Good Times and Noodle Salad

We're back from our thanksgiving holiday. We all had a great time with Becky's family in Huntington, IN. Evan, Aaron, and Ashlyn each got lots of love from grandma, grandpa, and Aunt Melissa; Becky and I got to play alot of cards and had plenty of help with the kids; and we all had some great food (Becky made her best pumpkin pie ever. it was sooo good.)

Other highlights include:
- "five hundred" score for the weekend: 15 hands for Dad and I vs. 9 for Becky and Melissa
- a new personal best for wii golf: 9 under par
- Becky and Melissa leaving at 11pm on Thursday to shop until 6am on Friday!
- and the Lions got demolished

Outta sight, outta town

I'll be out of touch with the blogosphere for the next few days. We are going to visit Becky's folks for thanksgiving. We always have a great time eating food, playing cards, and wii golfing; but it's like traveling back to the stone ages because they don't have the internet (how can you live like that?).

I wish you all a happy thanksgiving. And I'll hopefully come back with a few good stories to tell.

Thanks for caring.

Duel of the Fates II: Electric Boogaloo

While I was working this morning Becky got some great pictures and video of the boys sword fighting. No children were harmed in the the following media (at least, not hurt badly:)































Yes, Aaron is using a lightsaber

Happy Meal

Guess what I'm eating right now (for the first time in about 6 years). A Hot Pocket. Jealous?

taking it up a step

I think I achieved a new level of parenting tonight.

Earlier today we decided to give Ashlyn her first taste of solid* food. Evan and Aaron are really excited about being involved in her life and they wanted to help feed her. So we gathered everyone together in the kitchen and prepared her first real meal.

As a modern parent I prepared all the electronic devices required to capture the event. Becky, Evan, and Aaron started to spoon Ashlyn her food and my responsibility was to archive this historic moment. I recorded the action with our video camera in my right hand while simultaneously taking pictures with the same device and in my left hand I used our digital camera to take additional still pictures. Yes, you read that right... taking pictures with both hands and recording video all at the same time.

I have leveled up to obsessive "capture the moment" techno-geek dad.



*solid = mostly liquid with a trace of rice cereal

I'm Baaaack. For Gooood.

Sorry friends, it's been a while since my last entry. Been pretty busy lately.

One good thing going on right now is that I didn't have Jury Duty again. As you may recall, in May I was summoned for Jury Duty and went in, sat around for a while, and then was dismissed after a few hours. Then I received a "get out of Jury Duty free" card which is valid for one year for responsibly serving our state's justice system. However, the fine print says that I can still be called for FEDERAL jury duty. Guess who received that summons a couple weeks ago.

The worst part of Jury Duty is that for all the plans you have to change in order to move your life around this single date they might not actually need you on that date. So you have to call in the night before and they connect you with an automated system which informs you if you are actually needed. If they don't need you on the original date, you must call in each day for the next TWO WEEKS to see if they need you. Then you only have about 12 hours notice to drop/cancel/move everything in your life in order to report downtown.

So I called, every weeknight for the past 2 weeks. Today, Becky made the final call, and we both had a sinking feeling that I would be called in tomorrow. Thankfully I made it through and I can relax. It really was stressful to go through the past 10 business days knowing that I may suddenly have to change all my plans around with very little advance warning.

a quick word of advice

Evan and Aaron have discovered the joy of sword fighting. Fortunately at this point they prefer to fight me instead of beating the sense out of each other. I really like playing Star Wars or Pirates with them (then again, I'd probably play with just about anyone). As a result of our "fights" I feel that I am in a position to offer some advice to the future sword fighting fathers out there.

Every strike will hit your hand. As if your fist were an electro- magnet for swinging plastic edges. They are seriously unavoidable. You try to parry and block the blows, but the angles and speed are completely random preventing you from being able to predict the path of the oncoming sword. They couldn't be more precise if they were trying.

So, for those who are about to compete in the gladiatorial games of fatherhood, buy some hockey gloves. Or toughen up your hand by punching a tree Kill Bill style.

Save the Date!

January 21st 2009.

LOST
season 5 season premiere

3 hour event
8pm-9pm: clip show (essential viewing to recap the last 4 seasons)
9pm-11pm: 2 hour season premiere

(source)

I'm looking to upgrade my guitar this holiday season and I'd like to benefit from the knowledge and experience of those of you readers who are guitar playing types. I know you mostly get what you pay for concerning musical instruments, but I don't have much available for my budget ($300-$400ish). Any recommendations for an acoustic-electric guitar?

Pre - Teen Spirit

Not quite as angsty as the original, but very cool none the less

Election Prediction

Just got done voting. The line for my precinct was pretty short, I only had to wait about 15 minutes. I think that this race is going to be much closer than the analysts believe and we won't know the results until tomorrow.

Who do I think will win?


Obama

Dumars makes a move... finally

The big news in Detroit sports today is that Allen "practice" Iverson is a Piston. We had to give up Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess and a development league player. It's a big price to pay and a big risk, but I'm excited about the potential of this trade. During the 2008 playoffs I complained about the poor performance of Mr. Billups. He's been very inconsistent during the last several playoff series and rarely lives up to reputation as "Mr. Bigshot". When most of the Pistons were struggling during the first and second round we needed to rely upon someone to carry us through. Chauncey didn't get it done.

I think that we're getting Iverson at just the right time in his career. He seems to be past his selfishness but he can still break ankles. Hopefully Kwame Brown can give us a basic post presence (we don't expect much), and we can bring another championship home.

Plus there is a chance that we can get McDyess back if the Nuggets buy out his contract.

[here's a great article by J.A. Adande about the significance of this trade]

Eat your heart out DaVinci

Evan took part in Vacation Bible School this past August. During VBS they rotated through several stations throughout the day participating in different activities at each stop. At the "craft" station the kids had to paint a tile. This is the competed project as a whole:



This is what Evan painted. It's Jesus holding Evan.