Completely Lost

We finally finished the 4th and most recent season of Lost.  We started Netflixing the first 3 seasons last spring, but the fourth season we watched online because it isn't out on DVD yet.  We were able to watch it in HD online which was very impressive.   No lag time and short 30 second commercial breaks. 

So for all of you who have so rudely talked about Lost in front of me and I have shushed you, or held my hands over my ears while loudly singing "LA LA LA", you may now speak freely in front of me or better yet to me about Lost and I will gladly listen.

For those of you who haven't watched it, I highly recommend seeing Lost, it is one of the best TV series of all time.  I fought watching it for a long time because I thought it would be like the X-Files and just break my heart with a major let down by ending with some guy sitting in a cave smoking a cigarette and saying that the world was going to end in 2012.   I was worried until lobiwan informed me that the producers specifically said it was not going to end in disappointment like the X-Files and that they have had the story line mapped out from the beginning.

Thank you lobiwan I will never doubt you again.  I just can't believe that we have to wait until "early 2009" for the 5th season to begin.

Bad Day Addendum

Before reading furthure please be sure to read the post "A Really Really Really Bad Day or One Good Thing is...." first, as this is an addendum to that.  

This afternoon things were going better.  I started to get hungry and we didn't have anything to eat so I went to Quiznos and got a sandwich with soup to go.  As I pulled out of the parking lot it sounded like my back passenger tire was flat.  So I pulled over as soon as I could and parked in front of this nail salon.  Sure enough it was completely blown out.  No problem though I have a spare and everything I need to change it.  I tried calling Jenny and noticed that my cell phone was was almost out of batteries, strange I just charged it.  She didn't answer.  Oh well I figured I would have it changed in 10 minutes and be home in 15 anyway.  

I took everything I needed out of the trunk, yes it was all there.  I opened the side door so I could listen to NPR news while I took care of business.  After placing the jack I removed all of the lug nuts, then I jacked up the car.   A news story was on about ball jointed dolls.  Aparrently they are all the craze now in Japan and gaining interest in the US.  So I gave the wheel a good yank to pull it off and it didn't budge, no matter what I tried I could not get the wheel to move at all.  I wiggled it, I kicked it, I spun it, I cursed at it.  Nothing worked.  I tried calling Jenny again, still no answer.  I double checked the wheel to make sure I wasn't missing anything, no everything looked right, it should slip right off.  These women spend thousands of dollars on these silly dolls that I guess look like real people, sounds like the setup for a B horror movie to me.

Oh I forgot to mention that this entire time I am working on this, two women where sitting 10 feet away from me in front of the nail salon talking about me in Vietnamese and laughing.  I am sure it was a great time for them.

I still hadn't eaten my food, so I sat on the parking lot curb and ate my sandwich with my fingers black with grease and dirt.  With what I am sure is the last bit of juice in my phone battery I eek one more call to Jenny, still nothing.  So I called my Dad and it went something like this:

Dad: Hello.

Me: Dad, real fast I am almost out of phone batteries.  I have a flat tire and I am parked next to Hollywood Video, try to get a hold of Jenny and let her know.  I haven't been able to get a hold of her.  I am trying to change the tire but I can't get it off.  I have taken off all the lug nuts and it won't move, I think it is rusted on.  Any ideas?

Dad: Well you haven't jacked the car up yet have you?  You have to do that before it will come off.

Me: Yes Dad (In my mind that was a given, but apparently he has little faith in my automotive knowledge), I of course I jacked the car up...

We then discussed how I should walk to a nearby automotive place and see if they can help.  Which is what I did.  A nice man at the Jiffy-Lube gave me a can of "ZAP", basically WD-40, with the nozzle broken off so I had to push the spray stem up against what I wanted to spray.  At this point it has been at least an hour since I left the house to get a quick sandwich and come straight home.  On my way back to the car Jenny called, I told her what was going on.  She felt adequatly sorry for not having heard my prior calls.  I asked her to bring my hammer and a good can of WD-40.  She said she was on her way.

Back at the car, one of the nail salonists (posibbly a made up word) started asking why I wasn't able to get it changed yet and I explained about it being rusted on, but not to worry because my wife was bringing me a hammer.  She went in and brought out a big heavy hammer, perfect for what I needed.  Did you know that a really nice pair of eyes for one of those dolls could set you back several hundred dollars.

I sprayed down the lug nuts as best I could with the broken spray can and started hamering away.  It still took a surprising amount of whacking, but it eventually came out and I was putting the spare on when Jenny arrived.  I finished everything up, we returned the can of "Zap" to the friendly people at Jiffy-Lube and went home.  I stopped at QT to get a Coke on the way back.  Jenny had asked me to get a pack of stamps while I was there.  They were out, but gave me my drink for free.... maybe the day was turning around.

Some people go as far to treat the dolls like their children.  One woman interviewed explained how she had a 17 year old girl with dark hair and an 8 year old boy with blonde hair...  What a stupid news story, I don't think I really like ball jointed dolls.

A Really Really Really Bad Day or One Good Thing is....

Well the one good thing is that he had only had water and saltines since last night, but let me start from the beginning. Three weeks ago Jenny came down with this strange mystery virus. It doesn't cause a fever, or runny nose, or coughing, any of the usual things that indicate that you are sick. It just made her feel bad; body aches, tiredness, general malaise. Stay at home mom's don't really get sick days so for the most part she still had all of her regular duties in child care. I think I went in late a couple of days so she could sleep in and I took at least half a day off. After about a week of this you start to wonder if the person is faking it, that is, you wonder until you come down with the same sickness. Fortunately she started getting over it as I came down with it.

So for the next week I felt horrible with no visible signs of sickness, then on the Friday of Labor Day weekend we had a trip planned to Buena Vista Co. I was pretty hesitant about it since I was still getting over being sick and I was still very tired. But we packed and hit the road. I had a sore throat and was exhausted the whole time, but it was okay otherwise. Even after getting back on Tuesday I still was not feeling my best. Finally after a few days I came down with a full blown cold, missed another day of work some where in there, I think... it is all pretty foggy, and slowly everyone else in the family has come down sick now too. Except Ethan.

I wish Ethan was sick because right now he is screaming "DADDY, I AM TALKING TO YOU" while I ignore him. He has been crying for me to put on a show for him for the last 10 minutes and I told him not right now, but that I would do it for him later. That isn't good enough though, he wants it "NOW!". Before that he was throwing a fit because he wanted his yo-yo back, before that he was throwing a fit because he was frustrated with the yo-yo because he couldn't get it to do what he wanted it to.

Jacob came home sick from school yesterday with a fever and since he absolutely refuses to take any medicine he suffers through his high temperatures with no relief. At about 4:00 this morning Jenny got up and went to Dillon's and Walgreen's because her ears were hurting so bad that she wanted to get some ear drops. After she got back and laid back down, around 5:00 Samuel starting crying. I put a shirt on him, covered him up better and gave him some of the ear drops (Finally Ethan went away... wait he is back... Jacob threw up in the toilet, he is okay though), so after laying Samuel back down in the middle of the night I checked on Jacob and he was burning up. I took his temperature and it said 106!! I freaked out a little bit, brain damage begins at 105 (or so I have heard). I woke Jenny back up and ran to get some ice water. She took his temp again several times and it only came to 103, whew, that was a close call. So Jenny laid back down and I finally convinced Jacob to take some Ibuprofen. That is the best he has ever done with taking medicine and he slept until after 9 this morning because of it.

Samuel has this 6th sense of knowing when I lay down. After finishing with Jacob at around 6:00 I laid down and as soon as I shut off my lamp, WHAAAAAA. Samuel was crying for something again. This time I held him for a little bit and gave him some Ibuprofen too. He slept fine after that.

After we got up this morning things are mostly a blur. I remember laying on the couch and Ethan and Samuel fighting over who could lay where on top of me. I remember Ethan bulling Samuel several times and whining because he was hungry (yes I did get up and feed him). Then he started with the aforementioned yo-yo at about 8:30 and hasn't stopped whining or crying or throwing a full blown fit ever since.

Jenny's ear problem was only getting worse. She already had a scheduled appointment this morning that she went to and when she came back she was obviously in extreme pain. She took some Ibuprofen, some more sudafed to help clear up her sinuses and then she even took some percocet left over from when I had my wisdom teeth removed (I am sitting on the deck right now and Mason, our dog, just chased a squirrel from out of a tree onto our house. He is looking down at me and for a moment I actually feared that he was going to pounce on me. I could see it in his beady little eyes. Whew, he is gone now. Off to hatch another evil plan). Still the pain was not letting up for Jenny. So she called her Dr. and scheduled an appointment for about an hour later at 10:50. She wanted to leave right then, and since she was in no shape to drive herself I loaded everyone up in the car to take her. The kids were mostly still in just their underwear, I had to carry Jacob from the couch out to the car. We pulled out of the driveway and drove up to the stop sign at the end of our street and Jacob said, "I feel like I am going to puke". I put the car in reverse and started to back up to our driveway again and BLAAAAAH.... BLAAAAAH... too late. The one good thing is that he had only had water and saltines since last night.

So Jenny took my car while I cleaned out the van. Ethan then threw a fit because we weren't going with Mommy. Jenny called about 45 minutes later and sounded horrible, I could barely understand anything she said, just that the doctor had given her some prescriptions that she was waiting to get filled at Walgreen's. When Jenny got home later, Ethan had thankfully calmed down and she was feeling a little better. She said that she got in to see the doctor early after they saw her putting finger dents in the armrest of her chair in the waiting room and that when the doctor looked in her ear, she gasped in surprise to see how swollen the inside was and that her ear drum was bleeding a little bit. There was a pinhole in it that was draining fluid and it might get bigger which would actually be a good thing because then it would drain faster. She gave Jenny a steroid, antibiotics and some oxycodone.

Things seem to have calmed down for the time being. The kids are quietly watching TV, Samuel is playing nicely, Jenny is resting in bed and now I have to figure out how to feed all of us . I really don't feel up to cooking anything and fast food sounds terrible... maybe I will just lay down while I have the chance.

I am sick of being sick!

Icon of Christ

Tonight I took pictures for a friends family that was being chrismated into the Eastern Orthodox Church. St. George's Cathedral was already beautiful but this last week they put up this mural icon of Jesus made from thousands of little glass tiles. This is a huge mural up above the front intrance and they are working on St. John the Forerunner (John the Baptist) to the right of him and then they will start on the "Theotokos" (Mary the mother of Jesus) on the left, and around the corner facing the main street will be St. George (Saint George). They had to hire some guys from Italy who specialize in this sort of thing to create it. Unfortunately this picture doesn't do it justice.

If you stare at the tile on the top left corner of the Bible and twist your eyes just right you will notice a picture of the Last Supper coming out at you in 3D.

Buena Vista

We spent last weekend in Buena Vista, CO. It's very beautiful; completely surrounded by some of the tallest mountains in the world. Above is a composite of 6 pictures of one of the ranges. Mt. Princeton is the tall one on the left. The picture is more dramatic if you click on it to view a larger size.

"Mount Princeton (14,197 feet high) is one of the fourteeners of the US state of Colorado. It lies in the Collegiate Peaks, in the central part of the Sawatch Range, just west of the Arkansas River. While not one of the highest peaks of the Sawatch, it is perhaps the most dramatic, as it rises more abruptly from the Arkansas valley than the other peaks of the range."

-Wikipedia

Life of a Web Designer...

I have been designing websites professionally for over 8 years now.
You would think that I would have thicker skin than I do by now, but
it never fails to get a nasty response from a client on a website and
it throws off the rest of my day. Here is the scenario: customer
asks for a website, they give you little to no direction. You create
a rough draft of said website and email them a link to preview it. As
expected it isn't what they envisioned. Customer then sends you a
nasty email about how disappointed they are and, if you are lucky,
they then give you all the detail of how they expected it to look in
the first place, but didn't bother to tell you until now. You are
then left with the mixed feelings of frustration, anger, and
insecurity. Frustration that they didn't tell you how they wanted it
to look to begin with. Anger that they would have the nerve to put
all the blame on you rather than saying something like "This is a good
starting point but we were looking for something more in this
direction...". Insecurity about the fact that I should be able to
read their mind.

My first reaction is always to get mad, then I think, "I am
professional and above this, I am not going to let it get to me". Then
I start blaming them for not communicating better with me or not
giving me enough information. The best solution is always to give
myself time to cool off before responding in any way. Finally after
some time, rather than trying to defend my self and accusing them, I
settle on accepting it and send them a professional email explaining
how I will work with them until they are happy with the end product.
It is a somewhat humiliating process because I have to take the Burger
King philosophy of "Your Way, Right Away", the customer is always
right.

I suppose I am much better at taking this sort of criticism now than I
was 5-8 years ago. It only bothers me for an hour or so now, and it
used to pull me down for a few days. I guess that is progress.

The Fastest Decade of My Life, or Time Flies When You Are Having Fun, or Spending 10 Years With Your Best Friend

Today Jenny's and my marriage to each other turns 10 years old.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARRIAGE!!

If you have some spare time you can read about those 10 exciting years in Jenny's newest post here.

No Line On The Horizon

November 14!

Team Rip Your Heart Out and Shove It Down Your Throat

When we first started the season and they were assigning us to our different teams and coaches, I gave the lady Jacobs name and she said ""Ok, he is on Team Caring". "What?", I said. "Are you serious? Team Caring is the name of our team? That has to be a joke! Why not just call us Team Lame, or Team Rainbow Lambs and Flowers? You name your ball team after some kind of ferocious or noble animal like, The Lions or The Stallions, not Team Caring!!" Ok, I didn't really say that to her, but I did think it.

We never spoke of that name again. I don't even think the boys ever knew that was the name of their team. How could I reveal such shame to them. They enjoyed the season though, and as you can see they "won" medals. I don't know what they did to win the medals, seeing as everyone else received one also, but I think it has something to do with paying the $55 to play T-Ball. Now I only wonder if later when they actually accomplish something and win a medal it will mean just a little bit less because of this.

Last Game...

Ok really they have one more game. A make-up game on Saturday.

T-Ball

Jacob and Ethan started t-ball this year. They are on the same team which makes things easier for the whole family. I forgot to bring a camera to the first game so these pictures are from their second game. This week there was much improvement about not running to get the ball if it is on the other side of the field and then tackling everyone else in order to get the ball first. You can see an example of that in the bottom picture.

The games are pretty simple. We only play 2 innings. Everyone gets to bat each inning and everyone plays the field (it gets a little crowded). There are no stikes or outs and we don't keep score. I guess if we did keep score the team with the most players would win since everyone gets to run the bases.

Mr. Intense

The ball went right into his glove.

Jacob Batting

Ethan Batting

Not much to say

I remember a Seinfeld episode where Jerry walks into his apartment and hits play on his answering machine to hear "It's George... uhh, I don't have anything to say" Click.

Thats me. Sorry it has been so long since I posted anything.