Samuel Meets Johanna

Johanna is Samuels new cousin.

Samuel Falling Asleep.

Samuel after a long hard day. He couldn't even stay awake to finish his pizza crust.

The Boys on Easter

Just catching up on some picture posts. These are hip shots (meaning that I wasn't looking through the lens so they are more candid b/c the boys weren't expecting it) taken on Easter day.

3 kids = Showoffs :-)

Funny, I don't feel like a showoff, but I thought this was an interesting article in the Washington Post. Reading about the snobby and neurotic lives of the "upper-middle class" is enough to make me agree with Obama's crazy ex-pastor about avoiding "middle-classness". I did enjoy the below quote from the article though.

Three Kids? You Showoffs.

As for my husband and me, we hardly have unlimited resources, but we're still planning to go forth and multiply in the big city. The way we figure it, one day our children will be grateful for what we didn't give them -- and what we did for them instead.

My One Pet Peeve

I am normally a pretty laid back kind of guy.  Not easily offended.  In fact, you would typically have to go out of your way and put special effort into it in order to offend me.  There is one thing that gets me every time though.  Our email at work displays our names as "Last name,First name" so everyone glances at that and, without thinking, assumes that my last name is my first name so they call me that.  I am cursed to be the man with 2 first names.  When someone calls me by my last name, thinking it is my first name, it drives me crazy! I don't know why it bothers me so much.  Of course I don't say anything to the offender, I just bottle it up inside and let them call me that over and over and over.

The End Of A Rope - Update

(Reference Here)

There has been an amazing turn of events for my friend at work who's wife has been very sick for the last year. She has started to recover! She is learning to walk with a walker, so she is regaining movement and feeling in the side of her body that wasn't working. She is also getting her memory back. They found a dead spot in her brain that might have been the cause of everything, but the brain is an amazing organ and is apparently working around the dead tissue and "re-wiring" itself. She still has a way to go before things are great but she is now at home with I believe minimal supervision during the day and over all things are looking up. Chris was able to go ahead and sell the house with just enough to pay of the mortgage and Realtor, but at least it didn't destroy his credit.

Chivalry, Anyone?

I have always believed in being polite and even chivalrous when it comes to the fairer sex but there is one thing that has always been kind of a gray area.  Of course when you are with a lady you open the door for her, that much is simple, and if a woman is right behind you, going into our out of a building you hold the door for them also... but how far does that courtesy extend?  If they are five feet behind you, yes get the door.  If they are ten feet behind you, yes get the door.  But what about 15 or 20 feet?  This happens all the time at my work and I still don't know what to do.  If I just open the door and walk through letting it close behind me I feel like a jerk, but if I stand there and hold it open, what always happens is the woman then feels rushed and has to hurry to get through the door so that they don't inconvenience you too much... and I end up feeling like a jerk.   It seems like a no win situation.

This is just one of the many moral dilemmas that face men on a daily basis.  Another would be should we put the toilet seat back down in a public bathroom?  My feeling is, if it is a male only bathroom leave the seat up but if it is for men or women put it down.
 

Lost and Found

Mason (our dog) slipped out of the house on Friday afternoon while my mom, sister and brother were here. He used to run away at every chance but about 2 years ago he spent a night in the dog pound and then stopped running away... until the last few weeks. He ran away twice 3 weeks ago but he had on his tag which had our address and phone number on it so people found him and brought him back. When he ran away on Friday Rachel was pretty upset but Jenny and I said someone will just bring him back like they always do. We didn't bother to go looking for him because that has never worked in the past. Later that night my stomach sank when I put the boys to bed and found his collar sitting on their dresser! No one would be bringing him back that night.

Rachel and I went looking for him for about a half hour with no luck. Then I came back and made the above missing poster and Jenny and I put about a dozen of them up along the nearest major road. All that was left was to sit around and wait.

The next day I saw him come trotting out of one of the bedrooms, where he had presumably just fallen asleep and not heard us call for him... but alas I awoke to find it only a dream.

The dog pound would open at 1:00 and we could call them then but thankfully right about 1:00 I got a phone call from someone that had found him and saw one of our posters at the same time. He was still out roaming the streets almost 24 hours later. They picked him up and brought him to our house within a minute of calling us. It was a big relief for the whole family.

Sorry it has been so long.

Here are some pictures from the zoo last Saturday.

Not sure why Rachel is not in this picture.

The End Of A Rope

I have a friend at work who's wife has been very sick for the last year now and in the hospital for most of that time.  For a long time she was in a lot of pain.  They have "cured" the pain but at the expense of losing the ability to use the leg where the pain was coming from.  I'm not sure what the problem was or still is but I don't think the doctors know either.  Now she can't take care of herself at all, she can't walk, and she has no short term memory, she can't even tell you what she had for lunch earlier that day.  Thankfully she is no longer in pain and for the most part I think she is comfortable and content.  However the insurance has run out!  She can't stay in the hospital anymore but she requires 24x7 care.  She is only in her late 40's so Social Security can't help.  She was supposed to leave the hospital last Friday but there wasn't anywhere else for her to go so they still have her for now.  He has to "walk away" from one of the houses they own here in town and hand it over to the bank with the hopes that this will allow them to qualify for help.  This foreclosure will destroy his credit but he can't sell it b/c the money might disqualify her from Government help.  She has no living family and they have only lived in town for about 2 years.

Please be praying for Chris and his wife.  If anyone knows of any kind of service that can help with this please let me know.  He is at the end of his rope with no safety net.

IM Gaffe

Jenny said I had to post this within two days or she was going to. (Are there any other couples out there that argue over who is going to get to post something on their blog?)

So my co-worker/cubicle neighbor/friend at work told me this morning that someone had offered him a job interview down in Houston. He loves his job but kind of feels like he needs to get out of this town. So, later that morning, I heard him talking on the phone and actually setting up the hotel and car rental for this job interview - yes, while at his current job. I teased him over IM (Instant Messenger for the less computer savvy) about how tacky and inappropriate it was. That afternoon, he came over to my cubicle with his eyes wide open whispering about how he was trying to ask me over IM if he should tell our boss, or if I thought she would just fire him... I think you see where this story is going now... Haha. Of course he had accidentally typed it into her IM window!! Now he didn't know what to do. Quickly, we figured out that he should say, like he was finishing the sentence, "...about how I bawled out a customer and about that big wart on her face." Thus making it look like it was a joke done on purpose. Unfortunately, it took too long for him to come over and talk to me, so in the meantime she said, "I am assuming that wasn't meant for me." Oh man, even now that makes me laugh. I think he did what he could to cover it up, but I am pretty sure she saw right through it.

Another quick story about this same character. In a noble effort to save money on eating out, he decided to turn his cubicle into a kitchen. He now has a fairly large-sized mini-fridge in his cube, along with a toaster with one of those little egg cookers on it, some kind of newfangled meat pocket toasting device that looks like a cross between a toaster and a crock-pot, an actual crock-pot and some kind of thing that looks like an oven-toaster but is actually a microwave I guess. Today for lunch, he had Hamburger Helper cooked in his crock-pot. And yes, each of these devices is against company policy.

R.I.P. DRM!!

This is very good news for music!

Sony Drives Another Nail in the DRM Coffin - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Post Christmas Videos

He really wants to get the camera. I'm sure to put it in his mouth!

Extreme Close-up, Ethan Style

Help Wanted!

Do you need a job? Considering a career in computer technology? Then do I have the job for you!

Systems Analyst (aka Web Designer)

Plus you get to work with me! What more could you ask for.

Seriously though if you know webpage design then this is a great job. It is with a good solid company with great benefits. What you really need to know is Dreamweaver and html. Knowledge of ASP and javascript are important and experience with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash would be a good plus.