Flu Ridden Christmas

After flying home last Friday everything was going great. Jen, Hayley and I were hanging out at home and taking care of some house hold chores. I got my annual checkup and the doctor proclaimed me healthy. The next day we planned a long day of shopping. When we were about to head out Jen started feeling under the weather so she slept most of the day away. Although we ended up getting most of our shopping done that night.

Christmas Eve we drove to Willmar and Jen was feeling better. We arrived at my brothers for the annual x-mas party and about a half hour into it I started feeling sick. So I tried taking a short nap. It didn't help much at all. Later on I threw up and it all went down hill from there. I spent most of the night on the crapper. It was pretty miserable. And to make matters worse at least half of my family got the bug later in the week. My gut hasn't felt the same since. Sorry to all that I got sick. Hopefully you have a better recovery then I did.

Merry Christmas Everyone

I just started and finished shopping today. I waited so long because I was bitter over CA having a higher sales tax then MN so why buy stuff there. Plus it's way over priced.

And I should mention that I have the coolest wife ever.

Tremers

While I'm out here in Cali I wouldn't mind experiencing an earthquake, albeit not a big one. It was semi disconcerning to get earthquake emergency kits at work. The kits have first aid stuff and a self charging flashlight (which is kind of cool) and other odds and end things to get one by if the building tumbles. I'm sure our cubes will keep us safe. At least I feel pretty secure since I'm next to a support railing, which supposedly is the safest spot in an earthquake.

Anyway, I was posing the question as to the frequency of quakes out here and someone showed me this site. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/ It has a record of all earthquakes that happen in our region. Digging deeper I found that we had an earthquake last Sunday about 10 miles from our apartment and I didn't have a clue. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/nc51176897.php I'm wonder what does one have to register to feel it. 2.2 didn't quite cut it.

mp3 players

I keep thinking of what kind of mp3 player I want. I keep going back and forth between the Zune and the Video iPod. Although the Zune has more of the features I like, it doesn't quite cover everything. I'm thinking I'd really like something that I can just download stuff to the device bypassing the computer. It would be nice if I could just download the latest PodCasts when they become available. I'm missing the daily morning shows in MN. I wonder if the "rumored" iPhone from Apple with have some kind of feature built into download podcasts. Hopefully it will be released soon. I may have something waiting for me under the tree. Maybe I could exchange it.

Hayley and Jen Heading Home

I just dropped Jen and Hayley off at the airport. We had originally planned on them staying in MN until after Christmas. I'm glad they came out. Our stuff would probably still be in boxes if it weren't for Jen. Now we have a nice clean apartment to live in. We both commented on how we wished this apartment was the floor plan of our house. It's pretty nice. Now if the weather would warm up a bit.

Flight Mixup

When I booked Jens ticket here I thought I had her flying back on Monday night. It didn't dawn on me that I really booked her flight for early Monday morning at 12:30 am. Good thing she brought it up today cuz I would've drove her to the airport on Monday night and she would've missed her flight.

Cool Work

Since I moved to Sunnyvale I'm learning about brand new technologies. It's totally different then anything I've ever worked on in Eagan. I'm amazed at the technology here. Space Systems and Satillites are so interesting. Today I went to a presentation on the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) which is going ot replace the shuttle. The sub systems that go into that are amazing. I'm amazed at the things people think up to make it functional and safe. I certainly would not mind working on that project after I'm done with my current rotation.

Move in activities

I would've never expected the process of moving to be this expensive. When I moved to FL we rented a furnished apartment and drove down there in our truck. This allowed us to bring virtually everything we needed. I don't recall spending that much money up front there. Since we got to Sunnyvale we've spent close to a thousand dollars on getting this apartment settled. Everyday it seems like we're running to Target, Costco, or IKEA for something. A table here a bed in a bag there throw in some cleaning supplies a new vaccum and all our TDY money is going down the drain. Hopefully the bleeding stops this week. We finally got our funiture yesterday. Which was an event in itself. The guy calls in the morning to inform us his help didn't show so wants to wait until Monday. I'm like "yeah, no!!" I'm sick of living on the floor and if I have to help move so be it. The guy showed up 10 minutes later and it took about 3 hours to unload everything. At the end of the day Jen had everything situated except for the kitchen. I was pretty much relageted to keeping Hayley out of everything along with discarding of boxes and assembling the new kitchen table. The apartment looks nice now though. I wish our house was as big as our apartment.

Counting Down

Jen and Hayley will be here in 2 days. Man am I happy they're coming now instead of waiting until after New Years. The $250 plane ticket was well worth it. I'd be going crazy if they weren't going to be here this week.

Weekend Highlights

This weekend I set out to purchase a bike. After doing some shopping on Friday I settled for a bike from Sports Authority. It was only a two our extravaganza. Working with minimum wage workers can be brutal sometimes. I went through two cancellations of my bill because the lady couldn't figure out how to ring up a bike. So that kind of put a damper on riding most of the afternoon. But I managed to ride to work and it took about 25 minutes. Although carrying a laptop may take longer.

Sunday morning I hung out with some Packer fans and we found a sports bar to watch both the Vikings and Packers. The bar was pretty run down and the pop tasted like water with a touch of brown food coloring. We did manage some free food though. BBQ ribs and potato salad so it wasn't all bad. (The Vikings were terrible though).

After the game Chad and I went mountain biking around the bay area. We found some trails and I was floored to see a dude hunting. The dude drove his truck to the entrance of the trails and rode a bike to his spot. It was incredible. Hunting here would be awesome. Just a light jacket and you're ready to go. The swamps were full of ducks too. The guy had three and shot one while we were standing there talking to him. I'm thinking I should've brought my gun out here to hunt some. You can't ask for better weather to hunt in. There's no getting cold here.

The weather here has been amazing. It hasn't been cloudy at all since I got here. It's a little chilly at night but it's fine with a sweatshirt. Some people are still using the pool during the afternoons.

Slow Start

It's been pretty slow these first couple days at work. Our lead is waiting for two more people to join the team before he really gets into training us. So I'm stuck reading ConOps and what not. It's not all bad I guess. It would be nice to have my own apartment ready to roll though. I've been living with a couple guys that came out here and we're basically in an empty apartment waiting for furniture to get here. I bought a blow up mattress for the time being.

The weather has been pretty nice. Highs in the 60's and lows in the 40's. I'm slowly learning the roads and what not and finding many places to go. This weekend I'm planning on finding some hiking trails in the mountains. Hopefully I don't need boots. I didn't bring my camera so I'll probably buy another one since Jen and I were thinking of getting one anyway. So hopefully in the coming blog entries I'll have some pics to show of the area.

Travel Mix Up

So I was supposed to leave today for Sunnyvale. My Administrative assistance booked a flight with a layover so I called the travel agency myself to see if I could get a direct flight. After some time looking for flights the lady said she had something that flew out a few hours later so I took it. I waited a few hours and then I went online to check in. When I tried checking in the site said I couldn't check in until 24 hours before my flight. I thought something was messed up so I looked at my new itinerary. It said my flight was for tomorrow at 5 not today at five. So I called back and all flights were sold out. Pretty crappy since I was supposed to start tomorrow. So I told them to rebook my hotel and car for Monday instead of today. Hopefully my new boss understands the mix up. I don't really mind that much since it's another day I get to spend with Hayley.

Sunnyvale...First Impressions

Busy Busy Busy. Did I mention it's busy out here? The view is nice because there are mountains on both sides of the city but it seems like every inch of real state is used and there's not a lot of parks and open area until you get to the Mountains. Live close to work that's my suggestion, unless you want to spend a lot of time in traffic. The roads around here have got to be the worst signed roads of anywhere I've ever been. Although the roads aren't as bad as New Jersey, the home of the jug handles, they come in a close second. Painted lines marking the lanes of traffic suddenly end and when you go around a curve you have no clue if you're in the same lane. If you can get around that part of it things will most likely be fine. So far I like Clearwater a lot better then this area. I think mainly cuz I liked being so close to the Gulf and roller blading on the causeways. Although I can't complain about the weather here, it's been in the 70's both days and seeing the sun is nice.

I spent most of Tuesday looking at apartments and I looked at one today. I think I'm going to take the one I saw today. It's a 720 unit complex which is huge, but it comes with a lot of conveniences like an onsite store that will deliver to your door, dry cleaning service, a fitness facility that would rival any major fitness center like Bally's and a spa with a massage parlor. It comes at a pretty stiff price tag though, $1840 a month. I budgeted $1800 so it's not too bad. It's also only 3 miles from work so not having to drive will help with the extra cost. I just may break out the roller blades again and roller blade to work everyday or buy a bike. Most of the roads around here have bike lanes.

The Lockheed campus here is huge. Lockheed in Eagan has just under a 1000 employees, there are well over 7000 here. I'd say the campus has more buildings and is definitely bigger then the St Cloud State campus. It's a city within itself. I saw my cube and I'll be over looking a huge atrium on the forth floor. It's by far the best cube I've had at Lockheed. So I'm looking forward to that. It's kind of weird cuz there are umbrellas on the ledges of the atrium over the place and nobody seems to know why. It adds the feel of being on the beach. I found out that the task I've been assigned to way behind. Nothing like finding out you're behind schedule before you even start. So my team is going to be challenged to get back on schedule.

The Yahoo campus is across the street from Lockheed, I counted 4 buildings that I think are part of Yahoo. We made a trek up to Google as well. Not that it’s anything special but it’s kind of cool to see the major tech company’s head quarters. There’s also a ton of empty office space left over from the dot com bust.

Well that's enough babble for one day.

Teaching

I now know how it feels to suck at teaching. I feel really bad for my students cuz I had no clue what I as doing today. (or last time out for that matter) I felt like I had a good idea what needed to cover before the class started. When the class started I decided it would be best to forget everything. It was brutal. I felt like I was in one of those "wanna get away" commercials.

Before I started I thought teaching would be a lot like being a sales person. A sales person basically teaches a customer about the product they're selling. I was pretty decent at selling so I thought I'd be good at teaching. My over confidence killed me. If students didn't know OOAD before I started they definitely don't know it now. I'm thinking it's pay back for all the teachers I ripped on in college. Although this is self inflicted cuz I should've spent a lot more time preparing for this class. We'll see if I can redeem myself next Monday. But I'm not that confident about it.

Bowling Blues

Our team is on a roll. We've dominated the competition for the last month or so. We went from 16th to 1st in that span. I've raised my average to 189 in that span also. Until the last game of last week I was on a 12 game win streak, which is pretty tough to do in bowling. Generally someone has a big game against you. But things have been going pretty good for me. Until last night. I got crushed by a low handi-cap, 50mph throwing bowler. This guy was getting strikes no matter where he hit the head pin. I swear he hit 10 right in the middle and he'd get a strike. It was unbelievable. I guess the speed of the ball was creating an unbelievable amount of pin action. It didn't help me that I didn't find my grove until the 3 frame of the third game. By that time it was way to late. I lost even though I had a 220. I shot in the 170's the first two games so my average is going to go down. Which sucks cuz I was hoping to end this year with an average about 190. With my rotation in Sunnyvale I only have a couple weeks left to get it above 190. I'm going to need a rocken series next time out.

Miller Bowl III

Every years since Bob bought a house a couple blocks from mine he throws a party. The party starts out with a big football game at the park a couple blocks away. Then it gets rowdy at Bob's afterward. Every year has it's unique events that we keep remembering from year to year. Like the first year it was the Setrum Streak which was basically throwing a hail mary to the receiver that was being covered by the slowest player on the other team. Last year I missed the event so I'm not sure what was the memorable moment. This years memorable moment came from a group of guys playing tippy cup and getting lit up before 7:30 and then breaking Bob's ping pong table. Not to mention one individual going down for the count around the same time. No puking and rallying here.

So it's been 4 days since Miller bowl and I'm still feeling sore. I need to get into shape. These once a year sporting events are killing me. I couldn't hardly walk I'm so sore. But in all it was a blast. Kudos to Bob and Jamie. They always throw a good party.

Next Stop... Sunnyvale, CA

A couple months I submitted my name for a possible rotation on a new program that Eagan was going to get. There were two efforts, one in Eagan and one in Sunnyvale. I didn't really want the Sunnyvale position but I mentioned if they really needed people there that I'd go. Well last week I got an email with an interview schedule for the effort in Sunnyvale and apparently I must have said the right things during the interview because I was offered the job there. I still wasn't that hip on going there until I saw the compensation package. Then I started thinking it over real hard. I inquired family and friends asking for advice. After getting the call that they wanted me in Sunnyvale I told them I'd get back to them the next morning. Well that night I didn't sleep at all. I don't know that I've ever tossed an turned that much over a decision. I still didn't know what to do the next day. I remember being so relieved to be back in MN after my rotation in FL. It was great to have family a couple hours away, I love being able to drive there for a day and being close enough to head back home to sleep in my own bed. We had a Q/A session that day and the manager in the meeting said this was one of the best career opportunities for a young engineer he's ever seen. The program I'll be working on is a highly visible program and the CEO is taking a huge interest in it. So that pushed me over the edge and I decided to take the rotation in Sunnyvale. They wanted me to start ASAP but I pushed the start date out to the Monday after Thanksgiving.

I'm relieved today to have the decision out of the way. I'm going to miss family and friends a lot but Jen and/or I will be coming home quite a bit unlike FL when I didn't have paid trips back. With the compensation package I'll get out there, Hayley won't have to be in day care. That actually was one of my biggest decision makers. Jen will be able to spend everyday with Hayley now.

So it's off to Sunnyvale.

Daycare Bugs

Hayley has been in daycare for just over a month now and she's been sick twice from it. She really never got sick until she was in daycare. Hopefully it's a good thing that she gets sick now and not so much later on in life. Although all the colds I caught when I was younger doesn't seem to help me fend these stupid bugs off as Hayley has spread it to me as well. Although my cold is not nearly as bad as Jens. She can hardly talk today.

Professor setty??

Well I signed my contract with St Thomas officially making me an adjunct professor. If you've known me for any amount of time while I was going to school you would've no doubt heard me bashing the teaching habits of the professors. Well we'll see how I do in this role. I have it easier then most professors though since I only have to teach for 1/3 of the semester. However, the topic I'm covering really takes a full semester to teach so it's going to be challenging.

The Biggest Loser

Yep I'm a fatty. Even though I haven't always been a fatty somehow these fat cells seem to absorb more and more fat making crap. I'm constantly playing the yo yo game... weight up .. weight down and every time it seems the weight gets a little higher. (Dam ice cream) Basically the cycle has been 2 months of dieting and 4 months of being a slob and eating. Now that grad school is done there's no more excuses.

Hanging out at guys weekend the last weekend Green-O and I decided to put a bet on who could lose the most weight (percentage wise) by guys weekend next summer. We'll see how it goes. If I lose 100lbs and still lose I'll still be happy I guess. It's only $50. Our starting weight is Green-O 213lbs Kyle 249lbs. (that's close to 100lbs heavier then I weighed at high school graduation)

Finally Walking

It's been 6 months since she crawled. We figured she'd be walking by 8-9 months. A couple times in the last month she's taken a few steps between me and Jen but with grandma here the last couple days she's off and walking a lot on her own. It's kind of cool to see. She still falls a lot and she's working on getting up on her own now. But she can get across the room pretty easy now. Now if we could get her to stop eating everything.

The Season

Tonight was pretty much our season in softball. We started out 2-4 so our chances at winning the division were not that good. We've turned the season around with a 6 game winning streak so our record is 8-4. This league has no playoffs so there is no chance at winning the league since the first place team was undefeated. The last two weeks we've been waiting on this game. If we can't win the division at least we can beat the undefeated team. It was close tonight, after 6 innings we were down one and up to bat in the top of the seventh. We eecked out three runs so all we needed to do was hold them in the bottom of the seventh. I walked the first batter (my first walk all game). The next batter hit a lazy fly that was caught. The next guy hit a shot back to me and I basically looked at my glove in disbelief that I caught it. Then got my wits and threw the guy out at first for a double play. Exciting stuff even though it's slow pitch softball. I think after this game we should have second wrapped up with two games to play.

Big Win's

This week has been a good week in Golf and Softball with both events coming down to the final hole/inning. During my golf match I was up 2 with 3 to go only to choke 2 away on 7 and 8. So now I'm tied on the 9th hole and he hits a good shot in the middle of the fairway staying well short of the 3 bunkers that surround the green. The hole is only 258 yds and we had a slight wind against us. This guy was a lot better then me around the green so I figured my only shot was to try and drive the green so I put my all into the shot and it landed in the front bunker. He hit his next shot just over the green and I hit mine on but I had a 20 foot putt. He chipped 4 feet to the hole. So I'm thinking just to tie I need to 2 putt and I hit my first putt 8 feet left of the hole and I'm thinking I'm a major choker. Then after a couple minutes of sizing and practice strokes I bang the ball so hard that had it not hit the hole it would've went 8 feet past. But luck was on my side. He barely missed so I won the hole and the match. Our team is in first now. With a good shot to win the first half.

Our softball team was playing the second place team and we blow a 6 run lead in the bottom of the 5th with a horrid error streak giving up 9 runs. We came back and scored 3 to tie and held them scoreless in the bottom of the 6th. The 7th and 8th inning were scoreless as well. So in the 9th, the second extra inning, we scored 2. There first batter hit a ball and our right fielder tried diving for it and missed giving up a homer. The next batter got a signal and things weren't looking good for us. But the next batter hit to SS and we got the force at 2nd. The next batter flew out to center. So they're down to their last out. Seebs moves in at LC and they totally hit it over his head but our RC cheated over and made a nice running catch to end the game. So we leap frogged them in the standings. We play the first place team next game but they're undefeated so there's no chance of catching them.

In all it was a good week of softball.

Truck Blues

The truck is still broke. Ford quoted $850 or so to fix it. So it ain't going to get fixed by Ford. That's total crazy talk. That's like me asking $100 for each line of code I write. Oh wait, I think my employer charges the government close to that for each line of code I write. Now if only I saw even a small percentage of that I could afford to pay Ford to fix my truck. Man I should have left it dead when we found it on the road. Good thing I got inlaws that go out of their way to fix stuff. At least I can repay them with some Hayley time.

Turn your back for 2 seconds

Hayley loves playing in the spice cabinet so while she was playing in it I made a sandwich for lunch. When I went to the fridge for milk I looked down and I had a green daughter. She'd got into the food coloring. I was in shock for a while afterward. I couldn't believe it. So I spent the next 1/2 trying to get her clean. Good thing the stuff comes off pretty easy. Although she ended up with a green mouth and tongue for a few hours. 

Graduation

Yep it's finally over. I went to the ceremony last Saturday and I thought it was actually kind of cool. All the professors lined up and gave an ovation as we walked into the gym. Our degree program was the last out of 450 students to walk across the stage so that took some time and I was 4th from the last overall to walk across. One thing I didn't know until graduation is that Master graduates get caped. Something a little different then undergrad. Now I can push for a promotion at work. We'll see how that goes. 

Minor Cross Roads

I made the decision yesterday to move to a new project. I was working on a legacy system, which basically means the software has been completed and I was working on minor enhancements. My new project will give me the opportunity to work on new development and I'll have the opportunity to refresh my design skills again. It's been a while since I've worked on a new development so it should be fun. The software I'll be working on is a UAV ground station platform. So it should also be interesting.

On another note, I've finished grad school and I'll be attending the ceremony on Saturday night. It's been mentioned in my blog about 10 times now so I'll leave it at that.

Sunday a Mike, Scott and I are heading off to Milwaukee to attend a Twins - Brewers game. It should be fun as long as the 5 hour drive doesn't wear us out. Monday we're going to try and get a tour of the Miller brewery. We'll see how that goes. We're pretty unorganized right now so we'll be playing things as they go.

The Short Bus

I joined a different crowd to lunch today and as we were walking to our vehicles I was shocked to see someone drove a bus to work. It was friggen hilarious. We all hoped on and headed out to lunch. I guess it's not as funny blogging it as it was in person but oh well, not everyone can say they get bus service to lunch.

One Final Left

After going down in a blaze of fire yesterday during our presentation I can take comfort in knowing that I have one final left and I'll have a masters. I figure if I look back on this five years from now I'll have no clue what happend during this presentation. From misspellings on the powerpoint slides to running over our time limit. But whatever, so now I need to get a 80 on the final instead of a 70 to get an A. I'll add another 20 minutes to my study time.

I really don't know what to think of it since I assumed getting a masters would be a lot harder than this was. But I don't feel to bad since taking classes at Stevens University wasn't anymore challenging. Maybe school comes a lot easier when you only take 1 or 2 courses at a time. All I know is that being done will free up another night so I can play more golf and spend my time with Hayley and Jen.

#1 Programmer on the Planet

When I graduated from college I used to think I was the best programmer on the planet. I was the tech lead on all my college teams and I had an actual programming job so I was heads ahead of the other BCIS students that I knew in experience. All this non-sense came crashing down after I met Ben. He made me realize I had to settle for the 2nd best programmer in the world. (I'm actually down to about 25th best now, Dam LM for hiring smart people) **sarcasm people**

Well Ben is leaving LM for a lesser known company called Microsoft. Ben made this announcement a long time ago but I just finally got a chance to blog so I'm writing about it know. I have no clue why he'd want to the leave the world leader in technical prowl for a MS. If you're interested in why he's leaving you can read about on his blog I'm kind of happy now cuz when my MS apps crash I can call someone to complain about and actually get results. Although with Ben on board, MS will produce the best quality software ever.

I am left with knowing that I gave Ben on good idea to use a Hashtable in his code. He only gave me about 300 ideas.

Well best of luck to ya Ben. Say hi to the last of my 7 prom dates for me while you're there. I think you know her since she's a regular commenter on your blog.

Recent Happenings

Blogging has been sporadic at best since the beginning of the year. Mostly because work is super busy and school. But at the end of this semester I'll have a masters. I'm pretty excited about that.

Anyway here's some happenings:

- I ended the bowling season with 186 average in my Tuesday night league and 182 in my Wednesday night league. I started bowling early in the second half of my Wednesday night league so I had already worked out a lot of the kinks by then. I got an email showing my dad's average is 185 which is outstanding at 70.

- We decided to leave Hayley with the grandparents while we're in FL. Nick is going to hold down the fort at home. Hopefully we don't miss her to much.

- Easter went great. We visited my brother and his family and my sister and her family. We made it home around 1:30ish am. I'd like to thank Lisa for cooking an outstanding meal. I think they were pretty impressed with the progress Hayley has made.

- School is going good. It's a lot of busy work this semester but the work isn't to challenging.

Spring

This winter was one of the warmest on record and definently the warmest that I remember. There was hardly any snow too. I got to use my snow blower twice. But even though it was such a warm winter the average temperature was still in the 20's which is still to cold to spend a lot of time outside with Hayley. Going to visit Jen today at work with short sleeves on got me thinking about last year in FL and how it was so nice to go outside everyday of the year without a coat. I think our families need to move there so we don't have to worry about not seeing them if we move there.

Vacation dilemma

What to do? Jen and I are planning a vacation to FL at the end of April. The problem we're dealing with is Hayley. Do we leave her with her grandparents for 10 days or bring her with. I'm kind of nervous about leaving her with anyone for a night so 10 days is another story. I know it's a super big chore to bring her with but I'd feel a lot more comfortable with her with us. That way I know she's safe and I won't miss her. A guy at work said "You'll enjoy your vacation for 3 days then you'll spend the rest of the time wishing she was there". I can totally see his point. Maybe we need to cut our vacations down to 2-3 day sprints. That'd be nice if flying was cheap.

And for those of you keeping track I bowled my 3rd 600 series in a row today. Let's see if I can keep it up tomorrow. Soon I'll be on the PBA and you'll be able to watch me on TV. ha!!

Another 600

I bowled another 600 series on Wednesday. I got 5 200 games in a row going counting Tuesdays scores. I ended the night with a 181, 2 pins above my average. It was a decend night and our team is in 5th place so we should move up.

This weekend we're planning on child proofing the house with Hayley crawling. I got the Exploder running but I think it's just about at the end of it's life. I give it gas and it slows down. Kind of weird. I'm thinking it either needs spark plugs or the fuel filter is clogged. Or it's junk and needs to be replaced by a Mazda 3. Who knows.

600 Series

Last night I bowled my first 600 series in a sanctioned league. In the past I've been able to put together 2 good games and then I'd bomb on the third game. Last night was different, I improved every game. It took the edge of the losses by the T-Wolves and the Wild. Now I only need like 1000 more 600 series to catch my dad.

Kirbyyyyyyyyyyy Pucket

Today is an extremely sad day. Kirby was by far my favorite sports figure in any sport ever!! I drove from Willmar to the dome on many occasion and sat in the outfield so I could see him play. And who could forget the greatest introduction of all time "And batting 3rd your center fielder KIRBYYYYYYYYYYYYYY PUCKET". Only Bob Casey, another Twins legend could pull it off. The crowd would go nuts. No other hitter since then has received that kind of ovation every time they step to the plate. Since the time Kirby retired there's been a void in every Twins fans heart. The World Series in '87 was one of the greatest moments in Minnesota history only to be out done by the '91 series. We'll miss you Kirby.

New Hutch

Jens neighbor is retired and he does some wood working on the side. Jens dad had him build us a hutch to store all of Jens Precious Moments. I think it turned out pretty good, however, I could not resist the chance to tease Jen about it. You know the usual, "the computer I could buy with the money we're spending on this" or "I think it would look better on that wall". I think after three days Jen has finally cooled off. :) I tried to work out a deal with Jens parents that in exchange for holding Hayley they should buy us the hutch. I thought they were getting a pretty good deal but they didn't think so. Well I'm off to watch the T-Wolves lose another one. Man being a Minnesota sports fan this year bites.


 
 

Nothing Happening

Life has been pretty routine this winter. Since I don't really like cold weather I just hang out indoors for the most. I day dream about the nice weather they're having in FL and I wish I was there to play golf or just hang out outdoors. I think I've worn a nice path in our carpet from walking Hayley back and forth. It would be really nice to take her for walks outside. Oh well. Hayley does a great job entertaining us. She's just a blast to be around. Right now I can hear her banging her feet against the crib. Which is a sign that she's awake and ready to tackle a couple more hours of the day. So I'm cutting this entry short.

Joel's Plethora of Ideas

Joel has been waiting for his college to remove his autobiography from the web for over a year now. I recently checked to see if it was still there or not and it was gone. So I did a Google search for it and I found the site cached but the image was missing. So I'm recreating the page here (with a slightly modified image) on my blog so this will never go away and Joel will have to live with it forever. Man the kids will love it.



My name is Joel. I am a hardworking, focused college senior. I am thoroughly convinced that I was born a mechanical engineer. From earliest memories I have been building things just to see if they will work. This is why I majored in mechanical engineering, and why I am convinced that I will love a career in the field. My current design projects include a wood burning hot tub, a lightweight gas-powered scooter, and a linkage mechanism for an adjustable kitchen countertop. My brain is a plethora of solutions to design problems. I constantly analyze everything around me, thinking about how things could be designed better or how new designs could be implemented with new materials or mechanisms, always keeping in mind factors like cost and life. Although I have been thinking critically for as long as I can remember, my education has taught me to implement acceptable solutions, and effectively communicate my ideas to others in a viable way.

The majority of my days are spent studying and working. Throughout my college career I have held a job. I feel a sense of pride for working longer and harder than other students. Most would see having an extra job as a disadvantage; I think that it teaches a person how to be organized, self-disciplined, and literally, how to work hard. During school when I am able to have a day off of work I feel like I have abundance of extra time. My homework is done early, and I am left to idleness. In reality this is how other students, or as I see it competitors for future employment, live on a daily bases. This rigorous schedule prepares me beyond the scope of anything I will see in future employment, and I think my employers have, and will, recognize this potential. 

Rolling and Jumping

It's amazing that it's been only 5 months and Hayley is rolling over both ways and she has figured out her jonnie jumpup. She jumps like crazy and when she's out of it she tries to jump anyway. It's so entertaining. This weekend we're getting baptized. The weather has taken a turn from the 30-40's we've had to barley 0. (I won't even mention how nice it is in FL) But it supposed to warm up a bit by Sunday so it shouldn't be so bad.

And a big thanks to Green-O for finishing the dishwasher before all the company comes.

Working 60 hours a week

If you're wondering why there hasn't been any posts in a while it's because our project is working 60 hours a week. It's short term so it's not to bad plus the OT is nice.

Hayley is doing great. She's been rolling over to her stomach in her crib and sleeping like that. But I think she get's frustrated cuz she can't roll back and she'll start fussing. We have nothing to complain about, she's just an awesome baby.

I start my last class Monday. After this semester I'll have a Masters. Cool ey? It will be nice to get that out of the way. Not that I mind taking one class a semester. Well I'm off to work again.

What's up?

Keeping up with the blog? Well not lately. I've been to busy, with what, I don't know.

Anyway, some recent happenings: I did get another ticket. This one for not moving my truck during a snow emergency. I was fortunate enough to see the tow truck pulling up to my truck so I was able to run out and move it before the guy could tow it away. I was happy to pay the ticket rather then have to deal with our truck getting towed. If we were in FL I wouldn't have to worry about stupid snow emergency's.