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.

Ticket Outcome

I took the day off yesterday to fight my ticket in Litchfield. When I got there the clerk had me fill out some forms. I asked how it worked and she said:

a. You can plead not guilty and we'll set up a court date.
b. Pay your ticket.
c. Talk to the Prosecuting attorney and try to negotiate a better deal.

Although I think I could've won the case I choose to talk to the Prosecuting attorney cuz I didn't want to take another day off from work and drive the 1.5 hours it takes to get there.

First the Procecuter said he'd drop the ticket after six months if I didn't get another ticket and I pay the fine. I asked if he could lower the fine, which was $140. He asked what happened and I told him my version of the story and he kind of shrugged and said he'd dismiss the ticket if I didn't get a ticket within 6 months and pay a $100 court fee. Even though the $100 still hurts I settled for it.

No I just need to not get a ticket for six months.

10" of Snow

Now that we got our first big storm out of the way. I'm going to need to fire up the snow blower. Keep in mind this is a very old snow blower with only a pull start. I'm thinking it isn't going to start. It hasn't run in two years. So I'm going to be stuck shoveling. You know there's no shoveling snow in FL. Which reminds me of a professor I had in my undergrad. He used to live down south somewhere. His wife wanted to move to MN to be closer to her family. He made a deal with her. If they move to MN then she'd have to take care of the snow removal. I think this is a good idea. Since Jen wants to live in MN so bad she should be put in charge of removing the snow. She'll definitly want to move back to FL then.

And in other news I got an 85% on my final last night. I was thinking that it wasn't to shabby until I saw the class average of 92.5%. Crap, maybe I should've studied. I guess I'll have to settle for a B in the class. Dam those "All of the Above" trick questions.

Final Today

I have a final today in my Information Retrieval class (The class was basically the nuts and bolts of how Google works). Of which I did absolutely no studying for. I don't know why, I guess time just flew by so fast that I didn't get a chance to study. I'm teetering on an A so I'm thinking after this test I'll be at a B. Which sucks cuz I created a web search engine from scratch for my class project. When I told my professor what I was doing for my project he was like "Do you want to try and continue what another student started last semester" cuz he thought it would be too difficult to implement. Well I finished the project in a weekend.

I found out what some of the other projects were and this project totally kicks arse over these other projects. One girl was touting her spider, (A spider is an automated means of collecting links on a page). It took me all of five minutes to include a spider on the indexer portion of my search engine.

But whatever, I'm just against tests that one can study for and forget everything the next day. I think my project should count for 75% of my grade and not 25%. The experience I gained from my project far outweighs the knowledge I'd gain from trying to study for a test.

Did I mention that I hate tests. I'm also a whinner.

Sleep is inconsistent

Hayley slept almost 12 hours yesterday. Last night she slept about 6 hours. No biggy though since Jen has overnight duties. I get a chuckle out of it cuz Hayley will start cooing but once in a while she'll fall back asleep, but for the most part the cooing is a warning that someone should come get her before she starts crying. I can feel a huge uuhhhhh if Hayley starts crying instead of falling back asleep. Then Jen is stumbling around trying to find her glasses and then trying to find her way around. But it's not to funny cuz I generally have overnight duties on the weekends.

I'm Junk

Now and then I send myself emails from my home email to my work email. Well I just realized for some reason I haven't been getting them. So I was checking out my junk email and all my emails from home were in there. I guess I'm considered junk.

Below Zero Today

I believe today was our first below zero temperature of the season. My Exploder almost didn't want to start today and when I put it into drive it took a while before the transmission to engage. But the Exploder is still holding out. Hopefully it will last until I become rich. Which will probably be never.

This reminds me. Norm took us to lunch in his new mini van. It's loaded, dvd player built in, auto opening doors, quick configuration changing and we can't forget OnStar. It was a pretty awesome ride. However, fitting 7 fatties was still a little tight.

Back to my weather whine. I checked Clearwaters weather and it's in the 70's. Man I could really go for roller-blading on the causeway to Honeymoon island.

And then there was one or two

Congrates to Ryan who proposed to Kris this weekend. Judging from all the activity around my cube neighbors I think she said yes. I'm thinking her productivity today will be between 0 and well 0. It's kind of funny to see the difference in reaction between the two. Ryan sent out a one like email "the waiting is over" and Kris is running around spreading the news. Of the gang here at Eagan there were two left to get married. Now there's just one. That would be Matt. Well if you consider Ben maybe that's two. If Ben gets married it may be the shocker of a lifetime. What would happen if he had to spend his money on a wedding and kids instead of electronics? That could get ugly.

Weekend Happenings

Finally we have a dishwasher. After contemplating getting a portable and then remodeling our kitchen we decided to install the dishwasher we had in the middle of our kitchen and just build and enclosure around it. Green-O is handling the labor so I got to give him a big thanks for getting this done. I don't think he expected the inlaws to be there critiquing his every last move. But it turned out OK. The wife and I are so happy that we don't have to manually wash dishes.

After working on the dishwasher we had some Turkey for Thanksgiving with the inlaws. Then it was off to the Monster Truck Show. Jens dad, who recently stopped milking cows, was able to go so that was pretty cool.

Sunday we just hung out with family. I TiVo'd the Vikings so the inlaws wouldn't have to watch them. When I finally got around to watching them I think it took less then an hour after skipping all the commercials and half-time show.

And that was pretty much my weekend.

Three Months Old Today

Hayley is three months old today. Time is flying by so fast. She's grown to the point where she doesn't fit on my chest anymore. Nor does she like to sleep face down so that fun is over. But she's so much more alert and she giggle a lot now. I gave her a bath this morning and she was splashing like crazy, it was so entertaining to watch. We have a video camera and our first tape is just about full. We try to take a couple minutes of video a day. I'm planning on making a dvd of the moments and send it out as a christmas card. We'll see though if I'm not to lazy between now and then.

Thankful for Hayley

This weekend flew by. We spent Thursday and Friday at Willmar. I was surprised how good Hayley was around everyone. She is so easy going. I don't think she cried at all. So having such an awesome baby is what I'm thankful of this year. No matter what I'd be thankful for her but her personality is a bonus. I think Hayley took a day to get wound down though cuz she didn't sleep to well yesterday but she was still good. I think maybe she missed everyone.

Ticket

I got a ticket on Saturday for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a cross walk. For one, the guy was wearing all black and he had his hood up so I didn't see him until the last minute. So I stopped and waited for him to cross my lane of traffic. As soon as I went through a cop pulled me over and said I had to stop until the guy was through the entire intersection and he proceeded to give me a $150 ticket. Well I was looking through the traffic ordinances of MN and I found this on pedestrians - read it here and it states "The driver must remain stopped until the pedestrian has passed the lane in which the vehicle is stopped." So I'm definitely going to court on this one.

Who's going to win in this case.

The Renter Speaks

In class our prof mentioned a site called "The Way Back Machine". I was curious if a web site I created back in college would be there so I typed in the old address - http://www.therenterspeaks.com. I gave up on the site after I got my job. It was kind of interesting seeing what it looked like. Although it doesn't work so you can't see the entire site it's kind of neat to see the old home page. Check it out here.

Snow??

It supposed to snow tomorrow. I have a plan to convince Jen we should move after living in Winter for a while. Florida is so much better then this winter crap.

Weekend

Not really sure what's going on this weekend. The only sure thing is taking care of Hayley while Jen works. That's exciting to me. I've been thinking about taking Hayley to Willmar to meet the family but Jen said she cried for her on their trip to Little Falls. Listening to a crying baby for 2 hours is a tough task so I'm thinking I'm going to wait until Jen is free so she can sit with Hayley in the back. We'll see though.

Waiting for a new car

Although I'm not in the market for a new car I do check out cars that would make sense for me. I need a compact vehicle to drive to work and back. The gas mileage on the Explorer is terrible. I'm not sold on Hybrids because you have to replace the battery every 3-5 years or so. No cost savings there. I've also contemplated a VW Jetta TDI diesel that gets 50mph, but with the price of diesel that would probably be a bad idea. Reading Popular Science online I saw this Europe-only Golf GT that gets 30mph city and 50mph Highway by using both a super charger and a turbo charger. One top of the great gas mileage the performance is good too. The only problem is they're not selling it in the US. Why? I have no clue. I think this car would sell like crazy. So I'm saving my pennies in case they decide to sell it here.

Software Bugs

Top 10 software bugs. My favorite.

1982 -- Soviet gas pipeline. Operatives working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency allegedly (.pdf) plant a bug in a Canadian computer system purchased to control the trans-Siberian gas pipeline. The Soviets had obtained the system as part of a wide-ranging effort to covertly purchase or steal sensitive U.S. technology. The CIA reportedly found out about the program and decided to make it backfire with equipment that would pass Soviet inspection and then fail once in operation. The resulting event is reportedly the largest non-nuclear explosion in the planet's history.

New Web Site

I'm working on creating a web site that I can host pics of Hayley and a Hayley blog securly. I'll use the site for other odds and ends too like posting my resume and maybe some old college projects and my attempt at writing a Holdem Program. (Maybe Ben would want to finish it) Anyway, I'm trying to decide what the address of this site should be. I'm leaning toward www.ksetrum.com or www.ksetty.com. What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know.

Serious Blowout

Hayley hadn't pooped for three days. We were watching the Vikings when she let out a serious grunt. I was happy that she finally was pooping, and I figured I'd wait 5-10 minutes to change her so she could finish until I could feel it through my shirt. By that time it was too late. I present a challenge to all diaper manufactures to try and stop a blowout of this magnitude.

DVR is back

We just couldn't live without it so we broke down and got DVR back. Once you have it you'll have a hard time living without it. It's a little more expensive but when we've been missing a lot of TV caring for Hayley DVR is in order.

The Amazing Race Results

Well we came up short. We ended up 1 point out of first. Although I really don't care that we lost but when an event like this is put on I wish judges would be a little more strict on the rules. No big deal though. We came in like 6 out of 8 for the race, however, our airplane expert built a paper airplane that made it across the court yard, about twice as far as everyone else except for a team that put quarters in their airplane. They were disqualified.

The Amazing Race

Tomorrow I'm participating on a team that's competing in the Amazing Race we're having at work. The race consists of 4 team members which have to do different things like leap frogging, putting, building and flying a paper airplane and other stuff. Anyway I thought we'd get a jump start on our paper airplane design. We went to the court yard to test different designs and there were two other teams practicing. I guess we're not going to be the only team prepared. Anyway, if you know of a good paper airplane design let me know.

Happy Halloween

It's about 7:15 and we've had about 4 tricker treaters and about half the candy is gone. I think I need to cut back on the portions I'm handing out. Either that or I need to stop eating all the candy. Or better yet, Jen needs to stop eating it all.

This is Hayleys first Halloween. She's dressed as a lion and she is super cute. She is growing up way to fast. I think time should move way slower so we can enjoy this all the more.

And that's a rap, we have more tricker treaters.

Wanted: Dishwasher

Well now that Jen is working evenings we don't have that much time with both of us at home to take care of simple chores. One of them being washing the dishes. Yes we are a little behind the times and we wash our dishes by hand. After being interupted numerous times while washing dishes the other night I decided we need one ASAP. I'm so sick of looking at dirty dishes let alone washing them. So we're going to break the bank this weekend and by a portable one. With Jen working it we should be ok finacially. Maybe, well see.

Brownies

Is it a bad thing that I ate all the brownies meant for my co-workers. I don't think Jen will mind that much.

And for an update on Hayley. She's been sleeping through the night. She's also a lot more alert and stays awake longer. Lot's of fun.

Morning commute

This morning I was driving to work and this truck pulls up next to me honking. I'm thinking it's a road rage driver so I try not to look but the truck keeps honking so I glance over and it's Scott. Holy crap, for one it's 6:00am, two he lives on the other side of the cities. What are the odds we'd run into each other. Crazy stuff. Here's his response to the question "How'd you notice me?"

it was weird, I was driving up towards your explorer and I was like that thing looks like a piece of crap, I bet Kyles is starting to look pretty rough, since you have had it so long, and low and behold it is you driving....freaked me out!!

I can't believe he called my Explorer a piece of crap. Oh well, it's 12 years old and still running good.

Same Name

While talking to Scott he mentioned that our old roomate Becca had a baby. I haven't seen or talked to Becca in 5 years. She named her baby Haylie Rose. What are the odds of that? At least we spelled the names a little different.

Vikings woes

I got an idea. Why not fire Tice. This team has no discipline.

Great Day

During a huge rain storm last week which dumped 4 inches of rain I had to drive home from school. During my drive I drove through water on the freeways which splashed up on my motor. Basically the same that happened in FL a few months ago. Now my truck is acting up again and it's going to cost around $300 to fix. I haven't fixed it yet cuz I'm angry and I don't want to pay that much. Plus I'm trying to figure out if I can fix it my self. It's a coil and sparkplug that need to be changed. Anyway, I've been driving my Explorer instead of the truck. Well this morning when I was leaving to go to work I notice my Explorer was sitting low. I look down and sure enough it has a flat tire. grrrrr. I didn't feel like changing it in the dark at 6 in the morning so I drove my truck. Hopefully I didn't damage it worse. Now I definitely need to put a call into a mechanic.

Time capsule

Ben informed me and my colleges at work that he got a strange reply to one of his posts. Read it here Apparently a girl I went to prom with 10 years ago Googled my name and got this post from Ben. Well it led to some hilarious conversation at work. See Michele is a girl I met on the Internet way back when 14.4k was the speed of the Internet. I drove to Washington to visit her and take her to prom. This is back in the day when it was unheard of to meet up with someone on the Internet. It was definitely an experience.

Anyway, I told the guys at work I'd dig up some old pics from that prom and I stumbled upon some more pics. So for all of you needing a laugh here you go.

Back in the day with the Internet being so slow we exchanged pics with snail mail. Here's the pic I sent to Michele. I lost the pic she originally sent to me.





Michele and I at her prom. Her mom got us a limo which was kind of cool.





And while we're at it why not show some top hat and cane prom pics.

First of Holly and I.





Then Hillary a few years later.





And I haven't always been a fatty. Here's a pic of me in Washington by the Ocean.





The car I so sorely miss. Has it really been 10 years since I owned this? How depressing.





And while we're visiting the time capsule why not show off the mullet.

Back in MN

We made it back after a 3 day drive from FL. Hayley only cried for a while on the second morning, otherwise she was content sleeping in her car seat. That was nice. We didn't really know what to expect. But now that we're back it's time to clean the house and get it ready for Hayley. So far, with the help of Jens mom, brother, and sister, we have the baby room almost done and our carpets are shampoo'd. The smell that I smelled last July when I visited is now gone. Now we need to figure out where to put all our junk. I keep asking myself, "Where the heck does all this stuff come from?" But I'll leave it to Jen to figure it where to put it all so I get in trouble for throwing something she wants.

I'm watching the news now and they're saying we're going to get cold. I'm so not looking forward to winter this year. But I've probably said that enough so I'll stop babbling for now.

Last Day

Well this is my last post from FL. Florida has been a great to live. I have no regrets coming down here. If I could only talk my wife into it I'd move here for good. But since she wants to be close to the family I guess we have to move back. Oh well. At least the rest of the family can get to know Hayley. She's been an awesome baby and we couldn't be more happy having her in our lives.

Now it's on to the Northern abyss for another fun winter.

2 Days to go

Well it's time to start thinking about packing. Fortunately we moved only our clothes and computer down here so there's not much to move back. It's kind of sad that nine months is up. I'm going to miss this area. I don't blame retires for wanting to move here. People can say it's too hot in the summer but that really didn't affect us. I'd rather have a hot summer then a winter any day.

Minor funny

OK you have to be a Twins fan to get this. But I thought it was kind of funny.


Pierzynski's's spin

Former Twins catcher A.J. Pierzynski, after watching Liriano on Sunday, had an interesting take. "They got Joe Nathan, Liriano and Boof Bonser ... for ME!" he boasted.

In November 2003, the Twins traded Pierzynski to the Giants for three pitchers, who became an All-Star closer and two top prospects. Pierzynski, who was released by San Francisco after one season and is now with the White Sox, playfully suggested it was an even trade.


I just thought this was kind of funny. I remember thinking back then that this was a dumb trade. I thought, why do we need another relief pitcher? I had no clue Nathan would turn into a top closer and this Liriano guy would turn out to be good. Does anyone know who this Boof guy is? It would be great if he’d make the team. Who names there kid Boof?

Anyway, 9 months are just about up. 4 days left here in FL.

Vikings

One statement by Green-O sums it up best.

Ugly. It went from “the year” to a “rebuilding year” in one half of a football game.

Conflicting Advice on Babies

Since Hayley was born we have gotten so much conflicting advice, starting on the first day. Every nurse had a different philosophy on how and when to feed her. Some were like "Get her up every three hours to feed and make her take at least an once.", others were saying "Let her eat when she's hungry." It was so mind boggling. Then there's advice about sleeping. One of the most common things we have heard is "You can't spoil a baby, if she's crying hold her and comfort her". Only one nurse we talked to said something different, she said if you're constantly holding them they will be easily awaken and they'll get crabby, and they'll always want to sleep in your arms instead of the crib.

Well we've been basically feeding Hayley whenever she's gets up. She seems hungry and crabby all the time lately. She has started to cry all the time. We were told that she's probably going through a growth spurt and she needs to eat more. We'll after I fed her last night she kind of fell asleep on my chest. So I started reading a book on the "First Year" and I found an interesting section on when babies cry and what a certain cry might sound like. One interesting topic I found was that babies cry before sleeping. So all this time when Hayley has been crying we've were thinking she was hungry or she needed to be comforted. Soon after reading this Hayley starting crying super loud and she started acting like she was hungry again after I had just fed her. I tried to feed her again but she'd take a little and then start crying louder. So I thought I'd try putting her in her car seat for a couple minutes and see what happens. She cried and cried, louder and louder, and I was just about to pick her up and it was like she got knocked out or something, in blink of an eye she was out cold. This was at 9:30ish. Well she slept until 3:30am and she only got up once during the night. I learned a huge lesson yesterday about watching for a signal that Hayley is tired and wanting to sleep even if she's crying.

I've also come to the conclusion that listening to everyones advice is not a bad thing because people are telling you what worked for them. Since every baby is different, parents need to find what works for their baby and you never know when you might come upon some advice that will work for you.

15 days and counting...

When Jay was on rotation in Eagan he was eagerly awaiting his move back to the North East. I remember the blog entries longing to get out of the Twin Cities and away from the cries about the T-Wolves losing to the Lakers. I can't say I feel the same way about moving back to MN. Florida has started it's cool down from the inferno they call summer. It's a comfortable 80 degrees now and I'm thinking of how nice it would be to spend another winter here. Unfortunately Jen and my family feel living in fridgid below zero temperatures for 8 months out of the year is better than 2 months of inferno. So sadly the countdown for the move back to Eagan is on. 15 days to go. I'm tearing up already. Wait maybe the tear is from my head pounding from having Hayley screaming in my ear while getting some blood drawn yesterday. Man babies can cry loud. Hey Joel you're looking for something to engineer right, how about a baby muffler.

Well I'll leave you with this jibberish of the day. Obviously my brain is taking a beating without sleep. But it's all worth it.

Moss'less Vikes Suck it up

I wrote a post a while back stating that the Vikings made the second worst trade ever (2nd to the Hershel Walker trade). Yesterday they got a taste of what defenses can do to the Vikes without Moss. I expect more of these games this year, Tice has never been able to beat good teams consistently, and he only beats bad teams once in a while. So live it up Minnesota sports fans, no pro team will be in the playoffs this year. It's been a while since that's happened. I think the Vikings should take a serious look at Monte Kiffin, the Defensive Coordinator of the Bucs, as their next coach.

First week with Hayley

Everyone has been telling me to get ready cuz life is going to get crazy. Here's a quote from Nolan upon hearing the news:

Congratulations man! Where are you living these days? You know those bumper stickers that say "Sit down, shut up, and hang on"? Yeah, tape one of those bad boys to your head. It is now your new motto. Earplugs, Dramamine, caffeine, peace and quiet, sedatives, and a heavy dosage of "yes dear" have all become "must haves".

Well, so far this first week has gone great. I've been working about 4-5 hour days and finishing my work at home. Working instead of vacation saves my vacation for when I get back to MN so I can clean the house and get the baby room ready.

My lack of sleep has increased my jibberish, which I spoke pretty good before anyway. Now I have an excuse. Hayley seems to sleep better when she's sleeping in our bed, rather than in the bassinet next to our bed. She loves to be held which bolds good for Jen and I. We are already arguing (the fun kind of arguing that is) over whose turn it is to hold her. Hayley's a talkative baby already. I love listening to her when she's hungry. She rarly cries which is a bonus. I wonder if she's so healthy because Jen took great care of herself during the pregnancy. Who knows.

I've been taking on the major load of chores around the house so Jen can sleep and take care of Hayley. Other than that there's not much else going on.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we let our cat, Tigger, go to Jen's parents farm. The thought of all that cat hair around made me break down and let her go.

Comments are back

I was thinking about the comments and why Blogger wouldn't let you delete individual comments. So I did a little research, which I should've did in the first place, and I found out how to delete individual comments.

So comment away.

Shutting Down Comments

Blogger is a great site to use for blogging. They make everything simple and easy to use. The only problem is they don't allow the site owner to delete individual comments that I know of. It's either turn off anonymous comments or allow anyone. So after people are starting to spam my blog I'm turning off comments. Sorry to those of you who use the comment section.

Hayley's Birthday

Well the day has come and gone. Hayley was born Saturday September 3rd 2005 at 6:21am. She measured 8.1 lbs and 18" long. Friday around 4:30ish Jen called me at work and asked if I'd come home. Apparently her water broke on Wednesday and she didn't realize it. On Friday she wasn't feeling well so she went to the doctor where they told her that her water broke and she needed to be induced as soon as possible. So she spent Friday night with an IV giving her a small dose of Pitocin and around 5:30 the next morning she was ready to start pushing. Little Hayley had to spend the next 48 hours in Intensive Care as a precaution because of the possibility of infection. But all cultures came back negative and she's at home with us now.

Now it's on to looking forward to new challenges in life.

The Sea World

Jen and I took her family to Sea World. Sea World is my favorite park of all the Orlando parks. It was a blast as usual. They even added a seal show that made fun of all the other shows. Good stuff.

Getting home at 1:00am and having to work at 7:30am, not good.

Opera is free for a while

Opera is another web browser that is loaded with features. The only problem with it is that they charge money to use it or they have a free version with an ad-bar at the top. Well they're throwing a party since they've turned 10 years old and the best part of it is that they're offering free codes to get rid of the ad-bar that comes with the free version. I've used Opera in the past but I didn't like the ad-bar. Now that I can get it with no adbar I'm going to probably switch to it. One of the best features is the ability to shrink or expand any web page without distorting the page. If you're interested in it here's the link.

http://my.opera.com/community/party/

A funny worth blogging

This is a conversation using Net Send between Joel and I after the AC stopped working.

Me to Joel - The fans turned off for a couple minutes. You could actually hear yourself think.

Joels Response - bet it was pretty quiet over there in your cube eh?

My Comeback - Yes it was. My thinking machine is so efficient it requires 1/100 of the processing power of the average human.

Back from Orlando

Jen and I met her family visiting from MN in Orlando. We hit the Magic Kingdom and both Universal parks. It was a good time. Sunday evening I took them to Honeymoon Island and Clearwater Beach. Fun stuff, I think they like the area. Now if I can only get Jen to want to move here permanently.

Some hurricane clouds. 

Pic of the Jens Mom, Sister, and Brother. With a big wave in the background.  

Hanging with the Famdamily at Clearwater beach. Major waves for the gulf with Katrina running through the gulf. 

Nesting?

I got home today and our condo is super clean. The cleanest it's ever been since we moved in. I thought the nesting thing was kind of silly but maybe it's true. We'll see. The count down is on.

Last Expense Report

Today I turned in my last expense report to get reimbursed for Septembers rent. Wow, I can't believe it'll be my last month here in September. Time has flown by so fast. Before I came down here I treated it like a vacation, but work can make time fly by so fast. I wish I could take the Palm Trees back with me.

But on a lighter note. I have a couple rotational opportunities in MN. I'm quite happy that I don't have to worry about a position when I get back.

The Lightening Capital

Last night was proof that FL is the lightening capital of the world, or at least the US. We had a storm last night and the flashes were no longer then a half second apart. Followed by huge thunder. I've never heard or seen anything like it in my life. I wish I would've taken some video of it. I talked to people at work that live by me and nobody slept through it. In fact many were asking the same question "Did you hear that friggen storm last night?"

31st Birthday

Well my 31st B-day has come and gone. It wasn't quit as bad as my 30th. I guess I'm just resigned to the fact that I'm old and I'm going to only get older. I did get a free meal from the Kobe Japanese restaurant. I also got a card from a girl here at work that said "You're only as old as you act" so I'm guessing I'm about 21.

Happy 70th B-Day Dad

Have fun at your party. Wish I could be there for it.

93x Half Ass Morning Show

Moving to FL meant leaving the 93x Half Ass Morning Show. Probably one of the things I miss most about living here is not having a kick ass show to listen to in the morning. I finally found a show down here that wasn't to bad. Cowhead and Brent on 92.5 or something like that. Well I turned it on this morning and the show was replaced by some Jamacan music crap. I was mad. So I checked out the 93x web site to see if they had some kind of feed and I found one. Awesome, so I'm back in business. ROCK ON!!!! The Ass Man from Kare11 in the mornings, what more could you want.

Weekend Happenings

We hung out with the new OLDP's on Saturday for a while until they headed to the bar. It's kind of weird that we have 4 new OLDP's, for the longest time it was just Jen, Joel, Pardeep and I. Now it's a whole new crew down here.

We ate dinner at our neighbors, Lee and Breanna, last night. It was cool to finally hang out with them. They're about 25ish and both of them are still going to school. We were talking about having baby's in the future when Lee made a good point. If someone actually develops a teleport machine then why not give birth with teleportation. Something to think about.

And this morning Jen and I got up a couple times to listen for the shuttle's sonic boom . The first time we flipped on the news and found out it was delayed for 90 minutes or so. Then we got up again and found out it was canceled. So much for sleeping. I guess we'll have to try again tomorrow.

Later Due Date

Jen has decided to keep holding on to the baby for another week or so. At least that's what she claims the doctors told her. I think she's continuing to be selfish. Either that or she doesn't want to go through the labor thing after taking a class on it and actually witnessing what the some of the other moms went through. So now the due date is September 7th instead of August 30th for those of you keeping track.

31st B-Day coming up

Jen asked what I wanted for my Birthday coming up on the 13th. I said I wanted my baby already and that she should quit hogging her.

Other than that it's a slow news day.

US Shuttle vs Russia's Shuttle

Wow do these look a lot a like.



With all the news about the shuttle these days I thought I'd so some research on it this weekend. Some of the questions I looked up were -

1. Didn't Russia have a shuttle program?
Answer - Yes they did. It even flew in space and landed autonomously (without a human on board). Although they only did this one time because of budget constraints. Feel free to search for it under "Buran" or click the link I've inserted below.

2. If so what did they use for a heat shield?
Answer - Basically the same as the US counter parts. Keep reading.

3. What did they use as a propulsion system?
Answer - It's a long answer but they didn't install a huge engine on the shuttle like the US did, basically they relied soly on booster rockets. One interesting point I learned here is at the time they didn't know how to build solid rocket boosters like the US shuttles so they used the same technology from other rockets they built.

4. Could we borrow from their technology?
Answer - What for, they designed their shuttle from the blueprints of the US shuttle. For the most part the technology is the same with some improvements. If you're interested feel free to search for "Russian Shuttle" on google or click this link http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/spacecraft/q0153.shtml

Last 10 day recap

I've been on travel for the last 10 days or so. Jen and I flew into Minnesota 2 Thursdays ago. Jen went to visit her family and I spent the next couple of days in Alexandria for guys weekend. As usual it was a blast. Lot's of drinking and holdem. The temp was hot for MN so hitting the water was great (Although the heat was nothing like FL). Golf was not so great since I didn't bring my clubs, I ended up renting clubs. I can honestly say that good clubs will make a difference in one's golf game. Sleeping was rough, Josh is the loudest snorer I've ever heard and I don't think I slept an hour the first night. I ended up sleeping on the kitchen floor to avoid the noise. Scott brought some of the best tasting steaks I've had in a long time.


The great cigar at guys weekend

After guys weekend Jen and I went to a wedding dance and surprised everyone. Nobody expected us there. It was pretty cool to see the work gang again. I'm getting anxious to get back to MN again to hang out.

Last week I spent in Keystone Colorado for a work conference. The longest time I've spent in the Mountains before then was driving through Montana on my way to Seattle. Keystone is 12,500 Ft above sea level. I was winded after climbing a flight of stairs from the lack of oxygen. The first two days I had a constant headache but I fought it and eventually I felt fine on Wednesday. After eating dinner on Wednesday Josh bet me $100 that I couldn't climb a ski hill in under 45 minutes. There was a DJ setting up and he went in on the bet too and he chipped in $60. I'm not sure how high it was but I've never been so winded in my life climbing the hill. I made it in 17 minutes. I had a large group from the conference cheering me on and a couple guys marched up the hill with me in case I had a heart attack. Although they said they wouldn't give me CPR so I would've been screwed either way. They were breaking record high temps in CO during the week which I found interesting considering it was barely 50 degrees in the morning. In FL it barely gets into the 70's at night. Living in the mountains would be so awesome. It's one of the last places in the country that hasn't been over run by people.


Half way up the ski hill


Partying after the climb

Thursday was my first experience in white water rafting. Although I thought it would be a lot rougher than it was, it ended up being a great time. I was talking smack to the guide that I'd throw her in when she got sick of it and pushed me in. The water was a super cold 50 degrees but it felt good. When we were close to the end I jumped in the water and pulled the guide in with me. Revenge was sweet.

Friday was awesome touring the facilities where Lockheed assembles the Atlas V rockets. I wish I could've brought a camera in there. The facilities are as clean as a hospital in some areas. And it was cool to see the Russian rocket engines that are used to power the rockets.

We eventually got to the airport around 1:30. My flight wasn't until 6:30pm. That's a long time to wait for a plane and it didn't help when I finally got on the plane I had to sit by a guy that had major BO. But I made it home alright and now it's back to the grind tomorrow.

Dennis was no menace here this time around

The hurricane passed by us in the gulf. Although we got hit by a couple of so called feeder bands which are smaller storms that swirl around the eye of the storm. I took a short video of one of the storms but it's probably not worth posting here. Co-workers said last year one of the hurricanes that was heading north through the gulf took a easternly turn and nailed a community just south of here. The hurricane really put a damper on the weekend. We just sat in our condo the entire weekend. So that's pretty much the weekend update.

Pregnant Wife Syndrome

I learned something new the other day. Don't run out of milk. Here's a snipplet from an email my wife sent me.

Now my ? is when the heck did we drink all the milk???? Last night already or did you use the last of it this am. I walked all the way to the store to get cereal and fruit because we were out when I got back to get a bowl of cereal I found out we were out of milk. I am not mad just a little bummed because I really don't want to walk back in this hot weather. I feel like poop yet too so this hot weather makes it that much worse. Oh well. I am sorry. I am done griping now. You just normally say something when we are getting low so I had no clue. Well have a great Fri. Try not to work too hard.
I will see you when you get done. Will you be staying late or are you done at 4 like a normal Fri? Either way. Have a great afternoon.

Huricane on its way?

Well we may get to experience a category 3 huricane if Dennis takes a turn towards us. Joel mentioned that his apartment is on an island that's 2 feet above sea level. We Minnesotan's are well prepared though. NOT!! I don't own a flashlight or a radio of any kind. I guess I should maybe start thinking of buying that stuff.

Stay tuned.

Red Tide on the 4th

What is there to do on the 4th in FL. One could go to one of the numerous parks and stand in line for hours waiting to jump on the latest and greatest ride. We thought about it but decided against it. Well that left basically one thing left to do and that's hitting the beach. Well for those of you who don't live on the coast you may not have heard of Red Tide. I actually don't have a definition for Red Tide so I can't tell you what it really is. All I know is that it kills fish and lots of them. Now image thousands of dead fish on the shore rotting away. It's about the worst smell imaginable. I do have to give Clearwater credit because they work very hard at keeping their beaches cleaned up so it doesn't smell to bad there. However, they can't clean the water enough to make one want to swim in it. So we were stuck baking away on the beach. It was still fun though. After hanging out on the beach for 8 hours we heading out to watch the fireworks. It was a great show and we were only suck in traffic for about 30 minutes.

I missed hanging out with the family on the 4th though. There's nothing like anchoring a pontoon in the middle of the lake and having two ski boats pulling skiers and a jet ski to boot. Then lighting off fireworks on the dock at the end of the night.

Help me get a free iPod

Click on this link http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=15497605 and sign up for one of the free items of sign up for something that has a trial period. If five people sign up I get a free iPod. You can do the same after you've signed up get five more people to sign up and you'll get a free iPod. Just do it for the kid.

I think I just saw a big boat go by

Maybe it was Noah. Well someone knows something because we've got about 10 inches of rain in the last two days. Nothing unusual for Florida I guess.

Want Funny

Click Me

Shark Attacks

Two shark attacks in a matter of days. I think I'm done swimming in the Gulf for a while. I like all my limbs.

Random Power Outage Thought

We just suffered a power outage here at work. Although the outage was only for a few seconds everyone in the building was unable to work because their computer was powered off. I was not so unfortunate or fortunate depending on how you view it, I own a laptop so the battery saved me from the outage. But it got me thinking, how much does it cost when the power goes out. For every engineer in this building to have to reboot their machine and get back to the spot where they were it probably takes a good 2-5 minutes. Not to mention the loss of work. So crunching the numbers I'm guessing the loss of work cost the company a good chunk of change. (I'm way to lazy to crunch numbers) I just thought I'd throw a random thought your way.

Short Weekend

This weekend flew by really fast. Jen's brother is down from MN so we hung out with him on Saturday at Clearwater Beach. Sunday we went to Busch Gardens. Both Jen and I agreed that it was just as good if not better then Animal Kingdom. We saw some gorillas wrestling. Talk about entertaining. Two 500lbs creatures hitting each other over the head was pretty funny. There's also a lot of rides there too. This trip there was just to check it out so we didn't do much but walk around.

Then it was Monday morning and I'm back to work.

I'm not funny

I was told today that my blog is not funny. I guess I'm just not a funny guy, or all my funny stories can't really be told on this blog. I thought today I'd try to be funny. But I have nothing funny to talk about. So I thought I'd use a random thought from the OLDP Joel. Here goes.

Keep your socks high and your spectacles low.

An emu may look friendly, but its intellect may overcome.

If your fist is shaking, drop kick a ventilation duct

Baby Tour

Recently we toured the hospital where Jen will give birth to our bun in the oven. The room where the baby is actually born is big but soon after the baby is born they move Jen to a small room. But the baby gets to stay with Jen in the room so that's cool. This has been a crazy time in our lives. Living in FL and getting pregnant at the same time. But it's also exciting and a new chapter is starting in our lives.

Golf woos

Golfing took a turn for the worst down here. Last year I was constantly in the 40's. This year I haven't broke 40 once until last night. I have a whooping 19 handicap for 9 holes. Maybe lessons have screwed me up, but whatever it is I'm not doing so well. Hopefully winning last night by 7 1/2 holes will help. I think I have a good idea what I was doing wrong before. We'll see next match.

It's a sad day to see Pardeep go.

I'm trying to hold back my tears as I write this. OK that's a little extreme. But Jen is really having a hard time holding back her tears. (My wife that is, we all know Somers has forgot about you by now)

Anyway, Pardeep has graduated from the OLDP and now has to move on to a real job. No more boondoggles, now it's just a 5 day a week job.

Well Pardeep, I guess this is so long old buddy. As far as this picture goes, you know this doesn't work in snow right? I'm still trying to figure out what you were thinking leaving these days sitting on Clearwater Beach for Owego, NY. Anyway, it's been a blast hanging out and you'll have to make sure you visit before I have to go back to the frigid Minnesota.

Take it easy and enjoy NY.

Pics at night around Time Square just don't do it justice. It's amazing, blocks and blocks of super large big screen TVs. Not to mention the number of people around this place. 

I know where to catch the David Letterman show now. I will be back someday.  

Me, Josh, and Mickey in Atlantic City. I only had to break up one fight between these two. We never fail to go on a trip without these two yelling at eachother at least once.  

Back from New Jersey

Our trip last week was a blast. We went site seeing in Philly, Atlantic City, and New York. We got to experience riding on the subway and riding in a taxi. Taxi drivers in New York are the craziest drivers you'll ever meet in the World, I guarantee it. We asked the driver about what kind of maintenance he did on his car and he said the brakes are changed out every two weeks. That's some seriously crazy driving. I never thought I'd say this but it's crazier than my brother when he was around the age of 16-17ish. (Sorry Al) One of the funnier moments of the night in New York was watching P-Diddy get shot down by a girl. He walked up to her like three times trying to get her to come with him in his motorcade of like 4 large SUV's. But she refused. Anyway, I've posted some pics from the trip throughout this blog. (When I post pics the site puts them in what ever order it feels like, maybe I'll fix it later)

We also had lunch with Jay and Ben while in Moorestown. That was pretty cool. This ELDP program is great, we're meeting people all over the place. Josh, the only single one on this trip got two girls phone numbers. One on the train ride into New York and one on the way back to Jersey. I think he wants to move there now.

Well enjoy the pics.