Kansas Is For Lovers

Or at least I love them, since they just won me some cizash in my work pool. Yay

Before We Went

Some pics we took before a night on the town

1825 Days

43,800 hours
2,628,000 minutes
157,680,000 seconds

I couldn't come up with a better title for this than you already have baby... 5 years. These past 5 years have been the happiest and most joyful 5 years in my life. You are the perfect partner for me to share my life with. I love coming home to our busy house with the choruses of "daddy! daddy!" and as much as I complain about being worn out by the kids, I can't imagine our life being any different.

I love how much you care about how my day went and actually pretend to be interested in what I actually do at work. It makes me laugh how worried you can get about your body image, I think you look amazing. I love how well you take care of the kids, people ask me how you do it (manage with 4 kids) and I never have a good answer... maybe I should tell them "because she is SO money"?

I knew from our first official "date" (first night Annapolis) when we both sang along to Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me" in the car as loud as we could that I had found the one. I'm finding it's hard to write this in the short amount of time I have here at work today without things sounding cliche or from plagiarizing your blog too much.

I love that you think my farting is funny.
I love that you laugh at my dumb jokes when no-one else does. (you love to LOL)
I love that you want to have 23 children with me cause you think I'm that "money".
I love that you are the whitest person I know. (and I am possibly the nerdiest?)
I love that you care deeply for other people, like.. more than anyone I know.

I love you baby for all these things and so many more. I love you more than this blog post traveling through the inter-tubes could ever convey. I can't wait to see what the next 5 years have in store for us.

Love,

Chad

New Hotness

Maria and I bought ourselves a nice, new, digital SLR for our 5th anniversary coming up in a few days (April 5th to be exact). We take a ton of pics and just weren't happy with the quality of our point and shoot.

Some pics taken with the new hotness (click for large version, blogger dosen't support the insane resolution these are at, but they get the point across).

This One is For You.. JH

Even though I don't shop at Walmart

I'm going to buy laundry detergent there from now on

OMG, WTF

2DAYWOOTOFF

PRODUCTIVITY AROUND THE OFFICE DROPS 37% DURING FRIDAY WOOT OFFS. EVEN THE BOSSES GET IN ON THE ACTION.. AND THE LOLCATS ARE NECESSARY IN TEH MESSAGE BOARDS.

IT'S EPIC I TELLS YOU, EPIC

Hey There Delilah

Mr. Ed Was a Hoarse

Just like my voice is today. I had no voice at all this morning when I woke up, and slowly over the day I can make enough sound to be audible (barely). I can whisper what I'm trying to say louder than speak.

And yes, I still came to work today. I'm pretty hardcore like that.

I'll Take 2

If I could have any car in the world at the moment it would be the one pictured above. A Nissan GT-R (Also known in other parts of the world as the SKYLINE). It is going on sale in the U.S. this June 2008 (just in time for my birthday, hint, hint).

0-60 in 3.3 seconds
1/4 mile in 11.6 seconds

If you are reading this Maria, I would like a black one.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

I always like to at least stay within earshot of the cutting edge when it comes to electronics and geeky stuff, it's what I like. I have been wanting a HDTV for a good while now, and while I understand that since we have cable we don't need to upgrade anything to get ready for the digital switchover, that doesn't make me want one any less.

A few days ago I ordered this for my PC, a HDTV Tuner Card that will allow me to watch digital tv and analog tv right on my computah. I had to go dig out my rabbit ears last night and try this puppy out. I couldn't find the power cord for my old aplified tv antenna, so my signal was dropping in and out, but once I found a nice position I got about 5 HD channels over the air. Watched a bit of Jericho.. then my jaw really dropped when I watched some Letterman. It was just so damn sharp and clear... looking forward to watching some sports on it later in the year.

I think down the road I am going to build a home theater pc and it's going to use one of these cards.

College basketball is in full swing now.. the glory of the bracket. I'm in a large work pool for this... Kansas and UCLA FTW!

Camera Phone

I got a new Phone. It has a camera on it (rare, I know). Here are some pics I took from this past weekend.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

So, it's official. The Maryland contingent of the Stewart family is heading West for the green pastures and cow patties of Missouri this summer. We are going to be in Warrensburg and the surrounding area from May 31st to June 7th.

Looking forward to seeing everybody (Tember, I'm sure you're the only one out there that reads this.. maybe Jenna too, can't wait to see you guys.)

And flying with 4 kids with a layover in Chicago should be interesting to say the least. And having to buy 5 full price tickets is fun too... we will be starting a telethon soon to help keep us out of the poor house.

That's a lock

I think we might need to put a padlock on everything. Clothes dressers, closets, refrigerator, bathroom, bedrooms, beds... everything. Maria and I are finding out firsthand how destructive and messy 2 & 3 year old boys can be. Pearl isn't totally innocent in this though, she did paint that nice mural on our upstairs hallway.

If you have a lot of little kids, don't bother buying anything nice for the house until they are old enough to grow a beard and vote.

OH... almost forgot. My bag of crap was really a bag of crap. I got an atomic wristwatch (not sure if it even works), a clown punching bag, reel butler, & digital camera bag.

CRAPTASTIC! DON'T GET THE CRAP YOU WANT, WANT THE CRAP YOU GET!

Maybe he's a wizard?

So Maria and I take the kids to our local Chuck E Cheese here in Salisbury. We print out a coupon and got a pizza, 4 drinks & like 40 tokens for 18 bucks... not too shabby. So we are heading out and getting the kids some toys with their tickets. The guy getting the stuff is really talkative, and missing most of his teeth. He's nice enough and tries to initiate small talk, and we return the volley.

We are heading out the door and the guy says "Have a magical night!" Maria tries her hardest not to bust out laughing and says thank you. As soon as we are out the door we wonder if that is what you hear when you leave Epcot Center.

Or maybe he had his ipod on repeat on this song?

When I'm with my friends then it's magic in the air-air
Good vibrations always surround us
Play some good music, the moment has left
Happiness and joy's everywhere-ere-ere

So have a good a time, everyone have some fu-u-un
People leave your problems behind you
Come and sing along, join in on my song
Sing about this magical ni-i-ight

Magic night - magic's in the music
It's a magic night - we all need the music
We can have a good time
And enjoy all the magical vibes of this great -
Magic night - good friends all around you
It's a magic night - magic sure will find you
So let's all try tonight to feel love
Coming from inside each other

When I'm with my friends, friends with whom I can share-are-are
All my ups and downs and betweens with
When I'm with my boys, the moments are clear
So much love is found in the air-air-air

Magic's when I come, together with my frie-ie-iends
People from the world all around us
Sharing good things we all love to share
So much love is found in the air-air-air

Magic night - magic's in the music
It's a magic night - we all need the music
We can have a good time and enjoy all the magical vibes
Of this great magic night - good friends all around you
It's a magic night - magic sure will find you
So let's all try tonight and feel love
Coming from inside each other

Ahh-ahh, ahh-ahh-ahh - so much magi-ic
Ahh-ahh, ahh-ahh-ahh - so much magi-i-i-i-ic
Ahh-ahh, ahh-ahh-ahh - so much magi-ic

Magic night - magic's in the music
It's a magic night - we all need the music
We can have a good time
And enjoy all the magical vibes of this great
Magic night - good friends all around you

This song completely encapsulates the vibe of the night. Especially the part about all the magical vibes and the music. I swear I heard this song playing in my head... it was magical.

"Ballad Of Cherishing"

I have become hooked on a website called woot.com. This website sells stuff. One item everyday. Sometimes the item is cool and sometimes it's something not so cool. About every 2 months they do something called a woot-off, where they sell a new item every 5 -15 minutes (however long it takes to sell out. I have all my co-workers hooked on it too.

Just this past week during a woot-off was able to purchase 3 items that are the hardest to buy items that they sell on their site.

A Bag Of Crap

I was able to order 3 of them finally after about 6 months of trying. They don't go on sale too often and when they do they sell out in seconds, (this past "Beloved Organ-shaped Candy" sold out in a bit over 6 seconds.. at a pace of one "Burly Overgrown Chevy" every .017 seconds... 4500 total). Each bag of crap is $1 and the shipping for all 3 is $5. Everything they sell ships for $5 and Maria and I have bought plenty so far. 2 Zunes, A Roomba, A Dyson Vacuum, A Zune Dock... the list goes on and on.

Well, back to the bag of crap..all they do is throw random stuff in a box and mail it to you, sometimes it is truly crap.. used stuff, broken stuff. Sometimes it's gag gifts or funny stuff. Sometimes it's something really nice... like really nice.

Should have it by the end of next week. I'll let you know what I get.

Peyton Manning Was There

Maria and I took a CPR class on Saturday at the YMCA. It's a great class to take, especially if you have kids. This class was by The American Red Cross & focused on child/infant choking & CPR. Learned a LOT about what to do in an emergency. I think every parent should take this class if they want to be well prepared for... an emergency.

4 hours + 20 bucks = worth it

Gullible Much?

Everybody reading this has a computer right? OK, I'd say probably most if not all of you have an email account or know someone who has one, right? OK, most people have received mass emails trying to scare/fool/trick/convince of some ridiculous scheme or point of view that seems plausible when reading the email. OK, great.

I want to share something with you from deep within my sources inside the inter-tubes (He sorta resembles the banker on Deal Or No Deal) At least 99.2% of those mass emails are full of made-up crap.

Next time before taking one of those factious emails and running with it.. try visiting snopes.com and maybe look it up beforehand?

Grammar

A sorta funny moment at Church Sunday... Maria sits next to me while I run the media most every Sunday morning. Phil (our worship leader.. who sings the songs) has taken over typing in new songs into MediaShout for me beforehand. Well this Sunday there were a few grammar mistakes in the songs and Maria leaned over and was like "that's not right".. I'm like "I know, I know.. nothing I can do about it now" moments later Jim (our sound guy) leans over my other shoulder and asks "where are all the apostrophes?"

I think for a second as said "You'll have to ask Phil about that" I'm sure Jesus LOL'd

And Barack Obama visited my house yesterday, left a bunch of crap on my porch and made me waffles

The End

Like I needed another excuse

I am an NFL fan. I love watching the games, I love playing fantasy football (maybe even more than watching the games). I like to root for the Chiefs.. as hard as that's been the past few years. And I like the Ravens plenty too.

Other than that, I generally root for the underdog in most sporting events. I was pulling hard for the Giants in the Super Bowl. Partly because I don't like the Pats.. I feel like they've won enough Superbowls the past 7 years... their coach is a douche and I just don't like how smug they are. I'm like that with all dynasties in sports.

Hate 'em

Like I needed another excuse

Stuph

Saw a few movies over the past week. "The Prestige" & "Children of Men" Both were excellent... the last movie before these Maria and I tried to watch was the second "Pirates of the Carribean" and we both fell asleep about 30 minutes into it (it was soooo booring). I've never been a huge movie buff.. but going on a good streak of movies like that gets you amped to watch another one. We really had no idea about either movie before we watched it... it's better when you go into it without any preconceived notions about how good or bad it's going to be.

Maria posted this on her blog.. but yeah, Pearl is potty trained. She's always shown an interest in using the toilet.. so one day Maria just put her in normal underwear and she didn't have an accident. Day after day of this and now here we are, only 2 weeks later and 2.5 weeks before her second birthday... potty trained.

I told Maria if Pearl was our first we would have thought Holden was broken. Pearl has never been hard to put to bed for a nap/bedtime... she's never bad in public... she doesn't like getting dirty (divaitis). So far we are a 5.0 on the Parental Richter Scale.

Upper Heavenly

So I went snowboarding up at Ski Liberty last weekend up in Pennsylvania.. had a blast. Didn't get to make as many runs down the mountain as I would have liked, but it was crazy crowded due to a majority of the trails and lifts opening up for the first time this season. They haven't had hardly any snow up there, but they've been making a ton of the man-made stuff. I went with Holden, my sister-in-laws (and their husbands, kids) and some other family. Us guys went snowboarding of course, and the kids went snow tubing.

Nate & Jason are pretty good skiers, but decided to try their hand at snowboarding (how hard could it be, they said). Our first couple of runs were pretty pathetic, we went down a green trail and each of us fell probably 20 times until we reached the bottom. Our next couple of runs got substantially better, I made it down only falling once.. and the other guys I was with were getting tired of running the same trail over and over (as was I).

So we decided to check out the backside of the mountain. We had no idea, but there were a ton of trails on the backside. All of them ranged from Blue (normal/moderately dangerous) to Double Black Diamond (I hope you have your will in order). We started our decent down the blue trail.. Upper Heavenly I believe is what it was called. It was really fairly steep and very bumpy. Nate takes off and makes good time getting pretty much out of sight, while me and Jason try not to kill ourselves right off the bat on this new trail. Jason wipes out pretty hard and I pass him.. I'm taking it easy, making big sweeping carves and just enjoying the quiet (the backside was WAAAYYY less crowded than the front). About 1 minute later Jason comes flying past me.. he's flailing his arms around looking like he's about to crash.. and does. It looks bad.. he doesn't move... I work my way down there to see if he's ok when out of nowhere I hit a big mound of snow and fall very awkwardly (and going rather fast on a steep slope) on my left arm. It twists back behind me and I feel a "pop".. sharp shooting pain down my arm and all the way to my shoulder. I'm laying on my back (still sliding down the hill.. can't stop.. too steep). Some skier stops to ask if I'm ok.. he saw me wipe out and my arm bend back).. he asks me if I'm ok.. and I tell him I'm not sure.

My arm is completely numb.. I can move it but not without pain... I'm guessing that it's dislocated. I sit there for about 2-3 minutes until I can finally get the tingelys back and I feel like I can make it down. I get going and see Jason walking down the mountain holding his board and making a grimacing face.. "I think I broke my arm" he tells me. I felt bad for him, he's vacationing from Florida and they've had a pretty shitty couple of days from the stories he's been telling me.. this is just icing on the cake at this point.

We get down to the bottom and meet up with Nate.. Jason finds a medic and gets driven to the first aid building to get it checked out. Turns out it was a shoulder dislocation.. but really that's worse news than a break. Dislocations take many more months to heal and sometimes require surgery later on down the road.

Otherwise I had a blast.. I wish we lived closer and it was cheaper to go.. I would go every weekend if I could. Funniest moment of the trip was when me and Nate were sitting about halfway down the front side marveling at the little kids that were tearing it up... I mean, some of these kids are like 8 or 9 years old look like pros out there. We see this one "kid" on his way down and I'm like "woah, check out this kid coming down" So we watch him go by... with his goatee and stubble.

I'm sorry if I offended you little person... you were kicking ass out there.

When all else fails... post pictures

All Nimbly Bimbly

Somebody Has A Case Of The Mondays

It Was Dang Cold Out

So the other night Maria comes back home from a trip to Baltimore. She had already made inside the house with Pearl and I ran out to help unload the car and bring Delilah inside. On my way back from the car to the house with my first armfull of stuff I see Maria is on her way from the house to get stuff from the car too. I get up to the front door and it's locked... the kids had managed to lock the deadbolt and Maria and I were stuck on a cold rainy night on our front porch. We started banging on the door and asking Larry or Pearl to unlock the door (since it was probably Larry who did it), but they had no idea what those crazy people outside were up to. We kept banging and yelling for the kids to open the door (we were surprised none of our neighbors heard us and came outside to see what all the ruckus was about).

So at this point we've been outside only about 5-10 minutes.. but we have Delilah with us on the porch and it's really cold. So I run around the side of the house to try and get Holden's attention, he's upstairs in the office playing a game on the computer. So I yell for him as loud as I can to look out the window at me.. and he does, but dosen't see me and goes back behind the curtain to his computer game. I yell for him again (this time jumping around like a fool waving my arms). It's pitch black on this side of the house but he eventually sees me the second time and realizes what I'm saying.

Holden comes down and effortlessly unlocks the deadbolt and lets us in. That little guy comes in handy every now and then ;)

The Tide Has Turned

I no longer want to be a Republican anymore

I Should Have Gone All In

Maria and I were driving around running errands and going shopping when we somehow got into a discussion about Gout. Maria said something like this "Isn't gout what sailors get on their necks? It's a big lump on your neck!"

I start laughing hysterically and tell her it's a foot problem and it hurts really bad, and that my uncle has/had it and told me all about it.

Maria at this point tells me how dumb I am and that I'm totally wrong (negating the fact that I'm usually right when we get into an argument about totally random things (like her thinking that cheese wiz came in the aerosol can.. it's not EZ Cheese, it comes in a glass jar.)

We are both highly competitive (in a friendly wifely/huserbandly type of way) and alway are like "We'll Google it when we get home", or we make monetary bets (sharing the same checking/savings accounts makes that funny) but this Gout issue wouldn't wait. I guess it was my joking about "What's that on your neck? I think it might be Gout!" that made her brake down and call her father. She calls him up and asks him what gout is.. telling him she thinks it's something that happens to your neck. He laughs and says no.. it's mainly feet related.. you're thinking of a goiter. We both bust out laughing and I hold my hands over my head for keeping my streak alive (and almost hitting a curb).

It ends up that she confused Gout for Goiter & Goiter for Scurvy. (do your best pirate.. arrrrrr!) lol

Vote For Delilah

http://bluebugphotography.blogspot.com/

Go this site above and vote for picture #6. If only because my arm looks spectacular in the picture.. or that my baby girl is very pretty in it.

Vote early and vote often... and tell your friends to tell their freinds to vote as well. Picture NUMBA SIX!!!!!!

Lack of Planning

Maria and I would really like to go out on New Year's Eve to enjoy an adult night out to bring in 2008. We only up until this past week or so thought about the fact that we probably would need a babysitter to pull this off. Problem is we don't have a heck of a lot of family down here and what family I do have down here just happen to be out of town that night.

Oh well... I'll just keep Maria from drinking 2 different types of wine and we'll be ok. (There is a story in that... but I'll save that for her if she wants to tell...)

Bank On It

So I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and all that good stuff. The kids had a blast , acutally at times it was probably a little overwhelming. We couldn't fit all the kids loot into the big honking expedition to bring home with us.

Maria, Hope and I went to our local IKEA megastore earlier today to go spend some of that Christmas money we received. I pull up to a branch of our bank that we've never been to so I could deposit the cash into our account. I walk into this new bank and I looked around a minute and something was missing. There was one lady working at a tiny little round table with a computer and a smile. She welcomed me and probaby took joy in the confused look I had on my face. So I wander on to the back where the deposit slips are and start filling all that good stuff out. I get done with that and now I have to figure out if this is a real bank or not because it looks like there are just a bunch of kiosks with TVs everywhere (well, not everywhere.. but like 6 of them.

So I go up to one of them and out pops one of these drive-up banking tube cylinders (you know, the type where you put your checks and slips and license and it gets sucked up the tube). So I put my cizash into the tube and off it goes, flying up into the ceiling. No idea if people other than the smiling lady work here. Next to the tube is a phone and there is a tv screen in the middle. I'm wondering if I gotta pick up the phone or something until a nice lady pops up on the screen to welcome me to the bank and asks me if I need anything else.

So this is probably gonna get rolled out to more and more banks. I can see why too, there is no way for a bank robber to get to anyone at this bank. It's just a shame that our world is becoming so impersonal though :(

Love the Lolcats

She Has A Point

Italian Food For The Ass

So we had a very busy second half of the weekend. We took the kids to basketball at the Y from 9-10am. Larry really dosen't like doing anything but passing, and Holden won't do things on his own when I am trying to help Larry. So we get done with basketball and we head on up to Baltimore for my God-daughter's 1st birthday. We hang out with family most of the day Saturday, and on Sunday we went to the party (which we had to leave really early for ANOTHER party 2 hours away). So we get there early to help out with getting the house ready and the food and whatnot. I get in the mini-van with Chuck, with what looks like red stuff all over the seat. The car wreaks of bad italian food and I ask him before I sit down if anything was spilled on the seat (it looked like a stain.. not fresh).

He told me "NO, we had some takeout that must still be in here somewhere" and that was good enough for me as I proceeded to sit in some nasty old italian spillage on the front passenger seat. I didn't notice it until several hours later when the wife is like "You smell like ass, what the hell?" I told her she was crazy and I didn't smell like anything. Until I got out of the car then the full bouquet of aromas hit me and it was bad... real bad. My pants looked like I had some sort of anal leakage.. nasty stuff. I had to change real fast and head over to the other party. Couldn't go to the party with that asstastic smell on my ass now could I?

Iron and Wine

So the holidays are upon us. Thanksgiving came and went (where did November gooooo?). We hosted thanksgiving this year at our house and it went off pretty awesome. Maria and I started cooking around 10am or so and we had the dinner around 2pm... or so we hoped. I had never cooked a turkey before, but I figured "how hard could it be" and waiting until it was time to get the bird in the oven to start to wonder what the hell I was doing wasn't the best course of action. I goggled about preparing a turkey.. what's this about removing the neck? The gizzards are in a bag inside? There is a plastic hook thing that needs to be removed? Do you baste the bird or season it at all? Do you cover it with tin foil or leave the rag top down?

The neck was interesting to take off. I had to basically break the neck (Maria could hear the cracking and popping and was getting really grossed out, while the kids took great joy in seeing their father snapping the neck of a large bird in the comfort of our home.

We made way too much food, and now have way too many leftovers. Thanksgiving was fun, it was really warm as the temp outside got up around 72 degrees or so. We had to open all the windows and turn on the ceiling fans cause it got so hot inside (or maybe it was all the wine we were drinking?).

I got a new computer game that is rather nice, COD4. My friend Dan is probably gonna get it and we will get back to the nerd paradise of online multi-player gaming until 1am on a school night. Maria used to give me so much grief for being a dork, but I guess now that I shower her with the "You're a dork!" comments she has subsided.

Why is it that every time Maria and I open a bottle of wine we finish it? It's nice, that some nights we can sit on the couch and watch a funny tv show or movie, and basically just have a glass and enjoy each other's company more than some hilarious tv show. Maria and I laugh at how people thought we wouldn't make it or got married too soon, or were too different personalties. I think we get along better than most married couples we know....or maybe it's just all the wine we've been drinking?

Camera Woes

Our kids broke our new camera only a day after our 30 day return window expired

how awesome is that

*cries*

Send In The Clowns

So we had Larry's adoption party this Saturday and I must say it was probably the bestest party we've ever thrown (that was kid related). We had a couple of party platters from Chik-fil-a and a friggin' clown came by to entertain the kids. It went off really well and it was the first major event we've held inside the new house (the floors didn't cave under the weight of 30+ people.. yay!) Pictures from the party below.

Smelly Used Car Salesman

Yeah, I'll get to why this is titled what it is in a minute. Today is Halloween, and we are taking the kiddos to our friend's house to walk around their neighborhood. We had planned going our our new neighborhood, but we'll do that next year. Only problem is we bought a lot of candy.. hopefully the kids are still out in our neighborhood after 8:30pm. I have been attacking the Sour Patch Kids, damn good! Holden is a Sheep, Larry is a monkey, Pearl is a Princess, & Delilah is a lion (I'll put up pictures tomorrow, honest).

I bought a 22" wide screen LCD for the computah yesterday at lunchtime, less than 24 hours later and the damn thing is already out for delivery according to UPS tracking... talk about a quick turnaround. It's great to have the best online computer parts warehouse only 3 hours away. Now it will be a little less painful when I'm working with long video-editing time lines in Adobe Premiere & After Effects.

Finally got my business registered with the State of Maryland and was able to deposit all these checks I had that I've been carrying around with me for the past 4 months because they were written out to the "company" (that didn't "officially" exist yet). I can't think of anything worse than trying to deal with any State or Federal government agency... such a pain.

So yeah, anyway... we went to look at some mini-vans (welcome to nearing middle age Daddom & Soccer Momness). We look at nearly every van they had on the lot, nobody asking if we need help or bugging us about anything, it was great. We find a couple that are really nice for pretty decent prices. We are not planning on getting one too soon, but we saw what we could afford and we were a little excited about getting one in the next year or two. Before we could get by the front door the oldest, smokyest old used car salesman snags us. Asks us if we want to get one and take a test drive. I'm figured why not, we are already here... maybe we could get one sooner than we think if the price is right and they treat us fair on our trade (har!). We check one out and I take it for a test drive, nice van.. good shape, low miles. I wanted to make sure it wasn't owned by a smoker... but that was impossible cause the Used Car Salesman was a chain smoker and the car filled with his smoke when he lit one up right next to me and my family.

Right about then is when we were pretty much not going to buy from this guy. Common sense would dictate that you do not smoke around a young family with 4 children under the age of 3 and you definitely don't get the smoke in a car they are potentially gonna buy.

To cut out the middle and go to the end. We let them work up an appraisal of our Expedition. The guy tries to get us to put pen to paper before telling us what our trade is and before we haggle on price. Maria asks him what the trade-in value of our truck is... we are floored. We basically just get up and walk out... no need to haggle here... it's late on a weeknight and we didn't really even want to go through all this in the first place.

Moral of the story is don't smoke if you work in sales and don't even bother trying to help us if you wanna take advantage of people like that.

I Gots Da Powa

I got a 30GB Zune a few days ago... love it. I got one for Maria too for Christmas. Holden has his official first day of Pre-K today.. he's as excited as a monkey eating pringles. Maria might take some pictures and I might post them if I think about it later. Until then, tootles

Reel Big Fish

No, nothing to do with the prominent ska band of the 90's.

Holden had his first day of pre-K today.. and seemed to really enjoy it. It was an open house so Maria & I and all the kids were there with him to check it out.

Just a few hours ago during our talk about your day and pray routine I asked Holden if he liked the Guneia Pig and the Goldfish in the aquarium. Holden shot back with "no daddy, those were real fish"... took me a few seconds, then I realized that the only thing that he knows called goldfish are these

They Need To Make Digital Cameras Out Of Kevlar & Granite

We have kids.

We want to be able to catch those "kodak moments".

We have kids.

We have kids who get a hold of things they shouldn't.

We have a digital camera.

We have kids who got a hold of our digital camera.

We need to buy a new digital camera.

--------------------------------------

Also as a footnote... I think Maria is going to be deaf (or death, if you asked Davey) by the age of 30. She plays things at very high levels, like NPR and various other audio that litter our hard drive. Well, she called me today to tell me our computer speakers blew out today as well. I almost pulled the trigger on a nice 2.1 channel Logitech computer speaker set a few mins ago, but I think i'll wait and use my old set of speakers I got hidden away in my computer parts box. Suffering will make the new speakers that much more appreciated.

*Note To Self*

Never jump up on Danny Bonaduce and dry hump him... ever

Great news for Everett

Many of you may have heard this already, but Kevin Everett (the football player that was feared paralyzed) now has movement of his arms & legs. Check out this amazing footage of him just the other day.

F@H

I just turned my computer into a folding machine. Probably have no idea what i'm talking about and probably wonder why you should even care (besides for me being interested in it). Basically "Folding @ Home" is a chance to let your computer become part of one of the most powerful distributed computing networks on the planet. It is based out of Stanford, and is protein folding.

Diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, cystic fibrosis, BSE (Mad Cow disease), an inherited form of emphysema, and even many cancers are believed to result from protein misfolding.

It runs when your computer is on (connected to the net) and isn't being used. When you jump on it to do something it basically goes idle while you are using it, then it goes back to work when the computer becomes idle again. If your computer is on most of the time anyway, why not have it do something useful that someday could save lives and make the world a better place?

http://folding.stanford.edu/

http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html

Bring Your Umbrella

Chocolate Justin

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Larry

You turned 2 years old today (Monday) and Mommy & Me are excited to finally get through this adoption process in the next few months. We love you, buddy.

Flippin' the Bird!!!

Birds (class Aves) are bipedal, warm-blooded, egg-laying vertebrate animals. Birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic period, and the earliest known bird is the Late Jurassic Archaeopteryx. Ranging in size from tiny hummingbirds to the huge Ostrich and Emu, there are around 10,000 known living bird species in the world, making them the most diverse class of terrestrial vertebrates.

And OH MY GOD CAN THEY POOP. Maria & I were sitting at the beach watching the kids play on a pirate ship playset... when all of a sudden AN ANGRY MUTANT BIRD PROCEEDED TO SHAT POO ALL OVER MY FACE AND BACK. I'm like "what the hell was that" as I feel this hit me...I thought someone ran by us on the boardwalk and threw something at me. I look at my shirt and look up and realize that one of those huge seagulls that everyone feeds thrasher's fries has decided to try a pinpoint anal assault on ME. I was sitting within a foot of Maria on one side, and our stroller on the other.

The bird COMPLETELY MISSED MARIA, DELILAH & THE STROLLER and just totally destroyed me. Maria couldn't stop laughing as I used wipies and desperately tried to get it all off of me.

If I ever see this bird again I will have my alka seltzer tabs ready

Possible Contestant on America's Next Top Model?

What a frickin' hoser, eh?

We have a large 5.4L V8 Powered Ford Expedition (extra smog edition) that has been running like a piece of crap for about the past 5 months or so. In my quest to fix it myself, I started simple... did some googling and found that it is a symptom of a vacuum leak. I looked and looked, changed out cheap parts of the emission control system & found a few hoses that were cracked. "That should fix it" I would say... but each time I would be monumentally disappointed.

I was getting ready to take it up to the shop so they could remove that $300 that is burning a hole in my bank account to get it running right again. Maria and the kids drive around in it every day, and it's worth it for their safety and my (and Maria's) peace of mind.

Well, last week I broke down and bought a OBD-II code reader (it was only $50 and it talks with you car's computer and it tells you what is broken, mechanics charge you $75 just to hook it up and read the codes.. it's paid for itself already). It came back with 6 error codes, all related to a vacuum leak. So I did some googling and found the problem in only about 10 mins of searching. I ran up to Ford and bought the new PCV Hose Assembly and figured it was worth a shot. I got home and jumped up under the hood and what do you know... this hose that is hidden out of sight all the way behind the engine was completely rotted and cracked in half. I put the new assembly on and voila! It works almost like new again.

Give me props people... I'm proud of myself for turning what would have most likely been a $300+ repair job into a $34 one... and still never getting any of my cars worked on by a mechanic.

Company Yacht

Not really. Me and the fam went down to our local Nassawango shelter and had some fun. They have a big playground full of Russian children and a shelter full of Orange Sunkist Sodas & Crabs. I took Holden, Larry & Pearl out on a two-seater kayak.

I had a hell of a time getting out of the kyak... I almost fell out into the water. I probably missed the funniest thing I would have seen in months... my buddy Ed doing that exact thing.

OMG

Maria and I realized that we never got in the ocean this year. We went to the beach like gangsters earlier in the summer, then we just stopped going. Our kids like the beach... only for the sand. We try to get them down by the water and they freak out.. all of them.

This past weekend was different though. Holden really started having fun down by the water. He would run down and let waves crash down near him while he tried to outrun them... a few times he turned around too late only to be knocked off his feet and washed up on the shore like a piece of driftwood (laughing all the way, ha ha ha). There was this other little boy down near the water that Holden played with nearly the whole afternoon.

And the best part was that nobody was assaulted by a wild stallion this thyme... although there were more ponies and deer on our way in and out than we have ever seen. There must have been at least 20 or so ponies on the side of the road. Or as Pearl calls them... dog-dogs

Couldn't Have Said It Any Better Myself

All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!!

Tokyo (Japan) – A Japanese game company is withdrawing its arm-wrestling arcade machines after several players broke or fractured their arms. 155 of the machines are installed in Japanese arcades and the company is blaming foreigners (non-Japanese) on failing to read the instructions.

I bet the instructions aren't in English? (or maybe they are in engrish?) Would make sense if this is why the foreigners aren't following instructions. I normally would stand beside my Asian brothers in this situation, but not this time. If I saw one of these machines I would do an All-American ROUNDHOUSE to it's face while singing some random Bruce Springsteen songs.



How many much nutrition do you know? I know quite a few actually!

Ghost Town

Man, there is nobody at work today. I am the only person in the back half of the building... it's so quiet I can hear the ticking of the wall clock all the way across the room.

I took part in my first fantasy football draft of the 2007 season and I got another one Sunday night. That one is real important cause there's money involved.

Maria and I had a verbal agreement that if this next child was a girl (she is) that we would be done having kids. Maria has since reneged and our agreement and wants "just one more". I think I need to figure out how this guy made his detachable so I can hide it from the wife.

She's Money

So far so good with all 4 kids finally at home at the same time. Sure it's quite an ordeal going out and doing anything, but it's not as overwhelming as you would think. Lilah is doing good, of course she gets up several times during the course of the night, but being that I can't lactate that really doesn't affect me too much.

I cut our yard last weekend and it's already looking like a forest again. What a difference a month makes.. our yard went from brown and dusty to very green and lush. Although at the time I was missing having nice grass.. now, not so much. We have a riding lawnmower that we bought for $100, but it has issues. I don't really have the time or the money to dump into it at the moment, so hopefully this fall or over the winter I can get it going or find someone to work on it if I can't figure it out.

We brought our dog Lucas back home after a long time in Baltimore staying with Judie. Before he got shipped off he and the cats were finding a harmony around our house. Otis would flex is dominance over him and Abe would hide in the laundry room until the evening. Now, all of that is pretty much gone now. Once Luke catches a glimpse of a cat he's off to the races chasing them around and sliding all over our hardwood floors. It's highly annoying and not what you want to wake up to first thing in the morning. At least Luke didn't get into any dirty diapers and shred them all over the floor (yet).

Maria's mom friends got her a flower/plant arrangement for having the new baby... actually you would think that they got it as a fancy snack for the cat because they've eaten about all of it. That's the sad thing about cats, you can't really have any plants or flowers around the house cause your damn cats will eat them and make a huge freaking mess.

She's here!

This baby surprised everyone and is a girl... we've named her Delilah Mae Stewart

She was born @ 11:09am

She weighs 8 lbs 0 oz

She is 20" long

And she's cute

8/9/07 - Write It Down

That's when they are going to break Maria's water. I'm just super relieved I don't have to play doctor this time... I mean I was ready to do it a week and a half ago.. but it's just nice to be able to enjoy the experience and not have all the pressure and worry on my shoulders.

We will be at the Special Beginnings Birth Center in Arnold (right near the Safeway & Fire Department off of Ritchie Hwy.) Give me or Maria a call if you want to see the baby... we will be stuck there for at least 4 hours after the birth, so we will have some time to kill.

No Newz iz good newz?

No baby yet. Many thanks for all the kind words and thoughts. Maria is going in for a sonogram today to make sure the amniotic fluid is still there and everything looks good. They did a stress test on Saturday and the heart rate was perfectly normal. So no worries... this Stewart is just setting a new record for showing up late for important events.

Full Moon

This baby is already two days late

Holden was 2 days late and Pearl was 4 days late

Maria ate spicy chinese food tonight

There is a full moon

Stay tuned here for pictures.. I will post a pic of the new baby here within the hour of birth.

LOGO

I guess I should come up with some sort of logo to put on my business cards and such for the new company I started up STEW*art PRODUCTIONS

I will post a few that I come up with over the course of the next few nights (or hours) and see what ya'll prefer. Oh and if you know anyone who needs video editing or any kind of graphics/brochure work done send them my way will ya? I'll straight up give people a 5% slice of what I make off of any work they send me way.. how sweet is that for basically doing nothing? ;)

Hit the Snooze

We have a bit of a ritual in the mornings. It involves Maria, Holden and I. I will recount this ritual as it has happened like clockwork the past two or so weeks.

6:00 -- Holden Wakes Up
6:01 -- Holden crawls into bed between Maria and I
6:02 -- Holden kick each of us in the backs and giggles and nuzzles under the covers
6:03 - 6:20 -- Maria and I are pelted with questions about random things Holden has on his mind, we retort with "be quiet or you're going back into your bed"
6:30 -- Maria and I can't take it anymore and I get up to turn on the Disney Channel (usually that clown show.. can't think of it ATM... and the TV is already set on Disney from the night before, because if we don't the first thing Holden will see is "Girls Gone Wild" commercials (because we watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report on comedy central before bed, and that's what's on comedy central @ 6:30 in the morn.))
7:00 -- the alarm blares some random reggae song we've never heard before, and Holden springs up to hit the snooze button so his dad can get an extra 10 minutes of sleep. Usually shortly after that Holden come in and tell me Larry is awake while I lay there super excited to be waking up to go to work.

It's hard to see Holden growing up so fast.. and it's true what people say.. kids sure do grow up fast. Each night before I go to be I go in to check on all of them and it's amazing how much kids change in such a short amount of time. Maria occasionally goes to baltimore for 2 or 3 days streteches and I swear I feel like I've missed a ton.

My favorite time with Holden is our evening talks. It's just Holden and Daddy time and we talk about his day, and lately he's been asking me alot about my day at work. Sometimes we talk for 15-20 minutes (Holden always tries to stretch it out even longer.. but I gotta draw the line somewhere or the boy would never go to sleep.)

Happy Birthday Buddy, I love you. Your Mommy and I are so blessed to have you.

Bored

I was going to spell the title of this blog "board" as an ode to my friend Davey, but I didn't want people to think I actually thought that was the right use of the wrong word.

I have been cranking out the work at work lately....only one downside to that. I get bored with nothing to do.. and the day drags on and on.

We had coconut cake here at work for Mark's birthday, we actually have a party each month for birthdays here at work. I have always hated coconut cake, except when Wayne's wife makes it. She must shred those freakers by hand cause it's really good, not that nasty, tasteless sawdust chips that most coconut cakes remind me of. I must find the secret recipe.

I started my own video production company called "STEW*art PRODUCTIONS" lame title I know.. but it's something to attach to my work.

I am getting very excited to meet this new little one we will have in our midst in the next 2 weeks or so. Maria is fairly sure it's a boy.. but I've been saying girl all along. If it is a girl then we are done having kids.. but if it's a boy I MAY give Maria one more shot at having another girl (that she wants so bad).

I have a ton of work to do around the yard to get it ready for Holden's blowout B-day party. Hard to believe the little guy is already turning 3 and is getting to be so opinionated and hardheaded. For all of that though, he is a very well behaved and thoughtful boy.. and when he does something and gets in trouble he takes his timeouts like a champ and really truly means it when he apologizes for, say: shoving his brother into the corner of a table, or smacking the back of Maria's leg with a piece of wood.

Baby Pearl

love this pic

This is Why I'm Hot

I'm hot cause I'm fly.. you ain't, cause you not

this is why, this is why, this is why I'm hot

Glutton for Punishment

I have a semi-big yard now.. it's going to be awesome when it's finished.. but as it stands now it has huge holes in it (we call them craters) and I am in the process of filling them with topsoil. I ordered 8 cubic yards to get things started, but the guy couldn't finagle his truck to dump it in the middle of the holey area... so now I'm stuck shoveling 5 gallon bucket load at a time. I've got about half of them filled.. the only ones left are the huge ones, and I need to have them all filled in for when we have the boatload of kids over to celebrate Holden's birthday next weekend (July 21st).. it needs to be flat so we can have a nice spot in the middle of the yard to place the Moon Bounce we are renting.

I'm also feeling rather handy and a bit cheap I guess, and have decided to build my kids an awesome swingset/fort in the backyard as well. I have been working on the plans in AutoCAD and I am going to start buying the wood and begin building as soon as I get a chance... probably won't be until after the new little one (Judah or Penelope).

Dr. V

So I had my dreaded visit with my new Dentist (from here on out Dr. V).. I have some crappy teeth.. several of them are in bad shape.. and I'm going to need several more fillings and one more needs to be removed.

I say one more because I just had one ripped from my mouth today @ 2:50 pm. I wasn't in any pain... He numbed me up really good (topical numbing.. then like 3 or 4 needles in my gums) He did a filling then had to yank my #2 tooth all the way in the back.. which wasn't a big deal anyway because there wasn't even a tooth below it so it didn't do anything anyway. The most uncomfortable thing was when Dr. V was cranking on my teeth I could feel my jaw bone flexing and I thought my face was going to split in half... but luckily it didn't.

Best part is I get to go back on August 7th to get the one on the other side yanked and another filling. I figured it's best to get all of this work done now, instead of waiting for it to get worse. I wasn't in any pain.. but any more waiting wasn't gonna do me any good.

Goodbye delicious soda... you will be missed

More than meets the eye

Saw Transformers the other day.. pretty awesome movie. I don't get people who try to pick this movie apart... it a movie about cars and airplanes turning into freaking robots. Just enjoy it for what it is.. awesome.

The most surprising part of the movie was how funny it was. Shia Labeouf was good in it too. Maria saw "Knocked Up" and said it was the funniest most entertaining romantic comedy she's ever seen. So there are good movies in the theatres folks, go out and see one.

And yes, Maria and I are officially an old married couple who see seperate movies.... (j/k.. I was in the mood for a little testosterone shot.. and what 27 year old who grew up with Transformers is gonna pass on seeing it on it's opening week in theatres?)

BLARG

Ifeelreallysickthismorning:(

BBQ and YOU

We had our first "get together" yesterday on the hottest day so far this year. On my way home the bank thermometer read 95 degrees... wow.. what the heck. We had quite an assemblage of food at the ready.. but we don't really own any chairs or any tables that are easy to get out the back door. We had no idea if anyone would show or not... one look at our house in it's current state would probably at this point draw drug-addicts and hookers (we call it the crack house.. cause.. well, it looks sort of like a high class one).

We have a pretty big driveway by most standards and we needed it. We had probably 15 people stop by.. so it was a rousing success in my mind. It would have been much cooler if there would have been a moon bounce or maybe a slip'n slide.

Next month (July 21st we are going to have Holden's 3rd birthday here at our house in Fruitland. We are going to rent a moonbounce and the easter bunny (a clown is just too expensive). So if you have a child who likes bouncing and rabbits.. make sure you come out.. oh, and a fondness of the "little guy" would be nice too.

Epson is French For Piece of Garbage

I'm sad to say that I was one to buy a CX4800 all-in-one printer/scanner last christmas. It has worked well (we've hardly used it) and now when I want to print it won't. It loads in paper all crooked and gets a paperjam every freaking time I try to print something. Luckily I don't have anything pressing to get on paper at the moment, but this damn printer almost found it's end being thrown out of a second story window onto my driveway. Instead I punched it in the face and mooned it... twice.

$120 bucks wasted... never buying an Epson again.

The Owls Have It

We are getting a hooters in Salisbury (the old Atlantic Book Warehouse). I now can die a happy man.

(I've actually never been in a Hooters before... but I can see my co-workers dragging me there sometime for the "wings")

ill communication

I think my cat Otis might be the noisiest animal on the face of the planet. He constantly "talks" to me in the morning as I go about my morning routine. A symphony of "meows" at different pitches and lengths... some mornings we have quite the conversation as we meow back and forth. He also constantly weaves between my legs.. I guess he's hoping that one day I will die in a fall down the stairs so he can dine on my entrails.

Maria has her Lucas moon.. I have my Otis moon..

I'm on a roll

One more post after this and I would have already posted as many times as I did all of last year. Of course I didn't have mini posts like this to cheat my way to victory.

Open up my eager eyes... I'm Mr. Brightside



One day I hope to have the expendable cash to buy a nice Digital SLR. Would anyone persuade me in either the Nikon or Canon direction? I already have several Canon lenses on my old SLR that will work with the digitals.. so i'm already extremely overwhelmingly biased.

Don't worry about me

cause I had a 5 o'clock shadow on April 8th and I rocked it hard

Maybe He's Just Happy?

I think my cat is gay

If you don't want to have a bad impression of Christians

Then definitely don't come out and watch them play softball in a church league. We played a church that threw a hissy fit that we were enjoying ourselves (not rubbing it in their faces) and winning (by a lot). Our pitcher is quite a character and does a lot of dancing between pitches. You are allowed 6 seconds from your first movement to make a pitch...the coach on the other team didn't like this (and probably didn't read the rule book) and threw his bat against the fence as hard as he could and stormed off. Way to show off that great Christian image to the children watching us play! He couldn't contain himself and called our Pastor and probably anyone else he could think of in the management of the softball league. I just hope someone reminds them that the pitcher they brought in later in the game was doing the same stuff to us as well.

It was fun though... I think we won like 25 to 12... and we up until the past 4 games or so hardly ever won, so what's wrong with going out there and having a good time? Our pitcher pushes the limits of the rules, but like the ump said we didn't break any of them.

The Hizzle

I promised some pics and commentary on the fruitland house about 2 months ago, and I'm going to try and deliver on that promise sometime soon. There is still so much left to do.. random details and a few major things, and we are also in the midst of getting a home equity loan to consolidate our debt and possibly build an addition to the house (a new master bedroom area w/ walk-in closet & master bath & 2 more bedrooms upstairs).

Holden asks me all the time "why did you build my house daddy?".. and I give him the honest answer "so you'd have somewhere to sleep and play", and then he always tells me he likes his house... which is pretty sweet coming from a 2 year old. He's growing up so fast now, he dosen't pitch a fit anymore when I put him in bed for the night. He used to bang on his door or manage a way to open it and would sit on the stairs listening to us in the living room. It's the greatest feeling now that I don't have to work on the house constantly and miss all the time with my kids. Pearl & Larry are also quite awesome in their own ways. I'll have special blogs on each one of them in the coming week.


Maria seems to think I was born with a hammer in my hand.. I'm not so sure I'm up for another major project that will inevitably go way over budget in both time and money. But we'll see... it will be weird to tell others that we have a 6 bedroom 2-1/2 bath house when it is all said and done.

We thought our cats were goners. During the night, Otis and Abraham escaped through a vent shaft in the kitchen (actually a window.. they popped out the screen and jumped 12 feet to the freedom field below). Abraham came back a lunch time the next day, but Otis made the most of his time carousing and didn't come back until almost 9pm the next day. I was just about to head out to look for him on some of the backroads newr our house when I saw him in the backyard. Maria freaked out and was ready to call the shelter and make reward signs. I knew he'd come back, he's my dawg yall.

Oh snap! It's lunch time.

The Stewarts

We had a fun little time having some family pictures done. Click the link below to bask in our togetherness.

Check out picture time at the pond

Baby Day Looming

For those of you who don't know I am the delivering physician for my daughter Pearl. She came out only 30 mins after Maria had the first signs of labor in the wee hours of the morning of Feb. 25 2006. There was no time to even warm up the truck and there we were having her on my Father-in-law's living room floor. It was one of those surreal moments that change you forever where everything happened so fast and it was so unbelievably terrifying with the nucal cord wrapped around her neck (my father in law still has nightmares about it) The chances are baby #3 is going to come out just as fast if not faster (how could it be any faster?), so I am bracing for this baby to already be popped out before I can even wipe the sleep from my eyes.

I'm thinking I need to start getting together a "Bag 'O Supplies" for this new little one. I need some help in what to get for this so called "Bag". I figure I need one of those mouth sucker thingys, some blankets and towels, shop vac, bottle of vodka, and maybe a self vasectomy kit to prevent this from ever happening again.

No, seriously though... I need some feedback. What do you think I should round up for a "In Case We Can't Get Out The Door In Time And Have To Have This Baby At Home Again Bag" or ICWCGOTDITAHTHTBAHAB (just rolls off the tounge don't it?)

Who we thought they were

Are you down with the Sickness?

I think I might have SARS, or the Birdflu, maybe something else.

I don't know what I got, but it's making my day at work really unproductive. I've never felt this bad and still actually gone to work.

I did it cause the nausea is what I thought it was! (not so bad really, just enough to complain aboat)

Mud Boggin'

So I'm working at the house last night, trying to get everything finished up for our inspection, when I look out and see my neighbor driving his truck through his backyard. He just bought one of those Toyota FJ suv/station wagon thingys and I guess he was itchin' for some off-road action.

With all the rain from the nor'easter (he had a foot deep pond in his back yard) he managed to get his pretty little truck stuck around 9pm or so. Me and Jake laughed and said "dumb ass" at almost the same time. You feel bad for the guy, cause I mean.. who hasn't got their FJ stuck in the mud before? We kept on working and would occasionally look out the window to check on the situation.

I would have helped him if he came over and asked, but I didn't want to get out in that wind and cold and rain if I didn't have to. A little after midnight he came over to borrow a rope, and I laughed a little bit because the only rope I had was really weak, but he was thankful and him and his roommates continued in their struggle to free the FJ.

About an hour after that I heard the "beep, beep, beep" of a tow truck... who couldn't pull him out either (he was in the middle of this pond, that was about 80 feet from solid ground).

Somehow he got it out, as when I woke up it was gone. That or the boogidty monster stoled it!

Cash Cow?

Most people don't know this, but I make pretty decent money on the side when I get the work. The only problem with this "sidejob" is that it's woefully inconsistent. Maria's boss wants me to make 15 of these things for him, and at $150 a pop it'll add up to pay off our uber fanci appliances (note: front end loading washing machine that Maria just could not live without). No, it's nothing criminal, and no I'm not ashamed to admit what it is that I do. It's just that I like to keep up the interest so you'll read this blog to then end just to be letdown (like usual).

Now that the work on the house will be completely done on the inside by early this summer, I want to get the word out and actually start a little business and see where that leads. I also have a part-time job as the "Media & Technology Director" for my Church

My church wants me to start uploading the videos and intros that I make for them to a website that lets you keep 50% of the profits... so in turn that will pay my part-time salary. But there is a part of me that says "Hey, I can just go do that on my own on the side and keep all the income, not just the 100 bucks a week church pays me. But then a part of me has a problem with that.. my friend Phil works in a part-time company "spinoff" of our church called Encompass. That branch of our church does media and technology for events for other churches, school, groups whatever. He does this and doesn't make any extra money for it.. it all goes back into the church.

So yeah, I have sort of learned how to use many a video editing, photo editing, graphics animation program over the past 2-3 years, and I see it as a way to help me and my family out... but I'm not sure how to go about doing it (without alienating people at church who I consider friends).

Death By Suds

I just recently lost something that has brought me hours upon hours of joy over the past year. I actually got it right around this time of year (it was my 3rd anniversary gift from Maria, she got an ipod). Our anniversary is April 5th... 4 years and going strong. We know now that if we can make it through the whole house debacle, we can make it through anything.

But yeah, I left my Zen Micro mp3 player in my pants pocket and it found it's way into the wash. I took it apart today and let it dry in the sun for a little bit and put it back together, still dead. I got a great deal on it used on eBay, so it's ok. It got me through many a night with my music to sing along to while working on the house.

So pour out a 40pk of CDrs tonight in remembrance

When I find time I'm going to photo journal about the house on here... it's done in a lot of rooms, and there are a lot of people that helped us out a ton and would probably like to see how it ended up.

Oh and we now have a fully functional sink and dishwasher, so now we can cook food and not have to eat out all the time!

The M-O-V-E

Yes, we are finally moving into the new house. The new carpet is going in Monday (3/19/07) and I get the rest of our appliances on Tuesday. Only the upstairs will be livable, but it's gonna be nice to finally be in our own home again. This past year has been pretty tough on everyone in the family. I just wanna thank everybody who came out to help at various stages of the renovation.

I will also have more time to donate to this blog to make it something special... so do what I do and synchronize your watches!

Stick a fork in her kid.. she's done

The sable has died. I was headed to the fruitland house and it basically starting pouring a whiteish blue smoke out of every orifice and died.

So long... you defnately won't be missed.

Anybody got a car they want to give me?

Driving Me Crazy

I hate my car. I have a hulking Gold colored piece of crap that I drag around with me to get around. Seriously, the car has major league issues with nearly everything a modern day American-Made piece of engineering brilliance is supposed to do. Here is a off the top 'o my head list:

Bad brakes - Check
Super squeaky power steering - Check
Cracked windshield - Check
Front Bumper is about to fall off - Check
Heat works only on days when you don't really need it - Check
Leaks Oil - Check
Leaks radiator fluid - Check
Windshield wipers suck - Check
The color is barftastic - Check
The trunk is full of crap - Check
The tires leak air - Check
The tape deck eats your tape adaptor for your Creative Zen Micro mp3 player, so you can no longer enjoy the swinging sounds of "The Rocket Summer" on your way to work and/or play - Check
3 of 4 hubcaps are missing - Check
The center brakelight dosen't work - Check
It stalls out at least twice in the morning before I get onto the main road - Check

That is just a quick glance of my pimp ride that I have the privlidge of calling my own. I just got it back from the shop, it died on me Saturday evening on my way home. It just completely cut out and all my guages went crazy. I drifted to the curb and tried to peek under the hood (I havne't taken either of our cars to a shop since we have been married), i'm pretty good with working on cars. I've replaced my radiator, water pump, alternator, oil, headlight fluid, thermostat, brakes, serpentine belt.. you name it. But I knew this one was an electrical problem from the start. usually something makes a lound "bang" and I can pop the hood and see something is clearly broken.

So the mechanic calls me this morning saying "I think your main computer and most of your other electronics are probably fried". Great... I car barely worth putting gas in is gonna need like over a grand dumped into it to work. I tell him i'll be by later in the week to get it and we hang up. He calls me back about an hour later and says "well, I messed around with it a little more and I hit the relay with a hammer and now it starts up.. but you really need to change that relay or it's going to do this again." Woo Hoo I think... maybe I can fix this myself... "how much would it cost to fix" I ask. "about $575" I'm silent for a few seconds and tell him i'll just come by and pick it up later today. "But you already got 100 bucks into it..." haha.. yeah, 100 bucks and 600 bucks is a big difference in my book... thanks but i'll be in to pick it up later

So now i'm driving a ticking time-bomb... I just happen to have a hammer in the trunk, so I should be golden.

Hot Damn

I found my way back to my blog. I don't necessarily have anything noteworthy or groundbreaking to entertain the 4 people who read this. I've noticed lately that i'm a terrible speller. My internet browser reminds me of this daily (because it has a built in spell checker, yo). I'm one of those cool kids who refuses to use a Microsoft product unless I have to (example). I used to bag on my boy dave about his spelling, but I think I'm losing function of that part of the brain or something.

And I would like to announce that my daughter is officially the cutest baby in the country. (It's official, so please no comments to the contrary.. see below for proof)















Oh, and Larry is quite possibly the future emperor of the galaxy, or something