Picky Bear

Baby pictures!!

2011-04-04T22:18:00.000-07:00

Well, just thought I should make a blog post because if I don't do it, I'll just keep putting it off and then it will be 6 months will go by. Well, I was just thinking and I don't think I posted any pictures of Josephine on this blog! My wife has been stealing all the pictures! Luckily my iTouch takes decent pictures so I can use it and the pictures are safe from here stealing them and posting them on her blog. Well Kayleen woke up with the mother of all headaches on Sunday so I did something very foolish. I decided to take both girls with me to church by myself. Since Josie is still nursing I decided to go to the latin rite nearby. For the first half of mass I was in the church narthex begging Louisa to behave because she was very interested in wondering around. Well, luckily Kayleen's aunt and Uncle were there and I spotted them after the homily so I joined them for the rest of mass and things were so much better. Louisa wouldn't let her great aunt or uncle hold her but she behaved a lot better. It's funny how Louisa takes her time to warm up to people, especially at church. Every sunday she doesn't want to go see grandma or grandpa but when she visits them at their house she is so much friendlier. Maybe it's the suckers. Well, I only talked about Sunday because I took these pictures Sunday morning.

It may be early but it looks like these girls got the same nose.

Josie is such a smilely girl! It's funny but I could get the almost 4 month old to smile but the 2 year old, not so much.

As far as the table goes, I finishes the routing for the table top and stained it but keep forgetting to take picture of the stained parts. Oh well, at least it gives me a reason to blog about something in the future.

My wife, the celebrity

2011-03-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

So for those who were not listening to EWTN radio today at 1:30, or to the encore show at 8:30, my wife was listening to EWTN and they were talking about valuing human life. I recorded her during the encore show. Sorry for the poor audio quality, it's from my phone and Josephine is talking in the background and Kayleen started making comments about her 15 minutes of fame. (Well this is just 5 minutes of it so far, so she still has 10 minutes.)

The caller after Kayleen mentioned a documentory called the Demographic Winter, which is about the decline of the human population and how it could be a bad thing for people especially when you have so many young people have to support so many older people. I looked at the trailers and it looks interesting but with 2 kids and the prospect of a house, (will talk about that in later posts), I don't think I can afford $20 on a DVD. I already checked and they don't have it on Netflix either. Come on!!

Table Update

2011-03-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since I've posted any news about the table I'm working on at my parents. With the rise in gas prices Kayleen and a minivan that is about 5 mpg (Okay, so it's not that bad but the gas mileage is worse than my little gray car.), we have found ourselves not wanting to drive as much. This and also the busyness of two kids and one child's demand to only sleep in familiar placed (i.e. only her crib and car seat and not in another person's bed or in the arms of mommy or daddy) has translated into fewer visits to family. Well last Sunday we went over and I got to spend some time even with my sister distracting me with a rebuttal documentary to the documentary "Super Size Me", called "Fat Head". I watched some of it but tried to save as much as I could to watch with Kayleen. What I saw was very interesting and definitely recommend it.

So with my sister's movie and my nephews to harass, I didn't get a whole lot done. What I did do was to route the edges of the apron of the table on my dad's new spiffy table router! After a few slightly promising practice cuts I moved on to the actual table and was pleasantly surprised when they came out looking great. I was using scrap wood for my practice cuts and with it being smaller and a softer wood, I found it harder than the actual cuts. Here is a picture of the apron:

What's left to do is to route the edge of the table top, stain it, poly-urethane it, glue it and screw it together than Louisa and Josie will have their very own table! Louisa is already very excited. Mommy and I will be able to have her sit at her own table for dinner and mommy and I will be able to have plates and glasses that we will not have to defend from a certain child who is to remain nameless.

Sorry if this post is randomly put together. I came in to write about the table and remembered the movie and needed to hurry to help Kayleen with the kids.

Ash Wednesday

2011-03-09T20:10:00.000-08:00

Well lent is officially here. Actually for Eastern Rite Catholics, lent has been here since Monday. I went to a Roman mass today so I actually did get ashes so it kind of felt like a double dip, I got an anointing on Monday and then get the ashes today to give me strength for the fast, so I should have super strength to avoid candy and soda. Here I am at work with my ashes. My hair is so long that I don't think anybody noticed them. At least no one said anything.

Even before lent started I was starting to ween myself off soda mostly because I had finally succeeded in getting kayleen addicted to soda (Which she is very bitter about since I'm giving it up) and also it is probably healthier for me. I've done google searches to see what the con-soda people say and looked for anything the pro-soda say. Unfortunately it's sort of a one sided argument. I'm thinking it's a conspiracy against those who don't drink coffee and are looking for a way to get caffeine. I like mint tea but they all say de-caf.

Well, I'll end this post with a video. I had wished a friend a happy lent but just got a strange look and disapproving head shake, so to really lift spirits here is a clip from the movie Spinal Tap. Unfortunately I can't embed the video so just follow the link.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-13T22:13:00.003-08:00

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Happy Valentine's Day to my lovely wife! St. Velentine, Pray for us!

I'm making a table!

2011-02-01T10:46:00.001-08:00

I'm home sick right now because Louisa, being th kind and sharing girl that she is, shared her cold with me. I know I can't be upset with her, this is just what happens with kids. I just to be less nerdy since some people think that a lot of the things I do are nerdy, I won't make a SQL table. Kayleen wanted a kids table that should look something like this when it is done:

Okay, maybe not. Maybe not even close. Kayleen wants a children's table and they are pretty pricey at the store so she asked if I would make one instead. I haven't done much wood working but I thought it would be fun. I'm working on it at my parents place with my dad and will post pictures of it's progression. It has been slow since I actually started it just before Josie was born and I haven't been able to get over to work on it much but last Saturday I finally finished the tenon and mortise joints. Now I just need to route the table edges, glue the joints, stain the wood and possible forgetting a couple other steps but shouldn't be too much longer.

Popsicle joke idea

2010-12-27T22:31:00.000-08:00

Kayleen was eating a popsicle and the joke was "what did the momma bear say to her cub?" my answer was wrong. My guess was "you are un-bear-able!"

Test of a gift

2010-12-26T21:43:00.001-08:00

Well it has been almost a month I think since I last blogged, or was that in November? I got an apple iTouch for Christmas and am testing it to see how well I can blog on it. So far it's a lot slower because I have to use the screen keyboard but this keyboard is light years better that my keyboard on my phone. The keys that I'm trying to type actually get pressed for the most part. The bad thing is that I can't add picture which is a shame because this thing takes pretty good pictures. I'm still not an apple guy bit I will admit that the iTouch is a fun toy. It's amazing also because I can watch netting movies on it!

Oh, and as far as updates, Kayleen had a baby, she has hair. Merry Christmas! And happy feast of St. Stephan for the west. The feast day is celebrated tomorrow in the eastern rite so I'll song the wren song tomorrow.

Favre or Farve?

2010-11-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

Pat, just let them man pronounce it the way he likes it.

Better late than never?

2010-11-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

I signed up for JibJab a few months ago because Pat really liked the card I made for him on their website but they don't let you keep the card unless you are a paying member. So I got some ads for their Halloween card and didn't make time to make one until now. I guess Frankenstein is always in season, right?

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

And here is the monster mash!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Happy Halloween

2010-11-01T08:23:00.001-07:00

I hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween! I know I'll be doing my parental duty and protecting my daughter from candy by eating it for her so she has enough room for her vegetables. The things I do for her.

Some dude went to Top Pot

2010-10-25T22:22:00.000-07:00

I work downtown close to Top Pot doughnuts, a Seattle icon and ranked highly as one of the best places for doughnuts in the US. (Well, some of us at work actually prefer doughnuts from Pike Place market and others like pastries from Whole Foods.) Anyways, on Thursday traffic was unusually bad and it was because Obama was in town. We joked about how Obama would have breakfast at Top Pot but didn't really expect it. Well rumors started going around that Obama was in fact going to Top Pot. I looked outside and saw where once had been a steady stream of slow moving cars was now clear and there was a man in a suit standing outside. Pretty much everyone in the office headed outside and I came out just in time to see Obama's motorcade turn onto the street. I pulled out my camera to watch him walk inside the store but to al of our surprise he walked across the street and shook people's hands. (Including me!)

This is my video evidence. My smart phone was being a pain and just recording Obama made the video corrupt and it took me a day to fix the video. The audio still doesn't work.

My family has been a little uneasy around me now since I shook the "chosen one's" hand. They have been more accepting since I did confirm to them that I've filled out my ballot for Dino Rossi.

Something to brighten your day

2010-10-18T21:45:00.001-07:00

On Sunday Kayleen had an Alter Society meeting which meant I got to watch Louisa at church. As we waited in the church hall I pulled out my cell phone to entertain Louisa, she can be pretty vain and loves to see pictures and movies of herself. (Well, it may be more of a fascination of seeing herself on a screen than vanity.) So I casually took a picture of her by putting the phone in front of me and trying to find the button on the phone to take the picture. This is the photo I got. I was pretty surprised because I couldn't see what I was even taking a picture of.

I have a smart phone so I downloaded an app that takes retro looking pictures, that is why the picture looks the way it does.

Busy week

2010-10-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

We've been pretty busy the last couple of weeks and so that is one minor part as to why I haven't been blogging regularly. the other reasons are that our computers are starting to become more and more buggy. We are probably going to need to buy a new computer soon. my computer is having a difficult time connecting to the internet and also it doesn't like having more than one program running at any given time. Sometimes it doesn't even like one program to run at all. Kayleen's computer needs to be replaced for several reasons as well, one is that she is running Vista. The other is that Louisa has kindly removed the extra keys...

Since my computer is not working to well, I'm actually using Kayleen's keyboard. I guess it just makes things take a little longer.

I plan on blogging later on Salmon days in Issaquah, a festival that I went to growing up and something Kayleen, Louisa and I went to last year and two weeks ago. I will end this post with the writings of JoseMaria Escriva that I happened to read yesterday.

"Saints and not abnormal cases to be studied by a modernistic doctor. They were - they are - normal, with flesh like yours. And they conquered."

Barbucks

2010-10-04T06:18:00.000-07:00

Louisa's vocabulary has been increasing so much lately. Depending on her mood she will sometimes surprise us with what she can say. I was asking Louisa to say some words and here is one she was pretty good at. I wonder why?

Sorry about the angle and the audio quality, I took this with my phone and didn't realize how they wanted me to hold my phone for taking a video.

Also, here is another deep thought by Pat.

I'm back - Deep thoughts

2010-09-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

I am thinking of giving blogging another shot. Looking back it was nice to see Louisa growing up so I think I'll give it a shot what with Josephine's birth coming soon. One of the things that might motivate me is to give these Deep thoughts by Pat pictures every now and then.

Oh and Josephine is due in less than 10 weeks! I've saved up my vacation time so I'll be able to take two weeks off! So I'll have 2 things to look forward to when the baby is born! I'll get to see what Josephine looks like and I'll be able to sleep in until 10, right?

Good day at work

2010-04-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry for my lack of posting. When I post, I like to have a picture or something but I have not taken pictures for a while so I haven't had any to post. Well, not I have a screenshot I can post! YAY!!!

So this last week my company is testing to release a new piece of software but first asked everyone in the company to test it out. They included some intensives to entice people to take the time to do it. One of the things they asked for was the best "sketch". The best doodle would get put on the temporary web site. Well, guess whose doodle won out?

My Snoopy drawing!

How to report the news

2010-02-28T20:48:00.001-08:00

I founds this to be very informative.

Louisa's Walking!

2010-02-22T21:39:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Louisa!

2010-02-09T08:47:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Louisa! For her birthday we let her demolish a piece of cake. She did get some in her mouth but she spread most of it on her face.

She was very happy

There she got some in the mouth

That is delicious! I want this EVERYDAY!

Kayleen and I figure that one day of cake a year should be ok.

Cancelled my insurance today

2010-01-27T18:38:00.000-08:00

Today I cancelled my insurance because I have been hired on full time at the company I've been contracting with since November. I'm going to miss my old insurace, for one thing it had an awesome name: Catastrophic Insurance! It makes you feel safe and secure knowing that if something catastrphic happens you're covered. Well anyways, I didn't really have a problem when I called up to cancel but this is what happened. (Note: I'm paraphrasing a bit.)

Insurance lady: Hello thank you for calling ######, how may I help you?

Me: Hi, I'd like to cancel my insurance.

Insurance lady: Ok, and can I get you're address to confirm who you are?

Me: Yeah it's...

Insurance lady: I have SE instead of SW, is SE incorrect?

Me: oh yeah, it should be SW.

Insurance lady: Oh, do you want me to change it to SW?

Me: Um I guess, but does it really matter if I'm cancelling my plan, does it matter?

Insurance lady: Oh, yeah. I guess not.

I should have called later because she kind of hung up on me, but oh well. And in case you forgot, here is a picture of my cute wife.

Data really bytes

2010-01-25T00:05:00.000-08:00

I don't know what is wrong, I think I need to work on prioritizing and start writing lists because it seems like I want to get things done but they never get done. Today, well really tonight, I have been working on checking things off like crazy. One thing I did was to register myself as a business. I was required to do so because I did some work for a friend of mine's dad who is a lawyer. Well, the firm couldn't pay me strait out or something because I didn't work for them so they had to pay me as a consultant, and as a consultant I have to have a UBI number, so I had to register as a business so I can get paid for working 4 hours. Nothing like bureaucracy to complicate the simple. The embarrassing thing is that I did this work last December I think? Or maybe it was November. But I've kept forgetting to do this paperwork since late December, but now it is finally done and my company, Data really bytes, is official. I'm thinking I should start advertising for it. Maybe start by spamming people for it. Maybe I could get my brother Ryan to draw a company mascot for me.

Also, another thing I meant to do a couple of weeks ago was to wish Katie a happy birthday. Happy Birthday Katie! Hopefully you can fly out here sometime and visit.

Feast of St. Stephan's Day

2009-12-26T23:26:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the feast of St. Stephan in the Eastern Rite (It was today in the west.) and it reminds me of a tradition that I plan on having my kids keep. I heard of this tradition from The Clancy Brothers and I thought it was a wonderful idea. They told about how on the feast of St Stephan's Day the Irish children would go out and kill a little bird called a Wren. They would then go door to door and collect money. It seems like a much better idea to have kids going and collecting money from neighbors than from me. Well, here is a Wren Song sung by the Clancy Brothers. I say "A Wren Song" because from what I've read it looks like Irish boys would have their own Wren Song and so there are many versions out there. Also, only the first minute of this is the Wren Song. I'm not sure what the other half is.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T15:14:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! Since I probably won't be on here tomorrow I thought I would blog now.

Eve of Christmas Eve

2009-12-23T15:01:00.002-08:00

I'll try to blog later but for now here is day 23 of the Hubble space picture Christmas countdown.

Wish I had started this earlier

2009-12-22T10:11:00.001-08:00

Today someone at work showed me this web page that counts up to Christmas days using Hubble pictures. Here is the link and here is todays picture.

Some not so holiday stuff

2009-12-13T22:46:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmas is coming and it seems to come by faster and faster each year even though it seems like stores are preparing for it earlier and earlier. Kayleen has finished most of her Christmas shopping and I'm just trying to locate my gifts. (Louisa is WAYY behind, she hasn't bought one gift yet! I've offered to lend her the cash but she is being proud and not accepting my charity.) My last post I posted in a hurry because Kayleen and I were headed out the door and I wanted to make sure I got something posted. I was planning on posting some pictures of Louisa but they'll have to wait. Instead here is a youtube video. It's how the Terminator movie should have ended. All I know is that I would see this movie if they were to make it.

Also, this was the comic from xkcd on Friday. (Sorry for the swearing in it.)

Return from my hiatus

2009-12-11T18:39:00.000-08:00

Well people have been complaining about me not updating my blog so here you go. Gina, I know you asked for pictures, I'll try and do that later but for now here is a Christmas blog.

Kayleen and I were recently talking about the 12 days of Christmas song and I was telling her that they days of Christmas all had a meaning and she looking them up.

"According to Ace Collins in his book Stories Behind the Best Loved Songs of Christmas, all these gifts are symbols of the Catholic faith that come from a time when the Catholic religion was banned in England.

Beginning in the Sixteenth Century, according to Collins, Catholics, including children, could be persecuted for practicing their religion. The Church of England was the legal religion of the land. “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was a means Catholics used to teach their children the tenets of their religion in a way unrecognizable to the English authorities, according to Collins' book.

To some, the idea that the song contains symbolism associated with the Sixteenth Century Catholic Church is pure legend: it has always been simply a whimsical secular tune, they say.

Below are the meanings Collins says were hidden in the song.

The “true love” giving the gifts represented the pure love of God. Each gift represented a major doctrine of the Catholic faith.

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

The partridge represents the courage and devotion of Christ dying for his people. A mother partridge will lure predators away from her chicks, even sacrificing her life for them. The pear tree symbolizes the wooden cross upon which Jesus died.

Two Turtle Doves

This represents the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Doves also symbolize truth and peace.

Three French Hens

French hens were the food of kings in sixteenth century England. Here they represent the expensive gifts brought by the wise men to the newborn Jesus.

Four Calling Birds

These symbolize the authors of the four Gospels.

Five Gold Rings

These are the five Old Testament books known as the Law of Moses.

Six Geese A-Laying

Here we have the six days in which God created the world. The eggs, from which new life springs, symbolize creation.

Seven Swans a-Swimming

These represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit outlined by the apostle Paul: prophesy, service, teaching, encouraging, giving, leadership and mercy. The swan, a graceful bird, symbolized these virtues.

Eight Maids A-Milking

Being a milk maid was one of the lowest jobs in sixteenth century England. Jesus came to save the poor and the humble, thus this gift represents Jesus’ love for the common people.

Nine Ladies Dancing

This dance represents the nine fruits of the spirit: love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Ten Lords A-Leaping

Here is a reminder of the Ten Commandments.

Eleven Pipers Piping

These represent the eleven faithful apostles who followed Jesus to the end and spread his message after his death. While there were twelve apostles, one betrayed Jesus.

Twelve Drummers Drumming

This is a symbol for the twelve tenets of the Catholic faith laid out in the prayer, “The Apostles’ Creed”. The drummers may provide the cadence for reciting this prayer."

http://folkmusic.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_twelve_days_of_christmas

2009-11-14T23:09:00.003-08:00

eally only be useful if I could use pictures as well.

2009-11-14T23:09:00.001-08:00

Sorry for my lack of blogging. I've been trying to blog on my phone but that hasn't been working. This is on my phone, but it's just a text. This would r

Google says what?

2009-09-16T11:06:00.001-07:00

I guess I should have clarified to google that I don't have an off road vehicle.

This is what it told be to do when I was asking for directions in Pullman. I was testing to see if it knew that a street went under main street, because on the map it didn't clearly show that the road does go under main street. Well, it wasn't clear because google doesn't recognize it as an underpass and if you are going to go onto main street from that road, google wants you to go through the bushes and up the steep hill.

Wedding with a side trip

2009-09-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Steve and Mellisa! Kayleen and I went to their wedding and we are so happy for them.

Here is a picture of the happy couple.

Before we went to the wedding we went to E's family's cabin. It was a lot of fun! Kayleen and I went inner tubing on the lake. It was my first time so E was kind enough to not flip me into the lake. E and I also got to take a romantic row boat ride. It was great.

Here we are at the lake. My mom came too so that Kayleen and I would both be able to go on the boat at the same time.

Here Kayleen is on the inner tube, my mom took this picture. When I got on, the battery on the camera died and so there is no photographic proof that I went. You'll just have to take my word.

Not sure why the order went all kady-wampus (A cool phrase that I think has become severely under utilized.), but here is the fam at the lake.

Here is Matt and Pat at Steve and Mellisa's wedding. The flame here is supposed to represent their burning love or something of that sort. (If you look carefully you'll see Matt is holding a lit match. That is their eternal flame. I personally a candle would have worked better.)

I really like my mom's camera. It's a nikon D60 and it's so much fun to snap pictures away, and they usually come out really nicely.

Let's go to the zoo!

2009-09-07T22:59:00.000-07:00

Today Kayleen and I went to the zoo with some friends. Thinking about it now, it has been over ten years since I've been to the zoo. In face, here is a picture from me last visit.
This was actually from the zoo in Washington D.C. If you look in the background you might see flying fruit because they were feeding the Brown Bear at the time. I had Pat take this picture of me because I had started using the nickname "michaelbear" and thought it would be cool to have a picture of me, Mike, with a bear.

Well, today's visit to the zoo didn't have any bears, but we did see some reindeer, otters, gibbons, elephants, sea lions (ugly sea cows), puffins (cute sea under-water birds), a tiger and a bunch of parakeets, which apparently are really budgies. The budgies were a lot of fun because they let anyone feed them (for a dollar). But it's pretty much the only thing they let you get right up to and touch, aside from the camel rides which were got to too late. (I'm not blaming anyone, just lamenting the fact that I couldn't ride around on a camel.) Kayleen was pretty nervous feeding them, it was pretty funny to watch, so much so that I thought others would enjoy seeing it too.

Here are some pictures from our day.

I can already tell that Louisa is a big flirt and that I'm going to have trouble with her and telling her no. I'll have to post the picture later, but now when she sees a camera she already knows to smile.

Here I am trying to feed a parakeet.

It was great how they let people feed them.

And here is Andrea holding Louisa for the first time.

It's time for baseball!!! Again!

2009-08-30T22:21:00.000-07:00

Pat was in town this weekend and we both wanted to see Griffey play one more time. Unfortunately, even with a rest yesterday, Griffey did not play today. Nor did Russel Branyan, Rob Johnson or King Felix. We did get to see Zack Grienke demolish our line up. He pitched a complete game 1-hitter. It was easily the fastest game I have ever gone to. The game was 2 hours 6 minutes. I guess when both teams combine for 6 hits, a baseball game goes pretty fast. It also helps when batters, like Mike Sweeny, get an average of 2 pitches per at bat. That was not cool Mike.

Here Pat is actually smiling. It was amazing.

He is a picture from the game. I was amazed at how well it came out because I just pointed and shot the picture.

Here is the Mariner bullpen after the game. You can clearly tell Aardsma with his high socks.

Also, Ryan, when are you going to add more drawings on you Duck with gun blog? It seems like it has been a while.

My special girl

2009-08-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

We recently went hiking on Mount Rainier but I had this video I wanted to post first. Louisa is getting more and more mobile. People ask if she is crawling right now and I find it hard to answer. She is and she isn't. She can get up on all four, but she doesn't do the normal crawling motion. Instead she just falls forward with a thump and then gets up again. That I guess is Louisa's version of crawling right now.

Our wild adventures to the south

2009-08-13T19:39:00.000-07:00

So this last weekend we went down to the wilds of Oregon to take part in my God-child's baptism. It was so great to see so many of my cousins in over a year. I also got to see my grandma, and Louisa got to see her great grandma for her first time!

It took us a while because Louisa doesn't know left and right and so when I told her to turn left she would turn around and glare at me. I keep forgetting she is only 6 months and doesn't know what left and right are.

Louisa getting to know her cousin Isaac. Apparently she gets to know people by grabbing at their feet.

Here are Gina and Isaac on the right and Louisa and me on the left. (I hope you're ok with this picture, Gina. Kayleen took two pictures and this is the better of the two.)

Louisa getting a few z's in.

Isaac was too.

Here is Henri and Louisa. Louisa has had some "stranger danger" and has started to cry when strangers, typically men, hold her. Henri was able to trick Louisa for a while.

Here is Louisa after she realized that neither mommy or daddy were holding her. She warmed up to Henri later on though. We find that it just takes a little time for her to warm up to guys.

Here is Isaac, clothed in white after his baptism. "All you who have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ! Alleluia."

I don't know why but this picture came out sideways. It didn't when I previewed it. I'm just going to be lazy and make you do the work. If you want to see the picture correctly, please tilt your computer monitor or tilt your head. Or save the picture and rotate the picture yourself.

Louisa got in some good playing time on all of her great-aunt's toys.
Here we are visiting grandma.
Here is our family picture before we left for home.

Here are some videos from our visit to Louisa's great-grandma.

Success!

2009-08-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

Well, my goal was to blog every day of this week and I succeeded! In case Pat did start up a pool, I'll try again next week. If you didn't Pat, then I'm free to take Monday off!

As for Louisa, yesterday we bought her a sippy cup of sorts. It's a cup with a nipple on it. We are giving it to her for somewhat of a toy and also a way to slowly introduce water to her. (Apparently babies don't have well developed kidneys and are not supposed to have a lot of water or else it will flush out their electrolytes.)

At first she used a no-hand method. I think that method only works when you have only a little water in the cup.

It didn't take her long to start getting the hang of it.

... and then to get bored of it.

Also, I forgot to post this link yesterday. This is the place where I found the information out about the White house snitch site. Also, here is a link so you can read the health care bill itself. I'm planning on reading it so that I can state definitively what I do and don't like about what is in the bill.

Sunsets

2009-08-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

With all of that hot weather we had, it made some beautiful sunsets.

Here is one I tried the panoramic feature on my camera.

Here is another one, but it's not quite a sunset I guess. It was pretty amazing though, you could almost look right at the sun. (And don't think just because it didn't hurt to look at the sun, that I did look at it. I know that it was still dangerous to look directly at the sun.) This is taken through the screen door and it give the sun the burning cross.

This is without the screen door.

And here is the same sunset zoomed out.

And finally, here is Louisa, or at least what Louisa will look like when she gets hair. The hair is actually Kayleen's. Uncle Pat wants us to look into buying a wig for Louisa, to build up her self esteem. I'm not sure if I should put this to a vote on my blog or not, since this "wig" gives Louisa an Andy Warhol look.

Politics

2009-08-05T17:21:00.000-07:00

With all of the news about health care, I thought I would put out an entry on the subject. I guess I should be a little worried about saying anything about the subject because if I speak out against Obama on the subject, someone could report me to the Whitehouse. This is a quote from the white house website:
"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

I think this was partly in response to Matt Drudge posting a link to this video on his website:

There is also a video on the white house website showing the link to this video and saying how it is misleading in saying how they recut the video to make it look like Obama's goal is to get a single payer health care system in place. I don't see how it's misleading when that is exactly what Obama says in the video "I happen to be a proponent of single payer healthcare system." The gal in the White house claims that the video is a lie and shows video of Obama this year saying that American's with the current bill on the table would allow people to continue with their current health care prividers, but that fails to address what he said in the video. Has Obama changed his stance on the issue now? He states in the video he would have a transition to a single payer system, so is this bill the transition to single payer?

Here are some videos from a guy I found on youtube a while ago. He is a conservative comedian and here is a video he did about the Canadian health care system. (Just a warning, this video is 20 minutes long.)

This is an earlier video he had done just talking about health care. (This video is about 3 min.)

Happy Anniversary mom and dad!

2009-08-04T10:57:00.000-07:00

Today is my parents wedding anniversary! Happy anniversary mom and dad! (I don't have a wedding picture from their wedding on my computer. I might try and scan one later today.)

Also today is the anniversary of Kayleen and my first date. (I didn't plan on it being this date, it was the best day for Kayleen.) Here is a picture from when we were dating. We went and saw Gaelic Storm, it was a great show. (This picture is so old, I still had my mole.)
These are excerpts from emails between Kayleen and I of me asking Kayleen out.
ME: Do you think you would be available to hang out sometime?

KAYLEEN: I may be able to do something with you, will you plan something and invite me?

ME: Did you want to do something Wed or Fri night? Do you like to play pool?

KAYLEEN: Pool sounds like a fine idea. I can't say with certainty that I will have Friday evening off, but it's a possibility.

I'm not sure if Kayleen was playing hard to get or what. She insists that she did want to go out with me. I guess God blesses the stubborn.

Movies

2009-08-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

Kayleen and I found out that you can still go see a movie even with a baby. If you go to a drive in movie theater, no one cares if the baby is screaming because she only stopping her parents from watching the movie. The drive in had some decent movies out. We saw the new Harry Potter movie, which I felt very uncomfortable throughout it. I felt the movie was mostly about teenagers with raging hormones. The other movie was the new Zack Efron flick "17 Again." I wont say to much about it since I know Pat has not seen it, but I thought it was pretty original. Now on with the pictures.

Here is Louisa at the drive in. She preferred to be outside of the hot car.

Recently Kayleen and I trimmed some ivy. Since Kayleen and I had to work, we felt that Louisa should too. She doesn't get free room and board.

Louisa went in a swing for the first time on Sunday.

At first she didn't show much emotion but she soon started laughing and was having a good time.

Goal for the week

2009-08-02T22:44:00.000-07:00

Wow, I need to stop talking about it but I haven't blogged since the 24th! Where has the time gone? It didn't seem like it was that long ago when I did blog. I have a bunch of pictures that I have failed to post so this week my goal is to try and blog every day. We will see how long it takes for me to fail. I'm guessing I'll forget to post on Tuesday. Pat, feel free to start a pool.

I'm so proud of Louisa. Here she is watching some Sports Center. I'm thinking she will be kind to her younger brother and let them watch sports shows instead of tying up the tv and watching cooking shows and TCL.

Here is Louisa in the car. I can't remember who took this picture, all I know is that she looks so cute.

And for my last picture, Kayleen and I stopped at KFC and ate. When we left I saw this and thought "What did someone do to my car!!!!"

After the initial shock I then realized that my car is the car beyound that car. I was thinking about sending this picture to my mom but I didn't want to give her a heart attack. Your welcome mom.

Louisa's first solid food

2009-07-24T22:51:00.000-07:00

Louisa is really growing up fast. Last week we gave Louisa her first meal of something other than mommy's milk. (Well, actually it was rice cereal made with mommy's milk.) She is getting used to the spoon, right now she still needs to open her mouth a little more. It seems like she gets more on her face and on the floor than she does in her mouth. But we know she is getting enough to eat because Louisa is finally gaining weight at a normal rate. She has been gaining about an ounce a day for this whole week! Lou is up to 13 lbs 14.5 ounces! We are hoping she moves above the 17 percentile in the weight department. I am missing having a light baby though. It seems like the difference between a 12 pound baby and a 13 pound baby is huge! It seemed like I could carry Louisa all day when she was 12 pounds and now at almost 14 she really puts wear on a person's back.

Busy week

2009-07-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

I always seem to be making excuses as to why I haven't blogged. Really it's because I keep putting it off, but this week it seems that Louisa has been taking up all my time.

Louisa and I spent a lot of time saying lines from our favorite movies. Here she is doing the scream from Home Alone. (To be fair, Louisa was more acting our movies that I knew about and am assuming she will like one day. We have not been having her watch hours of tv everyday.)

Here I'm training Louisa to be a formidable xbox player. She really needs to practice more and spend less time eating the controller. I don't think xbox expected their controllers to need to be drool proof.Lastly we took photos to see what Louisa would look like with a huge body or what I would look like with a small head. Not really sure. I just know that it's weird.

My Child Prodigy

2009-07-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

I bought some blocks for Louisa today and look what she did with them!

I may have helped a little.

Vacation time!

2009-07-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

These pictures are from our family vacation at the beginning of the the month. I'm just getting around to posting them.

Since Daddy is out of work, we decided that it was a good time to take a family vacation! Time for some fun in the sun!

We stopped by a river to eat lunch. Some kids were doing cannonballs into the water. I'm pretty sure they were crazy because the river is freshly melted glacial water and was freezing!

Every building in the town is built with this Bavarian style, even the gas stations, fast food places (Like McDonalds and Starbucks).

And here is the Starbucks we just had to visit.

The hotel had a putt putt course that they let guests use free.

Here we are on our drive up to the mountains.

Here is an overall view of the putt putt course. As you have probably noticed, these pictures are not in order. I'm not sure if blogspot sorts them for you when you upload them or what, but I could have sworn I uploaded them in the right order. I'll just blame blogspot. It's easier than admitting that it was my own fault.

And finally here is a family picture. Louisa was much happier than she looks in the picture. I promise.

I'm doing all I can

2009-07-09T14:18:00.000-07:00

Kayleen likes donating as much of me as she can so yesterday I went and gave blood. (Not only because Kayleen wanted me to but the blood bank would not stop hounding me for my blood. I'm hoping it's because they could actually use it.)

Here is my precious blood going bye bye.

We also volunteered to clean church this week. At our church if you are strong enough to carry a duster, you are strong enough to work. We don't really care about child labor laws so we but Louisa to work dusting the church. She did an ok job for her age, but we are hoping she improves as she gets older.

Technical Help

2009-07-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

Well I guess I need to be a little more careful on the tags I put on my blog. My last entry I put a tag saying "Job Search" and I think some guy did a web crawl for blogs with this in their tags and automatically posted to my blog. I thought the blogger server required people to enter in those messages to prevent people from doing something like that. Oh well.

Also, I saw this Dilbert comic and it used to make me want to get a job in technical support. I can safely say that after a job at Safeway and in my latest contract position, any such dreams have quickly died away.

Mostly they died away because I would never be able to give advice to people. I'm also afraid that I might tell people they have an ID-10T problem. A guy I worked with told me that tech support people would tell people they had an ID-10T problem for special cases. (Like not being able to find the "Any" key or needing help turning on their computer.) Well one guy lost his job after a he told a customer that she had this problem. She wrote down ID10T (Well, when she wrote it, it may have looked more like "IDIOT"), paused and then hung up and called again to talk to the guy's supervisor.

I'll throw in this Tech support cartoons as well.

Interesting video

2009-07-06T12:09:00.001-07:00

This is an interesting video called "The Intellectually Honest Atheist." It shows that really an atheist cannot claim to have morals.

Unemployed again

2009-07-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

Well I have finished up another temp job and I'm joining the ranks of the unemployed again. (It was my job that has been keeping me from blogging regularly, so now that I don't have a job I should be able to blog more.) I'm trying to weigh my options right now; should I get a job or should I just go get unemployment benefits? If I were to get a job then I would have to leave my wife and baby at home all day. Doesn't this seem wrong? That's why I'm leaning towards unemployment benefits. This would allow me to provide for my family and to be there all day for them. I have posed this solution to friends and made the suggestion that they skip the government and just give me directly instead of giving their money to the government and then the government giving it to me. I don't know why but no one seems to like this idea at all. I try to explain that I'll be getting their money either way, so why not take out the middle man? Oh well, maybe people out there will want to submit pledges to keep me from having to go to work. Or I can play the lotto and pray to God that I get the jackpot.

Sorry for no picture. I usually like to add one, or a youtube video, or something visual but alas, not today.

Happy Birthday Kayleen!

2009-06-23T07:36:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday to a wonderful wife and mother.

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's day dad.

If you don't learn your history, you're doomed to repeat it

2009-06-17T23:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a cartoon from 1934 about FDR and the new deal. I got it from this site. http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/sns-pod-1934-cartoon-pic,0,7114709.photo

My little sassy girl

2009-06-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

Here is our little "Sassy" girl.

Happy Birthday Mommy!

2009-06-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

It's grandma's birthday! Time to party!
Happy birthday mom

Happy Birthday Uncle Pat!

2009-05-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

In homage to you Lenten retreat photo Pat, here you go. I did it just for your birthday.

Happy birthday Uncle Pat! Hope you had a great birthday knowing that I was stuck in an office all day.

Slow down Lou

2009-05-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

I'm just going to write a quick little blurb. So Louisa just got a new trick of being able to go from her tummy to her back, but today she surprised us and went from her back to her tummy! Unfortunately, out of the three times she did it we didn't get any of them on film. Maybe tomorrow. Kayleen is getting ready to brag to everyone she knows about how Louisa is a child prodigy because in the baby books we have it says that babies might be able to roll over by the time they are four months and that parents should only expect them to roll over in one direction. Well Louisa is mastering both directions at 3 months and a week and 3 days. I am hoping to get film footage because I'm pretty sure there are a lot of doubting Thomases out there thinking that I'm making this up. I'll show you, I'll show you all!

Big moments

2009-05-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

Louisa is making big steps in growing up already! yesterday she rolled from her belly to her back! I told Kayleen but she just assumed that I was lying. It took Louisa to prove that her old man is not a liar.

This was the first time Louisa rolled on film.

Here is Louisa's second roll for the camera. She didn't have a lot of patience here.

Pray the Rosary this week for life

2009-05-12T23:56:00.000-07:00

Obama is speaking at Notre Dame this coming Sunday and there are some students there that are planing on boycotting the event. Here is a youtube video from Fr. Frank Pavone. The students have contacted Fr. Frank and he has been invited to go to Notre Dame and he is going to lead a rosary with those students choosing to boycott the commencement. Fr. Frank asks that we also pray the rosary this week for an end to abortion.

Videos from the far east

2009-05-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

So while we were in Pittsburgh I took some videos. Here are some of them.

I started taking pictures and Johnny wanted to be in ALL of the pictures. I tried to explain that I wasn't taking a picture, but he kept waiting for the picture.

Here is Johnny reading from one of his books. Sorry about the camera job, I was holding Louisa and she was squirming around trying to get free. I think she forgot that she can't crawl like her big cousin Jamie.

Whoopsie

2009-05-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been pretty busy as of late so sorry for my lack of blogging. But now that I am back on the job hunt I should have plenty of time for blogging. Things that I have missed while I have been out have been Tony's birthday and Mothers day. I don't think either one of those events required a picture, especially after my mom started her new blog. Kayleen and I just got back from our vacation to the east coast. (Sorry Bridget, Kayleen wanted to meet you and your family but we never solidified our plans in time.)

Me and the boys.

Katie and Kayleen and Lou in front of the White House. Some of us were too tired to get closer to it.

Me and Lou in one of the Smithsonians.

Aunt Katie holding Lou for the first time. Katie got her to go to sleep! It was amazing!

Uncle Ryan holding Lou for the first time. I'm not sure why, but Ryan got to hold Louisa first, but the pictures are out of order. I could switch them, but that would be messing with blogspot and I don't know if I should do that.

Jamie looking stylish as always.

The boys wanted to be in EVERY picture. Even the picture of the mommies with their newest additions. Kelly liked to switch babies because Lou is still a light weight, especially compared to her hefty cousin.

Lou showing off her new trick of folding her hands together. She has become very hand focused lately. She looks at her hands a lot and touches the tips of her fingers together. Also, she likes looking at my hand occasionally too. Well, she may not like it, but she stares at them when they are holding her hands.

Lou getting to know her Auntie Kelly.

Kayleen and me at the Lincoln memorial. It has a nice view of the Washington monument and the capitol, as seen behind us.

Happy Birthday Auntie Kelly!

2009-04-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

Hey Auntie Kelly, Happy Birthday from your first niece!

Also, Happy Birthday T.

May God grant you many happy years!

Let's get a little patriotic

2009-04-19T22:56:00.000-07:00

Well, tax day has come and gone. Does anybody out there have any money left? Actually, we weren't hit too hard so I wonder if I have no right to be upset with all the government spending that's been going on? I didn't attend any of the tea-parties. I wanted to but I was busy. Well, if you haven't heard, CNN and MSNBC have been showing how professional they are while reporting on the demonstrations, as I'm sure you all have heard. In short, a CNN reporter used sexual innuendo in reference to the demonstrators and another CNN reporter griped about how pathetic the demonstrators were. It was very unbiased. Well, I was looking at some of these videos on youtube and I saw a link to the video of Red Skelton saying the pledge of allegence. I thought it was pretty good. So if you could remove your hats, stand up, and recite the pledge with Red.

American Idol Hopes

2009-04-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

I'll have to wait for next season of American Idol for a singer that will sing my kind of songs. Tonight on American Idol the theme was songs from movies. I sat through the whole show hoping that someone would pick the big song from "The Secret of My Success." But alas, no one attempted "Oh Yeah" by Yellow. Couldn't you imagine someone choosing it?

My brother has dreams of trying to get onto the American Idol by singing "The History of Rock and Roll part 2"

Oh no! Two losses

2009-04-08T23:04:00.000-07:00

Well the mariners are back to the mariners of last year. They blew two games they could have won. One of them was on they should have one. They should have use Felix. After his first game he was projected to win us 162 games! That would have been awesome, although making the year a little anticlimactic.

Here are the season projections for King Felix after the mariners first game.

I don't have any pictures of Louisa to post. I guess I can just give a story from today. As a new dad, I find that babies are naturally very expressive. Louisa tells us a lot by crying, but you can also look into her eyes and you can tell when she is angry with you. Today we went grocery shopping and our goal was to shop while Louisa slept in her car seat with a blanket covering her. Well, this worked at our first stop but not so well at our second stop. Louisa started to cry and the only thing that would calm her down was to be swung in her car seat. Every time I tried to stop she would start to cry again. A few times I would peek in on her, she would be staring strait ahead and had this look on her face. I could tell she was very upset that her nap was being interrupted. She seemed to be thinking "I'm going to make you bounce me in the car seat the whole time we are at the store for punishment for interrupting my nap!!!" I hope Louisa doesn't develop a rebellious teenage attitude before she turns 1.

Also, any prayers for my grandma would be appreciated. She is in the hospital right now.
This is Kayleen and me with my grandma during Thanksgiving break.

Mariners win!

2009-04-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

Well, Louisa enjoyed a bit of her first Mariner victory but was saddened to see that the Mariner's could have had Adam Jones still with in Seattle.
Adam is on pace to break so many major league records; most hits in a season, highest batting average, most triples, most RBI's. Oh well, at least we have Bedard. I'm betting he will have a break out year, probably have a 0.21 ERA with 28 wins. Also, Griffey is on pace to hit 161 HR's, smashing Barry Bonds old record. I'm hoping he can do it.

It's time for baseball!!!

2009-04-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

It's time for baseball!!! Louisa does not have any Mariner gear so she will have to show her pride for her home town teams by wearing a Seahawk sleeper. Go M's!

Louisa figured she better start rooting for them now. Last season they ended up back somewhere around 39 games. Right now they are tied for the lead. Here's to hoping they don't drop too far from their current position.

Sleepy time

2009-03-31T13:01:00.000-07:00

How do you get a baby to fall asleep? This may be a little unorthodox but we figure, if it works, what could be the harm?

Getting Ready for St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

Ah, one of the joys of having a child is being able to dress them in silly clothes and hats. We bought this at Target for a buck, so it wasn't too big of an investment. Well, St. Patrick's day is a week away and Louisa is ready to celebrate it with her old man. I'm not sure if I'll let her take Irish Dancing lessons, only because it is so much more expensive for girls. She is too young to do any dancing anyways, but she'll be able to listen to Irish drinking songs and rebellion songs.

A second smile!

2009-03-02T20:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I never actually blogged about the first smile but Kayleen caught Louisa's second smile today. (These are smiles while she is awake. She has smiled in her sleep many times.) Sunday was the first time Louisa smiled and it was while Kayleen was holding her. Well today it was my turn. We gave Lou another bath and after her bath we dried her off in a nice warm towel this was the expression she gave me...
Kayleen took this picture. I felt ad about stealing it from her until I saw she used the picture I took of her and Lou and put it on her blog.

Well, to catch up I wanted to thank everyone for their well wishes. Kayleen and I are so happy and grateful to God for giving us such a beautiful child.

I guess I should talk about the things that have been going on since Lou has arrived. Kayleen has been a great new mother. In the first week I think she was very high on the new mother euphoria because she had so much energy and all she wanted to do was to hold a look at Lou. Usually Kayleen would want to be in bed by 7:30 (Well, this might be an exaggeration on my part but still pretty early.) and I was more used to staying up till 3 or 4 in the morning. So I was pretty surprised that Kayleen was staying up late and able to handle the middle of the night feedings. When the lack of sleep started catching up to Kay, (Not me as much because Kayleen let me get my sleep. Thank you honey.) we started making sure to take advantage of Louisa's downtime.

One thing that is pretty amazing is how much newborns poop and pee. Louisa is a very healthy baby and so she has many dirty diapers. Kayleen's grandparents are providing us with a diaper service so we are using clothe diapers and so I now know how to use clothe diapers. This is a skill set that I am trying to use as little as possible.

Here is Lou in her snazzy pink jogging suit which she has not used for jogging.

Here you can see her currently blue eyes. Grandma is hoping that they stay blue.

Here I am with Lou. This is right before she gave me a smile.

Kayleen bought me a book called "The Expectant Father", which is a pretty good book and one that I would recommend for any first time dads. Well, in the book the author tries to describe the feeling he had when he would hold his newborn child and he said it was very difficult to actually put into words. The only way he could describe it was that he wanted to roll his daughter up into a ball and eat her. Well, I can't say I feel exactly like that but I am so happy and feel so blessed to have such a beautiful family. I thank God everyday!

Ever had that temptation?

2009-02-24T12:51:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen something done in a cartoon that you were tempted to do? Just wondering. Here is a random cartoon.

(I have been told that I need to clarify that I am posting this without the permission on my wife.)

Belated Birthday Wishes Ryan

2009-02-18T19:44:00.001-08:00

Sorry I didn't put this up on Sunday, but Happy Birthday Ryan! I hope you had a great birthday.
From Mike, Kayleen and your newest niece, Louisa

Sorry I didn't put this up on Sunday, but Happy Birthday Ryan!

Happy Birthday Oompa

2009-02-12T11:06:00.000-08:00

Hey dad, Happy Birthday from Louisa!

She took a break from her busy day to tell you this. She wanted me to let you know how important you are to her that she made time for you today.

Also, happy birthday dad, from Mike and Kayleen

We had a baby!

2009-02-11T18:11:00.000-08:00

Well Louisa ended up being a Sunday child just like her mommy. Lou was born Sunday afternoon, as pretty much everyone already knows now, and she weighed in at 8 lbs 9 oz. It was so amazing to see the birth. The whole experience was just awesome.

(Sorry, but this post is kind of random. I'm tired and just have a lot to say and so I wonder a lot in explaining how things went and some of the feelings that day)
When Kayleen was 7 cm dilated both of our mothers decided to go get some coffee and let us relax. Our doctor figured that Kayleen would probably take about 2 hours or more to get fully dilated but an hour after being 7 cm Kayleen asked the nurse to have the doctor come back to see where she was at because Kayleen was feeling a lot of pressure. The doctor came in and said that she was fully dilated and that she needed to get ready to start pushing! This really surprised me. The whole day we were told "Ok, labor for first time mothers on average is 12 hours." so we figured Lou would be born around 9-10 PM. Then when Kayleen was at 7 cm the nurse told us that is typically takes a woman an hour to dilate one cm. Well an hour later Kayleen had dilated 3 cm. When the doctor did say that Kayleen was going to start pushing soon my hands started to shake with excitement.

When Kayleen started pushing they didn't have any straps for her to put her legs into (I don't know if hospitals still use them but it didn't look like any of the rooms had the stirrups thingies.), so I got to hold onto Kayleen's leg through the birth process. It was really amazing to see it happen, and also it went by so fast. Kayleen pushed for all of 32 minutes with no screaming. (On a selfish note, I was happy she didn't scream because I was there holding her leg and she would have been screaming in my ear. And believe me, with three other women in the room, none of them would have cared if a man was uncomfortable or in pain.) Kayleen was very focused during the whole birth process and didn't make a lot of noise.

Well, I was planning on writing more, but it's late and I need to get some sleep while I can. I started this post and have been adding on to it throughout the night and now it is 12:30AM and I need to go to sleep. Enjoy these pictures. The first two were taken the day Lou was born.

Here is little Louisa

Mommy getting acquainted with the little lady who has been in her womb for 9 months.

This was taken last night. Louisa was so alert and was looking all around.

Babies tire you out. It's a fact. But I think they get tired too tiring out their parents.

What to do?

2009-02-02T22:41:00.000-08:00

Well, as we approach Louisa's due date I have been trying to think of what day would be a good day for Lou to be born. It just doesn't look like Lou can be born for quite a few weeks. Just look at the next few days:
Tuesday: American Idol Kayleen watches this show and also geema watched the show so she wouldn't be able to come to the hospital.
Wednesday: Same thing as Tuesday.
Thursday: The Office is on. Both Kayleen and I like to watch this show so Lou can't be born this day.
Friday: Psych is on and we keep forgetting to watch the new episodes.
Saturday: It's the weekend and I need to blow off steam by going to the bar. Since I will be a little inebriated, I wont be able to drive Kayleen to the hospital.
Sunday: Kayleen would be happy if Lou was a Sunday child but only 4% of babies (according to Kayleen) are born on their due date. Some people might call her strange.
Monday: This is a possibility but I'll have to look it over just to make sure.
Tuesday: Now we get back into the television schedule. Darn Tv making it so inconvenient to have a kid.

It's Groundhog Day!

2009-02-02T18:36:00.001-08:00

Happy Groundhog day everyone! Here is a clip from that great movie. It's not my favorite scene, but it's my runner up. I would have to say my favorite scene is where he just gives Ned a hug.

Baby coming soon!

2009-01-29T19:47:00.001-08:00

We have been waiting for this baby to come now for two weeks now, well really for almost 39 weeks now but I say 2 weeks because that is when the doctor said that it was going to be any day now. It's been a little annoying because we have panicked a little bit and hurried to make sure that we were completely ready for little Lou. Now that we are, we are just laying back and waiting for Lou to decide that it's the right time to come on out. One thing that we did to get ready was getting phone numbers of people to call to let them know that Lou has been born. One way that we may decide to save money is to make collect calls like this one:

Except we would of course change it to "Mike wehadababyitsagirl"

The wife asked

2009-01-27T12:46:00.000-08:00

Kayleen is trying to get people to write down 20 random things about themselves on their blogs. Since she asked nicely, I decided I would grant her request.

I am very competitive. So competitive that I plan on not just putting down 20 random things but insteed I will try to get 40 really random things.
I can sometimes get obsessed with rodents. Mostly squirrels. That's because I think squirrels are rodents with excellent PR.
I have a twin. This isn't really unknown fact but it is a fact non the less.
I had a paper route when I was younger. Well, I never officially had the route, it was always in my sister's name.
I have been to Canada. I would write something interesting about Canada now, but the truth is that there is very little that is interesting about Canada.
I was homeschooled for most of my schooling.
I know the lyrics to many many Irish drinking songs. This talent has proved to be very useful now that I am of drinking age and can get into the local Irish pubs. I know most of the Irish drinking songs that the local bands are singing.
I cannot see dead people. After seeing the Sixth Sense, I have found it necessary to make sure that people know that I do not posses this skill. Most people were not interested to learn this fact about me. I hope you appreciated it.
I own a very shinny black button up shirt. I don't wear it very often, sometimes it's because Kayleen wont let me be me, but mostly because the shirt makes me look very metro sexual.
At times, I can be very sarcastic. Kayleen is always afraid of things that I put on my blog because she is afraid that if her friends read it that they will not understand that I am joking. (For example, I am not allowed to say that I plan on sedating our kids if they start getting too hyper. In all likelihood I will not be allowed to go through with such plans, I still like to keep them as possibilities.)
I never dated until I was in college. I have heard the number of guys that Kayleen dated and I told her that it isn't fair that she dated so many more people than me and that I should be able to go on a few dates to even it out, but she does not seem to like this idea at all.
I have only been married once in my entire life. Umm... I know this is a cheap one to put in here but I'm only up to 12 and I'm running out of random facts.
I have a social security number and it is ###-##-####.
I am through the first season and half of the second season of Heroes and I am not entirely impressed with it. The story is kind of catchy but the acting is not so great and some of the stories don't make sense to me.
I have learned TOO MUCH about the birthing process. I am going to scar my brother by telling him everything that goes on.
I have been electrocuted by an electric fence for a dairy farm. (Thanks Pat. It was all your fault!)
My brother tells me "IHY" all the time. (I believe "IHY" mean "I Heart You." Yes, I know. My brother can be a sweetie sometimes.)
I know how to country swing dance.
I know how to do the local dance of a country that I have roots to.
I know how to mix concrete.
I buried a deadman. (Note that a deadman is a land anchor. A family friend of ours that we worked for had us put in a concrete anchor to keep his generator from sliding down the side of his house. It's just a fun term to use though and it makes me sound creepy when I tell people that when working for a friend of ours that we buried a deadman.)
We were not fed strawberries and cream when we worked for this family friend of ours. My brother and I had very different experiences when we worked for this friend of ours. When they worked, they got to take a break and eat strawberries and cream. My brother and I on the other hand got to use stuff that said "Highly toxic! Burn clothes if contents come in contact with clothing. Pray to God if injested, inhaled, or comes in contact with skin." Good times, good times.
I posted more random facts on my blog than my wife did. Well, I'm at 23 so I have officially posted more facts. I just have another 17 to go.
I've never had a body part if mine pierced.
I've never dyed my hair.
My favorite alcoholic beverage is probably a gin and tonic.
I have thrown up in a car or bus 3 times. All due to car sickness. Actually, all of the cars I did throw up in were really just small buses. They were large vans.
I have never played in a professianl sports league. I have been tempted but I can't leave my wife at home by herself. That is one of the only reasons why I have not gone into professinal sports.
I am not a nerd, even though many of my friends insist that I am. I guess it shows how much my friends really know me.
I know how to solve the rubix cube. The 3x3 that is. I've heard that the 2x2 and the 4x4 are actually harder than the 3x3. (This fact does not make me a nerd. It just happened to be the next thing I could think of.)
I used to be able to bench more than my body weight. That was when I took a class at BCC that required me to go to the gym.
I was in Civil Air Patrol in my younger days. Then the wing became corrupt and I had to get out. That or I had scheduling conflicts and could no longer go.
My favortie animal growing up were bears. Patially because my brother would sing me to sleep with "Go to sleep, Michael Bear, so I can shave off your hair..." in tune with the lullaby song.
In highschool, my favorite time period in history was the civil war. My favorite historical movie was Gettysburg.
My favorite movie from the 1980's was Short Circut II. You go Johnny 5!
I have never killed anyone.
I never commited gand larsony.
I never framed my brother for fraud. Even though he may have deserved it.
I have wasted peoples valuable time by creating long a silly lists.
I may have made my wife sorry that she asked me to write a list of 20 random things.

There, 40 items! I hope you appreciate all my hard work and time. Also, I hope I get a job soon so I have a better way to use my time.

All quiet on the Western front

2009-01-22T09:04:00.000-08:00

Kayleen still has not gone into labor yet. It's a little frustrating just because the doctor made it sound like there was a good chance we would have the baby over the weekend so Kayleen and I have been ready to leave at a moments notice to run to the hospital. Well, over the weekend all Kayleen had were those Braxton-Hicks contractions. Then we were sure it would happen in the beginning of the week but we ended up being wrong. Now we are going into our scheduled doctor's appointment. Kayleen was 2cm dilated last time, we are hoping we don't get stuck at the hospital because Kayleen is too dilated.

Also, today is E's birthday, happy birthday E!

Also, today is the anniversary of Roe Vs. Wade decision. This is the day that Pro-Lifers march on the capitol for the rights of the unborn. Recently I have been looking up videos about FOCA, freedom of choice agreement bill, and so I have been looking at the arguments made by the so called "pro-choicers." I get tired of their arguments because if you take a little time to think about them, they are lies. (Also, in case you don't know about FOCA, it's a bill that would lift pretty much every restriction on abortion in every state. I'm surprised that such a bill could abolish a states own rights, it doesn't seem like such a bill is something the founding fathers wanted when they started this country.)

1) "Don't like abortion? Don't have one!"
I have seen several cars with this bumper sticker and this is just an absurd statement. If they think about why people are against abortion, they will realize it's because people believe that the child in the mother is alive and an abortion is murdering that child. So therefore they are saying that we should just ignore the murder of millions of victims that cannot speak for themselves.

2) "Keep you laws off my body!"
This one I was just thinking about recently and now I want to know how people can claim that something that may not have the same blood type and that doesn't have the same DNA as the mother can still be called part of the same body? Looking at it from the fathers perspective I was thinking about how the baby is a little bit of the mommy and a little bit of the daddy. Any woman that days it's still just their body is lying because they are writing off the father completely. In my experience, anti-abortion demonstrations are places where men's voices are not as respected or cared for. I was in a college club at WSU and there were some people who wanted to have an anti-abortion demenstration but the idea was turned down because most of the people in the club were guys and it was decided that abortion was a woman's issue.

3) The coat hanger.
Women will hold posters picturing a coat hanger saying that they don't think it's right that a woman should risk her life to have an abortion. That if it become illegal for abortions then you will still have abortions going on, but many women will die trying to perform this evil act on themselves or in a back ally abortion clinic. To me this is the same as saying that murders need to be protected when they are trying to commit murder.

4) The "pot calling the kettle black" argument.
Some pro-choice supporters (Actually, I'm going to start refering as pro-abortion because I think that people should choose whether they have a child, but once that baby is conceived, that choice has been made.) say "How can you claim to be for life with babies but support death with the death penalty? Therefore you are hipocrits and your voice doesn't count." Well, that last part I added in, but that is the point of their argument it seems. Well, first of all, a lot of people that are pro life, are not supporters of the death penalty. Also, those that do support the death penalty don't support the death of random people but people that have done horrible things that they are deemed a danger to society. It seems like here the pro abortion people are just trying to say that pro-lifers can't claim to have the moral high ground here and they are trying to drag pro-lifers down and claim that they are at the same level.

And to end my post, here is a Glenn McCoy Comic:

Now we can have the baby

2009-01-16T20:06:00.000-08:00

Kayleen and I are finally settled into our place and Kayleen feels like we can have the baby now. I in the other hand was not ready until Lou had some home made hats. Luckily we got these hats made, Kayleen added the pink ribbon to the blue hat to make it more girly. These hats were made on Kayleen's new loom set that I bought her for Christmas, so I guess I kind of had a part in making them.

Also, I thought I would post these videos of the GI Joe public service announcements. At the end of every GI Joe cartoon they would have a public service announcement telling kids to not take medicine without their parents knowledge and not getting into cars with strangers and other things like that. Well, some guys recut these endings and re-dubbed them and came up with some very interesting clips. (Just a warning, these is some swearing and also, if you are not interested in silly internet videos then you would probably not be interested in these videos.)

And here is part two:

Beware! Nesting woman!

2009-01-15T22:33:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure I'm going to get in trouble with my blog post title, but Kayleen and I went to the doctor's today for her weekly checkup and we were told that Kayleen is more than likely going to deliver early, in fact she said any day now! We finished moving everything into our new apartment today, but we still need to unpack and finish setting up for Lou. This has sent Kayleen into uber nesting mode. As Kayleen's friends know, she usually goes to bed pretty early but tonight she had lots of energy and is panicking a little bit hoping that everything is ready when Lou comes.

Tonight Lou was kicking a lot. Kayleen thinks it's because she is getting tired of being cooped up in for so long and that she is anxious to get out. It was pretty amazing though to see her kick because you didn't need to feel for her kicks, but you could see her foot pressing through and you could almost grab her foot too. (Which reminds me a story my Aunt Jan told us about when she was pregnant and her baby pushed their foot out so much that she was actually able to hold onto their foot.) I pressed back (don't worry, I didn't push very hard) on Lou's foot. I wonder what she was thinking, if she would think that it is someone else. I know babies hear voices and can recognize their mother's voice after they are born, but do they realize that there are people out there? I've heard that is takes a while for babies to even become self aware, so I'm not sure. I wonder if Lou put any thought into the pressure she felt as she tried to stretch mommy's tummy into odd shapes.

Getting ready for baby

2009-01-13T11:02:00.000-08:00

I should probably start this posting wishing my sister a happy birthday. Happy Birthday Katie! Hope you have a great day!

I can't believe it's the middle of January already! It seems like B-day, birth-day, is approaching at a million miles an hour. (Not sure if that makes sense, but it approaching very quickly. I hope this clarification makes you happy Pat.) Kayleen has been somewhat in nesting I guess, but she is frustrated that she can't really prepare properly because we have not yet moved into out apartment yet, we are sort of in apartment limbo right now waiting for our place to get cleaned up and some minor remodeling finished up.

Well, I started writing this post while I was getting my oil changed but when I got back, I put off finishing the post and now it's Wednesday and we have started moving into our new place. Kayleen is excited and is very happy with the new apartment. (It would be impossible not to be pleased with it, it's one of the best apartments in the building.) But the nice thing is that we will have a room with all of Lou's stuff. We are pretty much all prepared for her now, we just bought a little sleeper so that Lou is safe while she sleeps with us on the bed. (Below is a picture of the sleeper, although it doesn't come with a baby like the picture on the box says. But it does come with a little nightlight which I'm sure will come in handy for Kayleen for midnight feedings.)
This was one of our few costs that we had, our families and friends have been very supportive and have bought us pretty much everything that we needed. (Thanks mom and dad for the stroller and the car seat, and thanks to my in-laws for the clothes, mattress, humidifier and something that Kayleen says that I'm not allowed to mention.) Now that we have all of the stuff, Kayleen and I are finishing up on studying on child birth and things that would be good for us to know when Lou is born. One thing that I never thought about was that this Sunday Kayleen could have Lou and she wouldn't be a preemie. So far there are no signs that Kayleen is going to go into labor tonight (but now Murphy's law says that she will.) it didn't help when Kayleen had us watch a video about the final months of pregnancy and one of the women in the documentary went into labor at 37 weeks with her first baby.

It will be nice tomorrow to be finally settled into our new place. I am so excited for the arrival of Lou. The whole pregnancy has gone by so quickly, it seems like it was just last week that we found out that we were going to have a baby and now we are going to be able to meet our baby girl for the first time face to face.

To finish off this post, here is a picture of the Puget Sound.

Seattle Sports

2008-12-29T12:15:00.000-08:00

We have had a very sad year in sports in Seattle. Here is a video from ESPN about our poor sports season.

It's going to be cold. It's going to be gray and it's going to last you the rest of you life!

2008-12-15T21:53:00.000-08:00

Well, winter has technically made an early appearance. (Since winter doesn't really start until Dec. 21.) Right now it is 1 degree F according to accuweather, so we have a lot of fresh snow to go out and sled or build things with but it is just so painful to go outside that neither Kayleen and I have really done anything. Although I haven't been doing anything in the snow more because of final projects and such. So far we have probably 2-4 inches of snow but we are supposed to get 4-7 more inches by Thursday, and the weather is not going to heat up until after Christmas. I wonder if this is God telling us to stay in Pullman. (Just kidding Kayleen.) Here are some pictures I took the other night. This was Sunday morning I believe.

Christmas Carols

2008-12-14T05:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had our annual "Taste of Christmas" Mass and Carols at our church yesterday. Every year we get all dressed up and sing Christmas carols at church and afterward we have mass. I enjoy the carols, but one of my favorite ones is when they sing "Child of the poor" and "What Child is this" together. They alternate the songs back and forth and then on the last verse the men would sing "Child of the poor" and the women would sing "What Child is this." I had never heard the song Child of the poor before going to school, at least I don't recall hearing it.

Here is a video with the two songs. They performed it the same way as we did. (Or we copied them or we all copied somebody else. All you need to know is that we did it the same way. But it's probably more likely that we both copied someone else and that this is a common way to sing these songs. But is was something that is new to me. That's all that is important.) According to a description for the video it says "Prayerful meditation to be used as an introduction for an Advent Prayer Service interceding for the healing of loved ones who have been hurt by members of the Church."

Another video to get you ready for the Christmas season

2008-12-09T01:42:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine was telling me about this video, an of course since I have homework to do, I was able to put some time into finding it. It's the lost ending to the Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life."

E's Visit

2008-12-06T17:34:00.000-08:00

A couple of friends of ours came down yesterday for a quick visit. Pat and I took them out to a bar that serves a drink they call a Mexican Flag. It has Grenadine, Creme De Menthe, Tequila, and 451. In short, it is a very very VERY strong Altoid.

Also, one of the things that I will miss about Pullman are it's beautiful sunsets. I peeked outside and this is what I saw tonight.

Christmas is coming!

2008-12-05T12:53:00.001-08:00

This year is going to be a little tough to get ready for Christmas. For one thing, school doesn't get out until the 19th for me, and also Kayleen and I will have to move all of our stuff the following day over to the West side. But to get into the holiday spirit, I thought I would post another youtube video. (I feel like there has to be some color to my posts, or else the look boring. And I don't have any pictures to post just yet.)

I was looking for another video but not because of it's lights, more because I enjoyed the Christmas music on it. Unfortunately I couldn't find it. But I like this one because the light show is pretty amazing. It is pretty good compared to the "original" Christmas light show. I was thinking of posting that one, but I think everyone else has seen it.

Will this political year ever end?

2008-12-02T15:18:00.000-08:00

This is pretty interesting. It's supposedly from an expert who holds a Ph.D. in instructional media specializing in computer technology such as printers, scanners and digital imaging. He is reporting that an image of president elect Obama's birth certificate is a forgery and that some other images reported from the democratic party and factchecker.com were also forgeries.

Kayleen and I had a wonderful trip back home for Thanksgiving. I'll post some of our pictures later. Kayleen was hiding my camera in her bad so I couldn't get my pictures until today. She loves to play with my head by hiding things from me in obscure supposedly "put away" places. I think that the coat should be left by the door in case you need to go outside in a hurry. It takes me some time to realize that she has hidden it in the closet.

Perfect Sunset

2008-11-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

This week My wife and I went down to Oregon to see my grandma. After we had visited her we were headed to our car and this is what we saw.

The church in the center of the picture was the church my parents and my grandparents got married at.

2008-11-19T20:38:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to Boise to interview for a job. Unfortunately I didn't get it, Kayleen was pretty relieved about that, but on my way down to Boise I took some pictures of the sun rise. My flight left at 6:00, so I was able to see the sun just start to rise. It was pretty amazing.

It was cool how the clouds became a sea.

Hiatus for a bit.

2008-11-15T12:26:00.000-08:00

I've been busy as of late with a lot of homework beginning to be due now, so I'm not sure how regularly that I'll be able to post. I'll leave a quick post for today though. Yesterday we rented the movie "Little Shop of Horrors" because I had never seen it before. It was a musical made in the 80's with Rick Moranis (spelling?) and Steve Martin. It's a comedy and a very weird movie, but I enjoyed some of the songs, like this one sung by Steve Martin. (And his hair is BLACK!!! It's so weird to see him without his white hair.)

Guess what!

2008-11-05T21:08:00.000-08:00

Guess who left someone home alone for the weekend? That's right, Kayleen has left me alone for the weekend. I'm still trying to think of what I should do. I guess if you want, you could leave a suggestion, mind you though, I don't have a car, so it should be something that does not require traveling. I was thinking I could:

Start up that squirrel army. There are a lot of them out and about here.
Run a marathon. It would get me out of the house, and help me get into shape.
Clean the apartment. This is here just to show Kayleen that I was thinking about possibly doing it.
Play video games. It will make the weekend fly right on by.
Play a trick of the squirrels by reburying their food.
Spend the weekend with the lights out, curtains closed and play very depressing music until Kayleen gets back. I may do that when she calls and just tell her that I've been depressed the whole time she was gone.
Succeed from the U.S. It will ensure us that we won't live in a socialist government, but at the same time, we will be a very small country that wont be able to sustain ourselves. I'm thinking this idea shouldn't be too highly considered.
Buy a badger for Kayleen. She was reading a book that talked about them and I think she was trying to hint that she wanted one.
Buy a ferret and have it try to kill some frogs. That would be in memory of those classic Budweiser commercials. The ones where the frogs just say "bud", "wise" and "er."
Listen to journey the whole weekend and see if I don't go insane. Speaking of journey, did anyone ever see this movie?
Try to start a new trend here on campus. (I may need help with ideas here. Something like a new catch phrase or clothing trend would be good.)
Write a list of ideas on my blog. This is so that I can say I did at least on item on my list.
Get a job at Safeway so Kayleen and I can stay in P-town.
Learn judo from Vladamir Putin.
Rush the field regardless of whether the cougs win or not.
Booby trap the apartment for any wet bandits.

I think I'll end with sixteen, it's a nice even number.

Well, I was watching this Mr. Bean clip that I remember watching many many years ago at my grandma's place and I was thinking to myself that it is probably a good thing that I'm not single. I was watching this and thinking that I very well could have turned into something like Mr. Bean. Scary, I know.

Well, probably not totally like him, but there were some parts in there that I may copy, like the counting sheep. I definitely would not use my toothbrush for the same thing that he does, that is one thing I can guarantee.

Election day is one day away! EEK! And a baby update!

2008-11-03T19:37:00.000-08:00

I actually wrote everything after this paragraph first, but Kayleen started talking about the baby with one of her friends and I thought I would talk a bit about Louisa. Kayleen is excited that Louisa has been kicking more and more and also the kicks are getting stronger. Yesterday Louisa decided to get some exercise and was going crazy in there. The kicks were so strong that they were easy for me to see. I think she is trying to stretch Kayleen out a bit so that she has more room because she has been growing quite a bit now. Kayleen still refuses to either swallow a ball for Louisa to play with or to have a surgeon put on in Kayleen. Louisa must be so bored in there, I feel sorry for her. I try to talk to her, but not only are the conversations one sided, I have a feeling she has no idea what I'm talking about. I think Kayleen may like it better if she doesn't know what I'm talking about.

Tomorrow we get to find out, at least we should be able to find the results, of a multiple of important issues being decided. Obviously the biggest issue is the next president of the USA, but almost as important for us up in Washington is the issue of I-1000. But going back to the presidential election, this was just posted last Friday by a woman who was a democratic speech writer who is said to have written speeches for Barrack Hussein Obama and his wife Michelle as well as Hilary Clinton and John Edwards and John Kerry. But she has become with the whole democrat campaign and has defected the Obama campaign for the McCain campaign. She states that it was for a number of reasons but the biggest reason was the way it treated Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber, people she thought the democrat party champiogned. If a speech writer for the democrat party is abondoning the Obama campaign, I wonder if there are many more?

Also, there is a video of Obama talking about McCain, and here he shows what a classy guy he (Obama) is.

And also, here is Obama earlier in the year talking about how he is going to tax the coal industry so much in order to get rid of the coal industry really.

Happy All Hallows Eve!

2008-10-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

Here are our pumpkins. The one on the left is mine, which Kayleen and Jessie named Charlie. It actually fits if you have seen this youtube clip. (What with his buck teeth. They look more vampire-ish in the picture but they were supposed to be buck teeth. Since these were made last week, he actually has no teeth at all now.)

And here is my Halloween costume. I'm dressed up as Pat, and Pat is dressing up as me.

Politics. I can't wait until they are over!

2008-10-29T20:45:00.000-07:00

Well, there are 6 days until we elect a new president of the United States of America. I don't how it's possible but the democrats keep getting a candidate that I'm more afraid of than the last election. I find myself wishing that Kerry was the nominee instead of Obama. The more I hear about Obama, the more I'm afraid of him. I guess the biggest reasons as to why I will never vote for this scary guy are:

His views on abortion. How he has no respect for the human life. He is the most radical polititcian when it comes to this issue.
His socialistic views. Marxism didn't work in Europe, but using his logic I guess it should then work here, right?
His picks for advisers. Watch the video here. It talks about the CEOs of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac and how the are linked to Obama.
His relations to radicals. Ayers and his pastor. You can use whatever adage you want, birds of a feather flock together or that you are the company you keep.

It's late now, so I guess I'll leave my list at 4. If someone thinks that they can change my mind, don't bother unless Obama relents on the abortion issue. Abortion is murder, no matter how you try to look at it. You can try to say that woman who are in danger of losing their lives should be allowed. Well, that should be allowed to be looked to in a its own case, but the truth is that by far, most abortions are not done to save the life of the mother. It is done so that the parents don't have to take care of a child. I believe in a choice of having children, but once you have sex with someone and a child is concieved, that choice has been clearly made.

Christmas list ideas

2008-10-17T12:53:00.000-07:00

I know Christmas is still 2 months and 8 days away, but I was at a store and they already have the fake Christmas trees up with quite a few aisles already stocked with Christmas items. Normally I wouldn't start thinking about Christmas shopping but today I heard about the best Christmas present EVER! (Steak may try to find something, but this is at least a top ten idea.) What could be better than an exercise DVD to learn Judo? Maybe an exercise DVD teaching you Judo by the one and only Vladimir Putin! I'm not sure if it's available in the US, so people may need to wait. You could just give your loved one an IOU one Vladamir Putin Judo DVD. It will truly make anyone's Christmas a special Christmas.

In case you missed it, I did at least, here is John McCain at the Al Smith dinner.

Also, in xkcd today, they came really close to getting Kayleen down. Her morning routine is 1, 3, 2.

Also, Ryan got the riddle correct. The way I answered was basically the same, but I wasted more power by turning on two lights, waiting some amount of time then turning one off.

I had a phone interview with a company yesterday and they asked me this question, let's say you have an array of n numbers. In the array of numbers, you have all the numbers from 1 to n-1 in the array plus one number is repeated. How would you find the number that is repeated? An example of what an array of numbers would look like, if you had an array of 10, the array could look like this.
[1, 6, 3, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 5, 2]
So the answer here would be two.

My baby likes...

2008-10-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

Recently Kayleen has been worried about Louisa because the last few days she has not been kicking as much as she had been before. She was starting to worry, like any other soon-to-be mother I would imagine. But last night I was programming and I started playing some music. I started playing a song by Carrie Underwood called American Girl, Kayleen likes that song, especially since we are having a girl, and Louisa started kicking like crazy again. I guess she is a big Carrie Underwood fan, just like her grandma.

Also, on Wednesday, xkcd had this cartoon.
I found it especially funny because I was trying to play an episode I had bought on iTunes and apparently I had already selected the 5 machines to run my shows on. That was a little frustrating. I guess I should think about the lesson of the cartoon.

To end this entry, I'll ask a riddle. Lets say that there is a hallway. You are at one end of the hallway with three light switches. Each switch goes to a light bulb in a room at the other end of the hallway. You need to find out which switch goes to which bulb. You can flip the light switches on and off as much as you want, but you can't see the light from the bulbs coming from the room. Also, you can only go into the room once. I'll give you the answer later.

Is this the most important issue to get passed?

2008-10-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

In Washington State, voters are going to be voting on I-1000, the death with dignity initiative. I am shocked that with everything in the world, that helping people to commit suicide is something that ever needs to be voted on. Life is a precious thing and man should not be in charge of helping another man end his life. It is suicide, plain and simple. These are some videos that I found that talk about the dangers of passing I-1000. One point that they make, that I think is a good point is that in the initiative they have a cut off of 6 months for people to be able to choose to legally commit suicide. The thing is that why is it 6 months? Why not 3 months so that doctors could be more sure or 9 months so that people don't need to suffer? There doesn't seem to be a scientific reason for 6 months other than it was a random decision. Who is to say that these regulations will stay into effect for long? This thing seems like it could snowball out of control very easily.

I haven't posted in how long?!??!

2008-10-13T21:07:00.001-07:00

Well, I went to a job fair here at the university last week, and got some promising leads. The only problem was that a lot of the companies I talked to were located in Idaho. I was hoping to live a little closer to where I grew up. On the bright side, living in Idaho is much cheaper than living in Washington. The best thing about the job fair was the SWAG!!!

I was a little surprised by White pages though. They gave me drum sticks. The guy I talked to had a bunch of stuff and I never said anything to lead him to believe that I could play the drums but he said "Wait here for a sec" and went behind the table and grabbed them. I guess I could take up the drums and I wouldn't have to buy myself a set of sticks. I now just bang them on random things to annoy Kayleen. I think she secretly loves them and just pretends to get annoyed.

Real player had some nice stuff but Gentax gave me a yoyo that lights up! I don't think I will work for them because they would require me to live all over the country, but the yo yo was really cool. It lights up when you yoyo it, so it was worth my time to talk to them.

I do have a phone interview coming up, so any prayers would be gratefully appreciated.