Multimedia message
Cellphone entry number one. Long day so taking it easy on front step with a beer. Hard to type much with phone pad even with predictive text on.
Multimedia message
Multimedia message... not the most original blog entry title but the cool thing is I didn't create it - I can now send photos straight from my new fangled Samsung Sync A-707 cell phone. Just take the picture and then send the image to my blog for autoposting... how cool is that. Of course I can't give it a nice title and to put text in I have to be back at my computer but still a fun little gizmo. Look for more photos to follow under the exciting title of Multimedia message.
My small small world
Some people have plants, others coffee cup cozies, and some have calendars adorning their cubicles... I have my little cube people. I still think I need to decorate with a swatch of carpet but I keep forgetting to cut myself a sample. If only I had a large 'Super' Homer Simpson to stand watch over my cube to combat the evil stares of The Office's Dwight and the tom-foolery of Bugs Bunny perhaps then my workday would go by with fewer issues.
Old fashioned 35mm film
So here are some Christmas photos from 2006... I just got the film from the camera developed now... Life moved slower just a few years ago... I suppose the irony of me finally getting the film developed is that I also purchased the prints with a CD included so I could have them digitally... Ain't technology grand?
One year!
We made it! Jenn, Sonja and I have survived for 365 days. It definitely called for a celebration. So we invited over 3,000 of our closest friends and relatives, bought some beer, wine, water, cake, party favors, and chips and voila a party was had.
Sonja must have been very excited for the day because instead of her usual 2 - 2.5 hours of nap time prior to party time she thought that 45 minutes would suffice. But despite this fact she hung tough and had a great time. Apparently not a huge fan of white cake with white frosting (who's child is this?) but most decidedly a fan of swimming pools and other little kids.
Shot mostly video of the event but will save that for a posting in the future.
Love you Sonja,
Mom and Dad
Sonja must have been very excited for the day because instead of her usual 2 - 2.5 hours of nap time prior to party time she thought that 45 minutes would suffice. But despite this fact she hung tough and had a great time. Apparently not a huge fan of white cake with white frosting (who's child is this?) but most decidedly a fan of swimming pools and other little kids.
Shot mostly video of the event but will save that for a posting in the future.
Love you Sonja,
Mom and Dad
Oil Rigs, Arbor Day and Nothingness
I recently went on a business trip to Houston for an Oil and Gas trade show called the Off-shore Technology Conference (see previous post). Note to all of my environmental-hippie friends: I didn't feel good about it. This conference happened to fall over Arbor Day, likely the second biggest hippie holiday since Earth Day. This confluence of events is strange enough, but my trip to Houston got even stranger.I was in my hotel room on the 14th floor of Hilton's Medical Plaza hotel checking work email and eating lunch (a rather tasty Philly steak sandwich if I recall correctly) when I just happened to look out of my window.
Now as some of you may be aware, Texas is somewhat famous for its lack of zoning ordinances, which means this 19-story hotel was just across the street from a large residential neighborhood (just south of Rice University). This fact isn't really necessary for my story but for some reason I think it adds perspective.
So, I am peering down to the street from my 14th floor hotel room when out of the tree-lined neighborhood street directly across from the hotel I see a cop car pull out with its lights on. Nothing all that unusual for a large city, but that cop car was followed by two large stretch limousines and about 4 large black Chevy Suburbans and at the tail end of the convoy another cop car with lights on.
The cop cars were weaving back and forth on the road, blocking all traffic (not much traffic because it is a semi-residential neighborhood). Then, to my surprise, the cop cars stop right in front of the hotel. I have a moment of panic as bullet-proof vest clad officers jumped out of their cars and ran towards the hotel lobby. "Am I safe in here?" I asked myself. Then I reasoned that if it was something to worry about the cops wouldn't show up with an entourage of limos and SUVs.
Perhaps they are escorting some Saudi prince, I am in Houston for a large Oil and Gas show so it wouldn't have been outside of the realm of possibilities that some bigwig oil-rich prince would be
escorted to his hotel, but this theory quickly vanished when out of one of the SUVs I saw two small bald headed gentleman exit the vehicle. They were in bright maroon and gold robes. I recognized the robes and bald heads as the traditional look of a Buddhist monk.I quickly turned around, typed a few keywords into Google and discovered that the Dalai Lama was scheduled to speak at Rice University the following day. I confirmed with hotel staff later that day that the Dalai Lama was indeed in the same hotel as me... during the Oil and Gas... show over Arbor Day. Not sure how to process all of that information. But I did request that the gift shop in the lobby sell tee-shirts reading "I slept with the Dalai Lama" - they had no comment.
Offshore Technology Conference vs Arbor Day
Yes it's finally here. Arbor day! What better way to celebrate than to attend the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, TX. The OTC is a huge Oil and Gas trade show I am sure the Oil and Gas folks love trees too and I bet they would love them more if they could somehow extract energy and profit from them perhaps they are working on it as we speak. I will find out more once the show starts on Monday.So today, plant two trees. One for the planet and one for your car.
Baby Jail
Sonja,This is where we put you when we can no longer hold you. Your boundless energy contained by four soft nylon mesh sides of a pack-n-play. A minimum security prison to be certain. Toys scattered across the prison yard, guards willing to scoop you up and free you and the slightest cry for freedom. Soon you will grow taller and stronger and wiser and we will no longer have the pack-n-play prison/fun-time resort to set you in. Soon it will be your room and eventually your own home. Already time has accelerated past my ability to comprehend.
Love,
Dad
Party Time
Sonja had a great weekend with a brunch party Sunday Morning and a BBQ party later the same day! Quite the little people person.
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| Party Time! |
Easter Pants
I apologize to my loyal fan base of 5, but life is once again hectic.
I have fallen off of a 2 month exercise program due to sickness - which after 2 weeks is just starting to clear up. This same bug has prevented my usual barrage of Sonja pictures and phobia haikus.
Sonja has become more and more active requiring much more of my time. No longer can I just sit her down and expect her to be there when I return. No more "You just wait here in the car while Daddy goes into the casino for a few hours." The crawling is awesome but requires so much more attention. She pulls herself up on anything and everything and loves to chat away.
And work has been a trial as of late. I am still getting acquainted with my new role. I like the job but it requires a lot of effort to get up and running.
Just a few more days now until my count down timer reaches zero (see nav bar to the right) and we can all celebrate Arbor Day the way it was meant to be celebrated... with beer and TV. I mean, planting a tree.
Hope everyone out there is well. Please forgive me for my lack of correspondence, but don't let that stop you from contacting me. Comments are welcome as are emails.
I have fallen off of a 2 month exercise program due to sickness - which after 2 weeks is just starting to clear up. This same bug has prevented my usual barrage of Sonja pictures and phobia haikus.
Sonja has become more and more active requiring much more of my time. No longer can I just sit her down and expect her to be there when I return. No more "You just wait here in the car while Daddy goes into the casino for a few hours." The crawling is awesome but requires so much more attention. She pulls herself up on anything and everything and loves to chat away.
And work has been a trial as of late. I am still getting acquainted with my new role. I like the job but it requires a lot of effort to get up and running.
Just a few more days now until my count down timer reaches zero (see nav bar to the right) and we can all celebrate Arbor Day the way it was meant to be celebrated... with beer and TV. I mean, planting a tree.
Hope everyone out there is well. Please forgive me for my lack of correspondence, but don't let that stop you from contacting me. Comments are welcome as are emails.
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| Easter Pants |
Sonja Crawls (officially)
March 30, 2007 in the afternoon at Grandma Wendy's and Grandpa John's, Sonja took her first few shuffles towards hyper-mobility.
Mom and Dad are in shock and reportedly recovering at a nearby bar.
Onlookers were overheard saying, "She was such a handful before she could move - my heart really goes out to the parents." Mr. and Mrs John Q. Fake were quoted as saying, "Sonja is such a willful little girl the only thing keeping her from dominating the entire world was her lack of mobility, and now that she has seemingly discovered that, I fear for all of our futures".
Mom and Dad are in shock and reportedly recovering at a nearby bar.
Onlookers were overheard saying, "She was such a handful before she could move - my heart really goes out to the parents." Mr. and Mrs John Q. Fake were quoted as saying, "Sonja is such a willful little girl the only thing keeping her from dominating the entire world was her lack of mobility, and now that she has seemingly discovered that, I fear for all of our futures".
Pots and Pans
Sonja playing with Grandma Wendy's pots and pansSonja is getting bigger everyday... still not crawling yet, but she loves to stand up and walk around holding onto mom and dads fingers. She is also very fond of pat-a-cake and even learned to clap daddy's hands during the song... such a smart little peanut.
Life is going gangbusters here. I going into week 5 in my 12 week pre-marathon training program and it's good. My only real complaint, other than some minor soreness is having to get up at 4:30am so I can get to the gym to work out prior to being at work.
We went and saw the play Our Town last week. Two of our very good friends were in it. They both did a wonderful job. Of course I had extremely low expectation, not being a huge fan of theater or churches or small intimate groups of strangers (the play was put on at a Unitarian Church notoriously small - seated maybe 40 people) thankfully, my low expectations were washed away. The play was great. The acting done very well and the story was brilliant... I was glad I went. We finished up the evening with an after play party at our friends house where we enjoyed wine, pizza and home brew. I also had the opportunity to work out some stress on the X-box 36o and enjoyed playing Saints Row.
So life is good. The days get longer and warmer all the time. Really looking forward to Summer!
Sonja's Nicknames
Here is an incomplete list of nicknames Sonja has picked up so far:
1. Peanut
2. Peanut butter
3. Sweetness
4. Cutie-pie
5. Sonja begonia
6. Sonja Lasgana
7. Nonee
8. The peanutinator
9. Poop monster
10. The S-bomb (thanks to breed 'em weep for this one)
And thanks to Jenn all the one's I forgot:
11. Sweet Tater
12. Lucille
13. Pumpkin
13.5 Pumpkin head
14. Punk/Punkie
15. Sweet Sonja Sue
16. Honey
17. Typhoid Sonja
18. Sonja Lou Who
19. Cupcake Buns
1. Peanut
2. Peanut butter
3. Sweetness
4. Cutie-pie
5. Sonja begonia
6. Sonja Lasgana
7. Nonee
8. The peanutinator
9. Poop monster
10. The S-bomb (thanks to breed 'em weep for this one)
And thanks to Jenn all the one's I forgot:
11. Sweet Tater
12. Lucille
13. Pumpkin
13.5 Pumpkin head
14. Punk/Punkie
15. Sweet Sonja Sue
16. Honey
17. Typhoid Sonja
18. Sonja Lou Who
19. Cupcake Buns
The Police Ticket Prices are a Crime
I have been a police fan since the early 80's. In fact, they were one of the first cassette tapes I owned. I remember the Christmas well - I received a silver Sears brand boom box complete with cassette deck and 4 cassette tapes; The Fixx's Reach the Beach, Bruce Springstein's Born in the USA, The Cars self titled album and finally The Police and Synchronicity.
I loved Synchronicity. I remember spending hours in my various middle school classes scrawling The Police on my folder. When that got old I recall having to learn how to spell my first big word S-y-n-c-h-r-o-n-i-c-i-t-y. I was so proud.
Sadly, this was to be the farewell album for The Police. And I, like many in my generation, did not have the opportunity to see them in concert. Sure I rented the Police VHS concert videos and imagined what it would have been like to go. And yes, I did go to a couple Sting concerts but that was yuppie jazz compared to the raw energy power of the original trio of Stewart, Andy, and Sting.
So when I heard that The Police had set a date to appear in Minnesota for their reunion tour. I was all over it. I happened to already be a member of Best Buy's Reward Zone program which gave me the opportunity to purchase tickets a whole 4 days earlier than the general public. I was stoked.
Jenn and I talked it over and decided that of the 3 price ranges offered for tickets, we were comfortable with the mid-range ones.
At precisely 10 am on 2-28 I excitedly logged onto www.ticketmaster.com/thepolice and put in my super secret rewardzone code and search for the best available $90 tickets. Minutes later, at 10:02 am, I received a response from ticketmaster that there were no seats available in the price range I was interested in. Odd, I thought to myself. I can hardly believe that all of the Best Buy mid-dollar amount seats would have sold out in 2 minutes. So I repeated the process to no avail.
"No seats available" it read on my screen
Again I tried but again met with only despair and the message "No seats available"
I began to panic. I switched my selection criteria to see if any seats were available at any price... And tada! Two seats pop-up on my screen. My heart raced, I could hear the blood rushing through my veins. "I am going to see The Police!" I felt like that little kid back in middle school, daydreaming of being in not just any rock band but THE rock band.
I took a closer look at my screen. The two-seats available were not the cheap seats...Just the opposite they were the Ultra crazy way-out-of-our-price-range variety seats. But still reeling from my momentary endorphine rush I called Jenn to get the okay from the wife before jumping off the deep-end and spending more on two concert tickets than I ever have. She balked at first, but I could tell in her voice that she was experiencing the same "Police fever" as myself. Quickly we were both in free fall off of the cliffs of insanity. "Okay, let's do it." She replied.
Minutes later, I had the confirmation that my credit card would require a second mortage to pay off the balance. The hysteria was now tempered somewhat. Yes, I was going to see the one band I thought I would never get to see. Yes, I was still excited, but at what cost? I assumed for the price we will be personally escorted back-stage and get to party with the band...after reading the fine print, however, I soon realized that this was not the case. Just a regular old seat stage right. Still I don't regret my impulse buy. I just wish I could have seen them play in the 80's when good concert tickets were just a little bit more expensive than going out to eat. C'est la vie.
One of the best days of my life
Yesterday was one of the best days of my life. No, I did not win the lottery. Nor did I solve world hunger. What caused my happiness? What caused this to be a monumental day? I got to dance with my daughter.
True we have danced before. A polka at her first wedding age 2 months (see July 2006 posting), and the very common bouncing, twirling and jumping to songs on the radio. This dance, however, was special.
Sonja is starting to learn to stand-up with little help (just a few little fingers in her hands to keep her steady). She is also beginning to figure her world out and you can see it in her eyes that this is a very exciting thing. To top it all off, she is beginning to babble (more than just the raspberries and occasionally goo goos) she is purposely moving her mouth in a speaking motion and then trying to talk... it is amazing, it's like you can see her thinking and trying so hard to form her first words. So all of these factors played a part in our dance.
We were on mommy and daddy's bed and I was helping her to stand. I held her little hands in mine and then just started dancing...it wasn't the normal jump jump jump fall it was a real dance...THE Twist. She twisted her hips from side to side and kept her eyes staring at mine, and as she did this a huge smile grew across her face. Her eyes widened and she laughed and smiled and twisted. We were both laughing and smiling and during one of our occasional breaks she used her new found baby babbling skills to tell me how much fun she was having and that she loved me (I am pretty sure I got the translation right). I told her I was having lots of fun and that I loved her too. Mommy even got in on the party and we danced and laugh as a family and it felt good.
True we have danced before. A polka at her first wedding age 2 months (see July 2006 posting), and the very common bouncing, twirling and jumping to songs on the radio. This dance, however, was special.
Sonja is starting to learn to stand-up with little help (just a few little fingers in her hands to keep her steady). She is also beginning to figure her world out and you can see it in her eyes that this is a very exciting thing. To top it all off, she is beginning to babble (more than just the raspberries and occasionally goo goos) she is purposely moving her mouth in a speaking motion and then trying to talk... it is amazing, it's like you can see her thinking and trying so hard to form her first words. So all of these factors played a part in our dance.
We were on mommy and daddy's bed and I was helping her to stand. I held her little hands in mine and then just started dancing...it wasn't the normal jump jump jump fall it was a real dance...THE Twist. She twisted her hips from side to side and kept her eyes staring at mine, and as she did this a huge smile grew across her face. Her eyes widened and she laughed and smiled and twisted. We were both laughing and smiling and during one of our occasional breaks she used her new found baby babbling skills to tell me how much fun she was having and that she loved me (I am pretty sure I got the translation right). I told her I was having lots of fun and that I loved her too. Mommy even got in on the party and we danced and laugh as a family and it felt good.
Sonja and the cat
Sonja and the cat are really good pals lately... This will likely change once Sonja is mobile.
Things have been hectic as of late. The new job is going well but I made the unfortunate decision to start my twin cities marathon training program now. This requires that I leave the house at 5am so I can workout in the corporate gym. Week one has been successful but I have a feeling my butt will begin to drag in weeks 2 and 3...
Looking forward to golf starting this year. I have not gone out at all this winter, which is unusual for me. I know the amount I golf will be much less than in summers past but my goals is at least once a month.
Oh yeah and Sonja has been a total handful today... gotta run she is fussin' now.
Things have been hectic as of late. The new job is going well but I made the unfortunate decision to start my twin cities marathon training program now. This requires that I leave the house at 5am so I can workout in the corporate gym. Week one has been successful but I have a feeling my butt will begin to drag in weeks 2 and 3...Looking forward to golf starting this year. I have not gone out at all this winter, which is unusual for me. I know the amount I golf will be much less than in summers past but my goals is at least once a month.
Oh yeah and Sonja has been a total handful today... gotta run she is fussin' now.
St. Patrick's Day and Sonja Photos
St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner. I am not Irish nor is my wife, but I do enjoy a good beer and some corned beef and cabbage so I am looking forward to the day all the same.
and as always more Sonja photos below:
Shirts Optional
Apparently shirts were optional in Frank Zappa's band in 1978. Amazing video of Suicide Chump:
Chaetophobia Haiku - With Chewaphobia bonus
Redhead, blonde, brunetteNo matter the shade, I cringe
Chaetophobia
For my sister's friend... sorry they didn't have a phobia specific to redheads, or pot-lucks, or chewing (but I made one up just for you)... you really should get some help
Chew, chew, chew, chew, chewChew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew
Chewaphobia
Happy Valentines Day 2007
Happy Valentine's Day to everyone in the world. I wrote a rather pessimistic piece on Valentine's Day in 2006 (click here to review). I have, however, since modified my position.
It turns out that having a post about a holiday prior to the holiday is one hell of a good way to up the traffic coming to your blog. Within 2 weeks my daily hits went from 14 to 225 (and still going).
All of this traffic is for Google image searches for Valentine's hearts not for my stunningly depressing tirade on the holiday, but hey, I take 'em where I can get 'em.
The heartwarming portion of this story is where the hits are coming from. I have had people land on my site from Mongolia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel all within the last 48 hours and all of them are looking for a cute little heart to attach to an email or webpage somewhere.
In a time when it seems the world is at war it's nice that love still has at least one day.
More clothes because it's cold out
Posting has been a little off as of late. New job has begun so I am in that intensive focused learning stage. I should be over that in about 2 days and then it will just be work once again and the regular posting should resume.
So far Sonja has held up admirably to the cold. -8°F currently and she is, as the saying goes, sleeping like a baby.
She is more active now everyday and Grandma P. has put out the crawling in 2 weeks prediction. Let the baby proofing begin!
So far Sonja has held up admirably to the cold. -8°F currently and she is, as the saying goes, sleeping like a baby.
She is more active now everyday and Grandma P. has put out the crawling in 2 weeks prediction. Let the baby proofing begin!
Babynik
At the time of this photo and posting it was -11°F with a wind chill reading of -21°F (gusting to the -40°F range)... the result is Sonja's first turtleneck. Isn't she adorable?
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