly puts her to sleep. However, we agreed that if she fell asleep, I could continue reading, and her homework the next day was to catch up to wherever I was. (This probably wouldn't have worked during her school days). That worked really well.

Diana's secret super-hero power is that she can read out loud in a moving car without getting sick. This proved to be awesome, as she read while I drove around town during various baby-related errands. I'd then read out loud as she made dinner or whatever, and we'd generally switch off as we could. We powered through the book in a few days, culiminating with me reading out loud for over 3 hours straight to finish up the book. It was awesome.

Guitar Hero 80's showed up sometime during this past week, but I haven't gotten a whole lot of time to play it. So far, it's been a lot of fun, but I look forward to getting into it a bit more soon. I've passed every song on Expert except the last one, which is really frustrating me.

This weekend, Norm and I helped Iwan and Sara move into their new pad. With the three of us, that worked out pretty well. Iwan lived on an upstairs apartment, so everything (couches, washer/dryer, etc) all had to be carried down a narrow staircase. But we accomplished our task without any serious complications. Moving is always a big pain in the ass, and almost impossible to do without help, and I was happy to pay back people who have helped me move previously.

Afterwards, Diana and I met up at Norms for dinner and pool relaxing, which was awesome. We've seen Norm and Teri a lot lately, and that's been a lot of fun.

Sunday, we drove up to Santa Barbara for Diana's college roomate's wedding. The groom works as a valet for the local DoubleTree hotel, which on the coast, and got the wedding guests a special deal there. Apparently the room we were in normally would cost $750 (?!?!), but we were there for 1/10th the price. The wedding was nice, and we got to catch up with some of Diana's old friends. The next morning, we drove back home, stopping by to see my (junior) high school friend Aileen, and her husband and new baby. Her baby is something like 8 weeks old, but was born 6 weeks early, so in spite of being the same age as Tyler (Norm's second son), he's really not much bigger than a newborn. It was really great to see Aileen again. She and Diana were friends in their own right, and she and I were pretty close when we were kids, and she'll always have a special place in my heart. The story of little Vincent's birth was pretty incredible, not only because it was so early and surprising, but because of the ineptness and rudeness of some of the medical staff that she dealt with. In spite of that, they have a healthy, hungry, gassy baby. Very cute.

On the way back home, I noticed that the mileage on Diana's Prius was 69948, and guess we were about 50 miles from home. As it turned out, we rolled into the driveway with the odometer exactly on 70000 miles. That was kind of fun.

Now I'm back two work for today and tomorrow, and tomorrow evening, Doc Mick rolls into town, kicking of Fantasy Football Draft Weekend 2K7. Gwen is coming as well, and I'm looking forward to seeing them both! More stories to follow, I'm sure.

That's about it for me for now.

Happy Friday!

I have a lot to tell, but not a whole lot of time to tell it.

We're back from our little jaunt to the Pacific Northwest, where we visited my aunt and uncles and cousin and his family. My mom joined us from Montana, as well, which was nice. It was a really nice stay. Great to see everyone, and have some fun times. We spent a day on the houseboat, taking a boatride and relaxing by the water. Diana and I played poker with my aunt and uncle, and I got the absolutely luckiest cards ever, getting a four of a kind and straight flush in the course of an hour or so. It was pretty unbeliveable. We spent some time with my cousin and his wife and four and five year old kids, who are absolutely fun to be around. I made a "Mii" on my uncles Wii that was supposed to look like him. Seeing the picture of him golfing with his Mii counterpart still makes me laugh.

While we were up there, we saw the latest Harry Potter movie. I wasn't very impressed, but my mom and Diana enjoyed it. I'm happy to have seen it, though, since I'm interested in keeping up with the series. By reading the interwebs, Harry Potter mania sweeping the world. I'm actually pretty touched by it. I read a little editorial in some magazine, written by Stephen King, where he really waxed poetic about how kids who were 8 when the first book came out are now 18. They've litereally spent most of their childhoods with Harry Potter, and as the series closes, so do their innocent childhood days. Something like that. It was touching. Love it or hate it, it's pretty impressive that a book release is making the Top News headlines.

Diana continues to do well through her pregnancy. Her belly continues to grow, and thump around. Pregancy suits her very well; she's really beautiful. However, as her size grows, she's beginning to find the need to explore new sleeping arrangements (I think she sleeps in a nest of about seven pillows), and generally getting used to carrying around new weight and a new center of balance. But no serious complaints.

Other things on my radar:

Buying my own copy of Harry Potter and trying to not be spoiled for as long as I can.
Hanging out with friends this weekend, if possible.
Waiting for Guitar Hero Rocks the 80's to arrive
Waiting for Mick to arrive, which will signal the beginning of the Fantasy Football draft weekend (commonly known around these parts as The Best Goddamn Weekend EVAR!)

That's about it for now.

I don't remember if I publicly "called" this or not, but I'm sure I commented about this to Diana privately: that there was this huge influx of commercial companies to Second Life, but that they would flounder and fail there.


From games.slashdot.org:

"The LA Times is running a story today saying that marketers are pulling out of Second Life, primarily because — surprise, surprise — the 'more than 8 million residents' figure on the game's Web site is grossly inflated. Also, as it turns out, the virtual world's regular visitors — at most 40,000 of them online at any time — are not only disinterested in in-world marketing, but actively hostile to it, staging attacks on corporate presences such as the Reebok and American Apparel stores. The companies aren't giving up on virtual worlds altogether, though, but moving on to games like There, Gaia Online and Entropia Universe. The article also contains some commentary from a marketing executive who conducted an informal survey of the game and discovered that 'One of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia.' What company wouldn't want to be in on that action?"

---

In other news, I'm back from P-town. The trip was great. More details later. :)

So, last night was the big Guitar Hero concert, sponsored by 91x at the House of Blues.

When I first heard about the contest, I was pretty excited. I tried once or twice to call in and win one of the 64 spots, but never got through. I signed up online, but never heard back. They did say that a few spots would be given away at the door, and although my chances were unlikely, I figured it was the kind of thing that I'd regret if I didn't give it a shot.

Diana picked me up from work, and we headed downtown. Our plan was to show up at the HoB, sign up for the contest, wait until we didn't get called, and then go out to dinner at a nearby restaurant. So, we both signed up and waited and watched as other people showed up, some lucky enough to be entered, and a lot who, like us, put their name into the big jar hoping to be called.

Soon, they announced that they'd choose five name from the pot, but that they might choose more to fill in spots of no-shows. They called the names, and alas, neither of our names were called. A few minutes later, however, they called five more names, and I got called! Very exciting! I got all signed up, and immediately got my typical pre-game nervousness going. I blathered on to Diana about something, and she reminded me that they were calling more names, and a few seconds later, they called her name, too! We were pretty surprised and excited.

We were in sort of a side room at the House of Blues. It was packed with people, and really hard to move around. Lots of "Diana's boys", which means big, loud frat-boy types. The music was loud, and it was generally pretty uncomfortable. I haven't really been in a crowded bar in a long time, and I'd forgotten how much I dislike trying to get from here to there and having to scrape by a bunch of people in the process.

They had four "stations" set up around the room. 64 people in the entire contest, so 16 people at each station. I was at the Blue station, and Diana was at the Yellow station. Before every song at each station, you'd go spin a wheel to see what song you'd play. Then play the song in "Pro Face Off" mode, which just means that you're both playing the exact same song and notes. High score advances to the next round, loser walks.

Diana was up earlier in her bracket than I was in mine, so I was able to watch her play. She was so cute, the guitar up against her pregnant belly, rocking out against some schlep. Their song was "Tattooed Love Boys", which on Hard or Expert would have given her problems, but the first rounds were on Medium difficulty, and she played really well. She went of to an early lead, and held that lead through the entire song, saving her last batch of star power until the end. And then it all went horribly wrong. She went to flip the guitar up to engage the star power, and it didn't go. So she recovered, and tried again, and still nothing. She tried a third time, but it still didn't turn on, and she missed a note. Her opponent was able to seize the opportunity, doing his own star power, and overtake her at the last moment to win the round. Diana was clearly the crowd favorite, and everyone knew she got robbed, including her opponent. In spite of hitting 99% of the notes to his 98%, he walked away with a better score and Diana was done for the night. In spite of the loss, I am very proud of her!

My first match rolled around, me facing off against some meathead (who was later to become my biggest fan). We spun the wheel and go "Them Bones", and soon the song was underway. I selected the song from the list, and my opponent said "Oh, he knows right were the song is", which kind of sounded like he DIDN'T know where the song was, and was a newb. I played well, and actually ended up not missing a note, where my opponent missed only one or two. He conceded his loss admirably, and I advanced to the next round.

We had a lot of time to wait for the first round to finish up, and then it was on to Round 2! I was able to see who I was going to be facing from Round 1, and felt pretty confident that I'd be ok. Eventually, it was my turn again, and we spun the wheel and "Them Bones" came up. Again! I was much less nervous this time around, and played well, missing a note or two, but actually outscoring my original round where I got 100%. That was kind of odd. My opponent was good-not-great, and didn't put up much of a fight. (Diana was standing near my opponent from Round 1, who apparently was saying stuff like "Dude, look at that guy! He doesn't even move! He's like motherfucking RUDY up there!" Classic)

Immediately after my match, I watched a battle between two women, where I'd be facing the winner. They were both really solid, and the girl that won (who was the girlfriend of the guy I just beat) was really good. I started getting pretty nervous again.

For Round 3, this girl and I spun the wheel, and "Killing in the Name" popped up. We were still on Medium level, and my nervousness was pretty intense. The song started, and we were off. I was hitting all the notes, but I could tell that she was too, and for a while it all about timing of star power. Basically, when I did one, she'd do one, and vice versa. About halfway through the song, though, I somehow saw or sensed that she'd missed a note. And then later, another one, and I could tell that she'd pretty much thrown in the towel. I'm pretty sure I missed a note or two as well, but I think by that point it was too late. With that win, I discovered that I'd advanced to the Elite 8! I was informed that everyone in the Elite 8 wins a wireless Guitar Hero guitar! So that was pretty cool.

For the final rounds, we all played on a big overhead screen in the front of the room. I was facing the only other guy in my Blue bracket, a big Filipino guy which a posse of dudes. In the Elite 8 round, there are four matches to be played, and I was in the last match, so I was able to watch all my potential opponents go before me. They all looked decent, but really not that great at all. I was beginning to feel pretty good about my chances. Watching closely, I did get a little worried that there might be lag on the big screen... I could see that neither player was really hitting notes "cleanly". Kind of hard to describe, but it just looked and sounded like the timing was off (kind of like when sound and video are off in a TV show or movie).

When my turn came up, I faced off against my boy and his posse. The emcee guy said "Alright, give it up for Efron!" (or something like that). Everyone cheers. All his boys hoot and holler. Then he says "Ok, let's hear it for Adam!"

*crickets*

*dry cough*

Ok, maybe not that bad. I heard Diana give an enthusiastic cheer, and got a smattering of applause, but I was clearly going up against a fan favorite.

The song we were assigned was "Killing in the Name" (I know, again!) This time we were playing on Hard difficulty. I played it pretty well, but definitely did notice a lag, and tried to adjust for it. My boy didn't fare so well, and fell pretty far behind. When I missed notes, I'd hear a rising cheer from his boys, and got worried that he was catching up, but when I could sneak a look at the little meter that points towards the winning player, it was pegged over on my side.

The song ended, and my boy gave me props, and I was moving on to the Final Four. The prize on the line was guitar signed by Pearl Jam, VIP tix for four to a future House of Blues show, and some other little things.

The Final Four round started, and the other two guys played. I don't remember what they played or how they did. I was pretty lost in my own world of anticipation. My Filipino boys decided that they were going to back me. The told me that if their boy was going to lose, than they wanted the guy that beat him to go on to be the Champion. I really appreciated that, and the "Adam, Adam, Adam" chant they started up later.

When it was my turn, the assigned song was "Sweet Child o' Mine". We were on Expert level by this point, and I was feeling pretty good about that song. I played it a lot.

It turned out to be a disaster.

We played through the opening sequence, both of us perfectly, until my opponent hit his "pause" button by mistake. There was some talk about restarting or resuming (the crowd weighing in heavily), and we decided to resume, and it took me a bit to recover.

The rest of the song played tough. There was a significant amount of lag, which made things tough. I also felt like the guitar I was on (on the Player 2 side) was kind of betraying me. It seemed to insert strums that I didn't hit, and generally felt weird. I was missing notes, and falling further and further behind, and pretty much knew I was cooked. The inevitable conclusion was eventually reached, and I shook my opponents hand, and walked away, leaving him to play on in the Final round.

It was disappointing, for sure. I've always felt that "blaming the equipment" is a pretty poor move, but I do believe that it was a factor. What's more disappointing is that I know I could play that song better, but was unable to. I consider myself to be a pretty competitive guy, which I think a lot of people mistake for "hates losing". I don't hate losing at all. I am 100% happy to lose a match (of anything) where I feel confident I played as well as I could. What I strongly dislike is feeling like I lost because I didn't play as well as I know I could.

I walked back to Diana, through my crowd of boys who congratulated me and clapped me on the back. Diana and I moved to the back of the room, away from the speakers where it was less crowded and a little quieter. With the adrenaline of the evening out of my system, I felt exhausted and my head started aching pretty good. I wasn't particularly interested in who watching the final round and seeing who won, so we split. I did notice, though, that before the final round the guys playing went into the Video Options menu and did the Compensate Lag thing. The testing reported a lag time of 131 milliseconds, which is HUGE. I probably should have done that before my round.

We walked out onto the patio, and there was the first guy that I beat in the very first round. I said "Dude, I didn't make it", and he gave me a solid handshake and said that he was rooting for me, and gave me props. It was nice.

All in all, it was a really fun night. I really enjoyed the competition, and all the people I talked to and witnessed were uniformly friendly and happy and having a good time. Competition can sometimes bring out trash talking and the worst in people, but I didn't see anything like that at all. Of course I really wanted to win, but I walk away with a really fun experience and a new wireless guitar under my belt.

Through the whole thing, Diana was really great. She was proud of me, and completely supportive and happy to be there through the whole thing. I think we were both a little sad that we each didn't get just a little further in the contest, but we each walked away proud to be holding the other ones hand. I'll take that over a signed guitar any day.

I just wish I could have both. :)

So, it's been a while since I updated the ol' blog. (I wonder how many blog
entries in the universe begin with that sentiment?)

Most of the reason is that the biggest news in the family is also the most
tragic, and I didn't/don't really know how to approach it. My brother and his
wife, four and a half months pregnant, lost their baby. I really am at a loss
for words about the whole thing. I've been profoundly sad about it all. I've
talked to Dr. Dave briefly, and he said that he and Elaine are doing as well
as they can given the circumstances. It sounds like having a busy
three-year-old running around might help take a bit of the edge off it. I
hope so.

Given that, I feel a little awkward posting about the rest of my life (most
of which centers around Diana and our own pregnancy). The other reason for
the lack of posts lately.

So, for now, send a positive thought out to Dr. Dave and Elaine and Ben. I'll
get back to my regular posting soon.

Guitar Hero 80's Edition coming in July.

LOVE IT!

So, I've got some time for a little update.

Life is continuing to go pretty well. Diana is doing absolutely great. Her belly is getting bigger, while the rest of her remains radiant and beautiful as usual. Kicks are very common, and we can actually see little thumps and movements, which is totally weird. Many evenings are spent on the couch, watching TV or a movie, with our hands on her belly. It's quite exciting. There's quite a bit of drama to see if her belly button is going to pop out or pinch closed. I'm kinda voting for the latter, but either way is fine with me.

Nest mode is pretty much in full swing. We had a weekend a few weeks ago that entailed two trips to Baby's R Us in two days. That was exciting. We've bought some nice furniture (crib, dresser, storage bins, etc) and have done some real room shifting. My old office is now the nursery. The blue walls remain (which will probably turn into clouds or ocean), and the white furniture looks pretty good in there. My office has moved to the guest room, with my new hotrod computer and all the junk in the closets. There's been a lot of shifting things around, and I think it's worked out pretty nicely.

We went and saw "Knocked Up" yesterday afternoon, and I thought it was pretty good. There's a huge amount of juvenile humor, as well as some funny and touching relationship stuff. I'm not embarassed to admit that I welled up after the baby was born, which really made me wonder how I'm going to react to my own child being born. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be a complete wreck. Full water works. So, get ready for that.

Speaking of waterworks, at some point recently I saw a hockey game on TV. I figured out that it was one of the NHL Stanley Cup games, and thought I'd like to watch the rest of the series. Turns out the rest of the series was exactly one more game. The game was really exciting, in spite of not cheering for a particular team. And true to form, after the game I got all choked up. Something about all the man-love at one side of the rink while the losers have to wait to shake hands. Ugh, I'm such a baby. :)

In other news, I'm a little stressed out with my computer situation. The new hardware is all AWESOME. However, I didn't get a new hard drive, I just swapped in my old one. I've been doing regular backups, which is a good thing, but I've noticed that I get "bad sector" errors during the backup. Searching for "bad sectors" on Google uniformly brings up pages that say "back up your data immediately, hard drive failure is imminent!"

Luckily, I've been doing backups, so I'm not totally worried. However, I just tried restoring from my backup to a fresh drive, and it doesn't seem to work. I'm pretty sure all my data is intact, but it's a little unnerving to be working with a hard drive that might die at any second, and to be unsure if your backup is 100% reliable. So I've spent the afternoon burning savable data (pictures, mp3s, other important bits) to DVD.