An entry from Texas

Yes, I know, I'm staggeringly infrequent, but I'm busy as hell. You have no idea. Between work, kids, exercise, and learning how to do VR stuff, I have no time left to just relax. Blogging is, as you can imagine, pretty far down on the list, but I like having these to look back on, especially as the kids grow up.

Tyler, first, has turned 4. He's growing bigger all the time, asking more questions (and more questions that make sense) and is generally more pleasant than he was at three. This doesn't mean he's not still a complete monster at times. (Like today, for example). But the trendline is going up, which is good. He's starting to read basic books, which is nice. He's hard to motivate, though. If he doesn't know he likes something, he's loathe to try it. Reading, therefore, is mostly a function of figuring out how to motivate him to want to try something new. He does it little bits at a time, though, and we have a lot of time to continue raising him, so I think odds are good he'll get it down eventually. Especially when he figures out that reading is the key to figuring out how to play video games. I think that will help a lot.

Casey is growing up fast too. This week, in fact, she's starting her transition up to her toddler class! It's sort of a baby+ class, actually, she only has 5 kids in her class, and they are all kids that have moved up over the past couple of weeks, so the fact that none of them can really walk means it's not a full on toddler class. But, critically, this does mean our day care bill goes down a little bit, which is nice. This also means, potentially, that we have passed the maximum amount we will ever have to pay for day care. (Unless you count college as day care, which might be a fair assessment.)

Her first birthday party up in Washington was very nice, and we all got together for an impromptu Preecs family reunion. She had a blast eating through her cake (she went at it with a lot more gusto than Tyler did) and was very smiley at everyone. She's a quite smiley lady.

Her molars are finally coming in, and she isn't happy about it at all. Luckily her pacifier does a good job of soothing her past mouth troubles, but that whole process looks pretty uncomfortable, so I can understand some fussiness and clinginess.

She's very close to walking, too. She wants to come up to you and grab your thumb with one hand (one hand only, she was doing two for a while, but has realized she can get by with one and that frees the other hand to grab stuff, so now she insists on one hand. Unless you're helping her stand up.) and walk around the house grabbing things.

She's starting to communicate a little bit too. Whenever she drops things over the side of her high chair she says “oh oh”. And when she asks if she is all done she sometimes says “Aaaa Daaaan”. Or sometimes “aaah aaaaah aaaa daaaa aaaa”. It's a work in progress. But it's seriously cute.

I'm working on new stuff. I've decided I want to be a VR developer. Or perhaps just a Technical Artist, which is a profession that I've just made up that involves doing the technical side of creating visual effects in computer graphics. Things like animation, automated modeling, stuff like that. I don't know if that's something that people actually do, and frankly I don't know if it's something I really want to do either, but It's something I'm trying, and it feels like progress towards something, which is important, because it gives me hope. Whether or not anything actually comes from all this work is less important, at times, than feeling like I'm just doing something to advance myself in a direction of better happiness. As opposed to just...stagnating.

To this end, I attended a VR (Virtual Reality) game Jam a few weeks ago. What is a game Jam? Glad you asked. Video games are, at base, computer programs. And a Game Jam is when people get together for a concentrated period of time to see how much 'game' you can make in just a couple of days of work. The things that come out of them are often very rudementary, proof-of-concept things, but some serious games have come out of game jams, and it forces you to see if your game concept works, and allows you to get good feedback on it.

I didn't go to create my own VR game. I went for two reasons. 1) to Meet People and 2) To see if I could help on someone elses game in order to increase my experience with Unity programming. (Unity is the software that allows you to program and script your game. It's what most everyone is using to create things for VR.)

It was incredibly stressful, but I'm super glad I went. I was able to hang with people that clearly had more Unity background than I do, and I got to make VR beer pong, which isn't going to set the world on fire anytime soon, but it was a simple, easy-to-understand game concept, and I was able to help and learn a lot about what I do and what I don't know how to do in Unity. Plus we got to demo our game to a bunch of people, get some good feedback, and play around with nifty VR equipment that won't be on sale until later this year. I felt pretty fancy. There's still a lot of work to do if I'm going to try and make a serious career out of this, but like I said, it's progress, and it feels like moving forward.

I'm working on another VR music video (in my 'free time', so VERY slowly), I'll try to post some screen shots of things, I'm sure moms and dads of all generations would love to see my early, early prototype stuff.

Micro news!

Going camping this weekend. Should be hot, but also *s'mores*.

Jess is still awesome at hockey.

I've been running some pretty long distances lately. 3 miles used to be my limit. Now a 'short run' for me is around 4 or 5. My record long run is 11 miles. I think I'll try to do a half marathon in the fall sometime when it's cooler.

I usually weigh less than 200 lbs now. Which is pretty impressive. If I ever get down to 190 I'll be at high school weight. Except, of course, with more muscle now.

Casey is getting weaned off of bottles and has grown out of her cloth diapers. This vastly reduces the amount of chores I have to do when I get home. Kids still are a lot of work, though.

There are a lot of video games coming out, and I don't have the time to play almost any of them. That's how I know I'm serious about using my time for exercising and programming.

That will do for now. I'll try to update everything again before another three months go by. I'm sure there will be great stories to tell between now and then.

-N

Tyler's Birthday Party, et. al.

We just got back from Tyler's fourth Birthday party.  We had it at 'pump it up'.  We have been there several times before, but never for one of ours.  Tyler had a great time, though we had to take care of a few rough patches when he got hungry.  Lots of running around and bouncing.  Casey had a good time too.  She liked watching people and watching the big bounce houses and watching the walls and everything so much that eventually she just got exhausted and fell asleep on my shoulder.  Very sweet of her.  We had chocolate cake, everyone had a good time, and the whole house except for me is napping now.  I went out and raked leaves.  I think I need to do some gardening this weekend too.  It's spring, which lasts for like 2 weeks here in Texas.  Should take advantage of the outdoors now that its tolerable.

Update on the kids!  Tyler seems to be slowly growing out of his obnoxious phase.  Jess and I were talking and she was lamenting that he was growing out of the 'cute' phase.  He's not going to be three anymore.  I laughed at her.  I hated three!  It was the worst!  Glad for it to be behind us.  Here's to better years to come.  Tyler is also old enough to have proper Legos at this point, which is great for me, cause now I can buy them under the cover of buying them for him (they will not always be for him.

Casey is growing up big, too.  She can cruise with one hand, and is *desperate* to be able to walk like her big brother, has been for months.  She wants in on walking as fast as she can.  She's getting there, too.  Her legs are getting stronger all the time.  I think as soon as she figures out the last bits of her balance, she's be unstoppable.

Casey's first word was MaMa, this is true.  But her *favorite* word, at least for now.  Is Dada.  She is 100% Daddy's girl.  Whenever she sees me she leans out and stretches out her arms so I can pick her up.  There are times when she will let mom get her, but just as often, she turns right back around and tries to get on me.  Which is nice, I didn't get that as much with Tyler, so it's good to have a kid that thinks you are the greatest in the world.  She also has started to babble a bit, and even says, I'm convinced, "Tyler".  Which sounds a lot more like "Da-duuuh".  When Tyler leaves the dinner table, Casey always wants him to come back.  She likes that older brother, and Tyler likes that he has someone that wants to pay attention to him all of the time.  He roughhouses with her a little, but is careful, more or less.  I have to teach him to pay attention to Casey's face and sounds so he knows when to lay off.

I have decided to become a VR developer.  This has meant that in the past few months, I've bought an Oculus Rift dev kit, learned C#, learned Unity, and have been modeling things in Blender.  I am, of course, not *great* at any of these yet, I only get to work on things after everyone else in the house is asleep.  But there was a VR Austin meetup group that I took a little VR music video to and got a lot of positive feedback.  People liked it, simple as it is.  I learned a few nice things, and have ideas for what the next iteration of my music video will be.  My plan is to do this until I either get good enough that people will pay me to make VR music videos for their band (hello, Austin!) or that someone hires me to work on VR stuff instead of defense stuff.  It might work, or it might not, but it feels like I'm *doing* something, and so I don't feel hopeless anymore.

Micro-News!

We got a big fancy TV and moved the 'old' TV upstairs in front of the treadmill.
I've been running a LOT.  My long distance record is 9.5 miles.  I'm considering signing up for a half marathon at some point.  Jess is signed up for a 10K next month, because she has started running long distances too.  Not sure what sparked this, but I have an app called "Zombies, Run" which keeps me well motivated to run more often and run longer when I go.  Able Township needs me!
I'm playing *way* fewer video games now. All my time is spent raising kids, working, programming, running, or catching up with Jessie.  Not much time for anything else.
Jess is a manager now.  She is super important.
We are considering the purchase of additional real estate, but there's a lot of math involved before we know if it will work.
Casey has her 8 front teeth in now.
We will be traveling up to Seattle soon to visit family, that will be nice.
Went to the Austin Rodeo.  Tyler had a great time on all the rides.  Pig race was fun too.  No cowboy hat for me, yet, though.

Till next time,

-N

Telling some Stories

Casey likes to talk now.  It's not babble, which is when your baby starts mimicking the sounds of language.  This is some sort of pre-babble, where she just looks at you right in your face and sticks out her tongue and raspberries you.  Then you raspberry back.  Then she repeats.  This can last up to an hour. Then it transitions to happy shrieking.

Today, I was putting Tyler to sleep.  He grabbed my arm, rolled over and just said.  "Stay, Daddy."  It's been a while since he's done that.

Casey can keep her head up really well now, as well as roll from her front to her back.  We're working on sitting up, but there are two problems.  One is that whenever she gets excited, she likes to straighten out her body.  This means she flings herself onto her back without warning.  The other is that whenever she sits, she kinda leans forward, and forward, and forward, until she's essentially eating her toes.  Then she rolls to her side and then is right back on her back again.  It might be intentional.

I'm running infrequently, but being able to run at all with the kids in the house is a pretty big accomplishment.  Casey sleeps really well, though she can occasionally be hard to put down.  We've taken to cutting off her naps at 4:00, or sometimes earlier.  It means she gets a little loopy in the late afternoon, but she usually perks up when you nibble on her fingers.  Anyway, my 3 mile time is still roughly 45 minutes, which isn't good, but it's faster than when I'm sitting down.  And if the calorie counter is to be believed, it burns a lot of fuel.  (I'm not convinced it is to be fully believed.)

Fran was here last month, and Mom and (eventually) Dad are here this month.  We're going to go to a photo studio and get adorable pictures of everyone taken.  And then we aren't going to share those pictures at all.  We're just going to hoard them and look at them in dark corners where no one else can see.  This is a joke, of course.  Watch out for Christmas presents.

Tyler took some swim classes.  We're not trying to turn him into an Olympian, we just want him to feel comfortable (and safe) around a pool.  He started out pretty nervous, but got better at each class.  By a few times in, he was excited to go.  He's a decent swimmer now, he just keeps popping his head up instead of forward, and when you tell him to jump in the pool, he sits down, turns around, and shuffles in backwards.  Not a bad reflex.

It was my birthday last week!  I got to make a yellow cake.  It was really good, despite the fact that Jessie thought it was dry but who cares about her opinion anyway.  I haven't had any Ice Cream yet.  I'm saving that for later.  I don't eat ice cream as a matter of responsibility now.  Not eating ice cream reminds me that I'm being careful about what I eat.  The last time I had any was during my birthday last year.  I figure once a year is pretty responsible, I'm just going to reserve that splurge for another time.

I still hover around between 202 and 205 on the scale, with 199 always hovering just out of reach.  I'm really hungry, though.

If something big and dramatic happens, I'll try and let you know.

-N

Writing about my Vasectomy

Let's get caught up first. It's summer now, the weather is heating up, but is not yet at the point where everything outside is terrifying. Casey is still a baby, and still doesn't do much, but she smiles a lot more now, especially if you've been away at work for a while and you come back and look her in the face. She likes that. Tyler is still three, so he's mostly a big jerk, but sometimes he runs up when you're leaving day care to make sure to give you one last hug, and that's pretty nice. Also I got a new desktop computer.

Jessie decided, because she is a crazy person, that all of the faucets in the house needed to be changed. I attempted to change one of them, and then we hired a plumber. Which was nice, because they also swapped out all the angle valves in the house, which were all getting old, so that we don't have to worry about that for a while. It took a professional most of a day to get that done. I don't even want to think about how long it would have taken me. Money well spent.

Still working at the same job...starting giving myself injections of medicine and I'm getting used to the needle...got new phones that are very fancy and nice...starting to exercise again though my three mile pace is still really slow...yeah that about catches us up.

Monday I went in to see a Urologist named Dr. Chopp. I picked him because I wanted to get a vasectomy, and if you were going to get a vasectomy, I can't imagine why you would pick anyone else in the world to do it. After a quick consultation I decided to get the procedure done on Thursday. Quick turnaround on these procedures, let me tell you.

They offer you a 'mild sedative' if you have someone to drive you home. I wasn't sure what it was going to be, but it turns out they just gave me a couple of Zanax. An anti-anxiety medicine. If this is ever an option for you, take this medicine. I did, and am very glad.

The physical process of a vasectomy isn't that interesting, or hard to figure out. They go in, make some tiny cuts, stitch things together and you walk out under your own power. That's not the rough part. The rough part is laying down while a man takes sharp instruments to your most instinctively protected regions. It's panic-inducing. It's scary. I was lying there mostly just trying not to think about what was going on, especially when I felt stuff...moving. It didn't hurt bad, just a sting from the numbing agent. I did ask for a little extra after one of the snips felt a little harsh, but that's it. It's just laying there, thinking about what's going on. Trying not to move. Trying not to panic. I ended up humming the spider man theme song to myself a few times. Fortunately the procedure doesn't last long, but it's scary.

Later that night, I just was brushing my teeth and thinking about the surgery a little bit. Just thinking about it, hours later, almost made me throw up. The thinking about it...that's definitely the worst.

Time heals that, though, as well as the physical wounds. I'm definitely 'swaggering' around the house a lot more (sauntering?) and I can't move quickly. Also, doctor instructions were to essentially be a couch potato for the first few days. So there have been a lot of ice packs, and Jess has been doing a lot of parenting. I considered doing it on a Friday, but having somewhere to take Tyler for the first few days has been a real treat. I can take care of Casey a bit. You can do a lot of baby-rearing without getting up from the couch.

I'll definitely need some more time before I really know how I feel about this all the way. My head is quite certain, but my heart is more nervous. Especially as my biological instinct is to protect that area with everything I can. Some distance will put things in better perspective. I just wanted to write this all down so I don't forget about it later. I will want to remember things like this.

-N

Weight Loss

As several of you may have seen, via my Facebook post, Ryan Davis died a couple of months ago. There's no reason any of you should know him, he was a 'web personality' at one of my favorite Video Game websites. He was a riot to listen to and a great writer. He died five days after he got married. He was also fat. You can find pictures if you want, but let's not beat around the bush here; there's not a whole lot of guessing about what killed him. After I read about Ryan dying, I walked into the bathroom and weighed myself. I was 236 pounds. That might be the most I've ever weighed. It was right after the 4^th of July weekend, so it may have been a little skewed by recent munchitude, but 236 was too much.

The next day I started doing something I didn't think I'd ever do: count calories.

I got on a website called MyFitnessPal, put it my weight, guessed at a goal weight and, started trying to keep my caloric intake under the goal number for the day (roughly 2000). As it turns out, calories can sneak in via some pretty circuitous routes. My trail mix? Lots of calories in there. I only ate 5 fig newtons a day, for my daily 'lunch-dessert', but considering the low number I was trying to hit, that had to hit the highway. PB&J after Tyler goes to bed? Nearly 400 calories by my estimation, and that's just too much. I've gotten down to small dinners, carefully measured lunches, and...pretty much the same breakfast I've been eating for years, so that was okay. I might try and throw some more eggs in there, though. They seem like good breakfast fare.

It's made me really reconsider what I want to eat. When you start limiting yourself like this you start to really think about where you want your calories to come from, and when you want to eat them. Especially, too, when you make yourself exercise, and you start to see how much effort it is just to burn off a few hundred calories. Did you know I don't even get to eat fruit whenever I want anymore? Too much energy in most fruit. I can eat veggies at will, but let's be honest, Tyler is right: veggies are pretty gross.

It's a lot of effort, and I never thought I'd spend this much time thinking about what I eat, scrutinizing every meal. I'm not tracking calories every day anymore, I tend to estimate just to keep my sanity, but a couple of times a week I try to keep a solid count, just to keep myself honest.

Oh, and last time I checked, I was at 224 and dropping. So the effort is paying off. I'm just hoping I can keep this up, you know, forever.

Tyler. Is. Wearing. Underwear. Holy crap! This is big news, people, stop whatever you're doing. Well, okay, technically, now he's wearing diapers, because he's asleep and we're not crazy, but we started him on saturday and kept him in underwear most of the weekend. He did pretty well, though we have to lead him periodically to the bathroom, and he won't think of it on his own yet. #2 is also pretty tricky, but it's a work in progress. The point is that we've taken a big step, here, people. One that is going to involve a lot of extra laundry for a while. But if you recall, we had him in cloth diapers for many, many months, so super-gross laundry is nothing new to us.

Today was his first day back at school with underwear. He was a little bummed out when he realized that his pants obscured his totally sweet Lighting McQueen underwear, but for the most part he did pretty good today. It'll be a work in process (and don't be surprised if we totally wuss out for the New York Trip) but the little guy is growing up. Apologies to whichever family members' floor he pees on first. I figure it's only a matter of time.

Tyler is also starting to have full conversations, though for some reason he likes it better when he has a toy and you have a toy and your toy asks his toy what his toy did during the school day. Too modest, otherwise, I suppose. He also is putting together some pretty elaborate play scenarios. On Sunday he got his luggage, some luggage for daddy (a pumpkin bucket) some luggage for mommy (a purse) and then we went to the airport (kitchen) and sat in the airplane (floor) and went to new york. He walked over to the museum (Office) and saw the Dinosaur (actual Toy Dinosaur, I was impressed) and then we looked up and saw the big Blue Whale (ceiling). It was too high up to touch. We checked. And then, after all of that, we went back on the plane, flew back to Texas, and then said hello to the kitties when we got back to the house. Then he did our tax returns!

Micro-News!

Tyler has been taking swim lessons. Next week is his last class and I am coming to watch and see how good Tyler is now.

Tyler is starting to learn numbers and sounds. He'll be writing novellas before you know it.

Till next time, everyone,

-N

The return of Micro-News

It's been a while since I've posted, and a lot has happened, and I don't have time to write it all down in great detail, so we have to boil it down to the headlines. It's time for Micro-News.

I'm at home today because it's president's day and the Day Care is closed. Tyler is taking a nap so I'm typing this. I still don't know what a 'Teacher Inservice' is, but now that's just because I'm too lazy to
google it.

Tyler has been doing a lot of new things. He's:

1) Getting off of high things backwards, as opposed to forwards which, notably, doens't work.
2) Starting to learn the names of things. If you say a name he knows, he'll usually go look for the thing or point. Very cute.
3) Has started saying 'Ball'. Except he doesn't know about 'L' yet so it comes off as Ba-oooh. Also cute.
4) Has a little walker. His balance is improving all the time, but he still has some work to do before he can walk properly. The walker is great exercise, though.
5) Eats all sorts of stuff. It's fun to give him new things to try, especially fruit because he likes it so much.
6) Is starting to learn how to feed himself with a spoon. A messy prospect, and it requires a lot of guidance, but it's good to practice. Also, once he gets a hold of that spoon, he does not want to let it go.

Around the house, I've been doing a few things here and there. I put up a big baby gate that has essentially turned the office into a Nursery. Then we child-proofed the heck out of that room. Nice to have that space. Especially since...

We babysat the neighbor-baby for a few hours yesterday. Our neighbors needed the time to clean out their kitchen in prep for some remodeling, and also it's a good chance for us to see how he did with us. Quite well, as it turns out. As long as we distracted him with toys, he was in high spirits. I think he likes us. Which is good, because we have also volunteered to take care of him when neighbor-lady goes into labor. We have a few months, but it's good to know there's at least a chance of success.

Jess had a scrimmage for roller derby yesterday and Tyler and I came along to watch. He was a big hit with all the derby ladies, especially at the end when we got to go ringside and high-five all the skaters. Cutest little fist bump on the track.

Oh, and on sad news, we had to put Tigger down last week. He had come down with some pretty bad Kidney failure. We had done some treatment to help him feel better for a few weeks, which was a nice chance to say goodbye, but it's not a cure. When he started to get worse we made the hard decision and said goodbye. There were many tears.

I'll write more later if I think of more stuff. It's been a busy few weeks.

-N

Just One More Thing About Virii

The good news is that the family is feeling much better. Tyler seems like he's on the mend, mom and dad are over their respective illnesses, and the whole household is feeling relatively healthy. Which is why it's almost comical that now my computer has a virus. Ha. I managed to defeat the initial threat, but it's popped up again a few times. From what I've been told, the one I picked up is a tenacious one.

Which is why it's good that I've finally managed to get our household-wide backup working. Well, at least potentially working. My plan is to offload everything important off this computer and wipe the thing clean, then install the backup software so I don't have to worry about it anymore. All pictures of cute babies are totally safe, no worries there. It's an annoyance more than anything else, really. Just a heads up, in case you guys pick up something similar, too. If a brand new program shows up unannounced and starts 'scanning your computer' and 'discovering viruses', and then offering to delete them if you'll just 'buy the full version of the program' with your 'tender, delicious credit card', don't be fooled. You may need to do some technical gymnastics to clean up the mess, but it can be cleaned up.

Anyway, between that and some other chores, I've been keeping quite busy at home and surprisingly idle at work. Very frustrating to see Jessie have so much important stuff to do while I struggle to get even the most menial tasks. Anyway, lots has gotten done, and this weekend is definitely for relaxing. Though I've been getting a lot of exercise, too. The Kinect workouts are really tough, if you push yourself, and between that, Judo, and going out skating with Jess (I'm still practicing, she is more like a real skater) I've managed to trim a few more pounds. I don't really have a goal weight, but I've decided I'm too out of shape and need to trim up. Fortunately, I believe this will involve eating more tuna. Yum.

-N

Teefs!

We begin, as is traditional, with a list of all the new things Tyler has going on for him. And because it's been two weeks since I've written anything, it's a pretty long list.

For starters, he's quite recently started babbling. Babbling is one of those critical development stages they tell us parents to be vigilant for. It's when they start making consonant-vowel combinations over and over. To the layman, this means Tyler can say Mama! Well, technically he can say mamamamamamama, but the thrill is still the same. He's become a regular chatterbox, mama-ing and raspberry-ing like it's going out of style. It's super cute.

He's also started getting a tooth, we think. He's got a little rough spot on his bottom jaw, on his right, I think. He's definitely a little bit more fussy than he has been in the past, but he's still sleeping most of the night, with the exception of strange times when he actually manages to roll himself onto his stomach while trying to sleep.

A detour: let me tell you about Tyler going to sleep. Have you ever been so tired you've tried to eat your own foot? Tyler has. Does it all the time. We'll put him down for his sleep and he'll roll left and right and munch on his hand for a while, but when that's not quite enough, he'll kick up his legs, grab a foot, and stuff the whole thing into his mouth while rolling around and making cute sounds. It's all Jess and I can do to keep from breaking out laughing while he is trying to rest. And then sometimes he'll roll on his side and then straighten his body out and roll to his stomach. And Tyler knows that stomachs are for exercise time, not sleep time, though, he's past the real danger zone for SIDS. He's really good at getting from his back to his stomach at this point, but he hasn't quite figured out the other way around yet, so we'll have to wake up and flip him over sometimes. Other than that, though, he still sleeps through the night.

Anyway, yeah, a tooth. We'll put up some pictures when we can see it.

Tyler has also learned how to get revenge for all the nomming we've been doing to him. He's started to chew on Jessie at bedtime. She'll go in for some cheek bites and he'll get all excited and start chewing on her chin or cheek or whatever other part of her face is close enough to get in his mouth, all while making serious grunting-effort noises. It's a riot. Yes, we got some video, it'll probably be up on facebook soon.

He's also starting to get more mobile, though he's still not a threat to disappear on you if you turn your back. He's getting better at turning and scooching himself backwards via a combination of pushups and superman poses. I don't think he's figured out how to use all of it for navigation, yet, but the exercise is really good for him.

Kelsey has been a fantastic babysitter this past week. Even with some early teething he's always been happy and well fed and well rested when we get home. Tyler likes her, too. He smiles when she comes over to see him and doesn't even fuss a little when she is in charge. Evidently babies don't get afraid of strangers until 8 to 10 months. We were going to maybe try and babysit Grant while his parents went out this weekend, but Grant is firmly in the 'don't like strangers' zone, and he wasn't having any of our playtime when we tried an experiment yesterday. So it looks like we may have picked the perfect time to start sending Tyler off to Day care, before he can get too anxious about something new.

That's right, just a few more weeks and Tyler starts day care. Empty house! That will be really weird! Kelsey is going to help us pick out some more cute outfits for him. We got the advice that the cuter he is, the more attention he'll get from his teacher, so we'll get the fashion-conscious sister to help us dress him up all adorable.

Also on the horizon, solid food! We're thinking about giving it a try tomorrow when we have both Kelsey and Grandma to play witness to the mess. I'll do my best to keep the mess to a minimum, though we'll almost certainly have to give him a bath afterwords.

Non-baby Micro-News! We went out on Kayaks on town lake with some friends from work. Nice cool water, and we got to hang out under the bridges downtown. A blast, I liked it more than tubing, actually. There are no video games coming out. I'm playing some older ones to relax, but it's as dry as a Texas summer, I tell you what. Jess got me an ice-cream maker. I've used it to make Orange Sherbet already, and there's some vanilla bean ice cream in the fridge ready to get turned tonight. I completed another song! I'll post it up here a bit later, but we're going to take Kelsey out to the Farmer's market and then get some hamburgers in a bit, and then go pick up grandma from the airport.

-N

Ow! My leg! Mom!

Today was Tyler’s two-month well-baby checkup. He was, once again, *the cutest baby*. Victory!

His appointment was for 11:00, and I wanted to meet up to be there too, so, of course, Jess called me at 10:35 to inform me that they were already there. I drove over and met them in the waiting room and then we took Tyler over to get his measurements. He was asleep, but woke up as we were getting him all naked-ed up for the doctor. He gets all cute and stretchy when he wakes up. Anyway, he’s 12 lbs now and 24 inches long. Up from 7lbs 15 oz and 22 inches at birth! That’s a lot of baby. While we were walking him over there we saw another newborn coming the other way, crying her lungs out but *barely making a whisper!* How quickly you forget how small they used to be.

He was quickly soothed back to sleep with a pinkie while we waited for the doctor to show up, and after questioning to make sure that Tyler’s cuteness is right on schedule, she gave him a quick exam and gave us the thumbs up. She did hear a tiny, tiny heart murmur, but it’s a relatively common thing to hear in the youngest of babies and not worth worrying about unless it gets worse with age.

Then came THE SHOTS! Trauma! Tyler was lying down all nice and sucking on pinkie to keep calm when the nurse, with much professionalism, held down the legs and gave him three shots, rapid fire. He hadn’t even gotten to the second “waah” by the time she was done. That first “waah” was pretty bad, though. One of those lung-clearers that gets quiet at the end so that you know they’re gearing up for another good one. Mommy and daddy were there to sooth him, though, and he calmed down just enough to realize he was also hungry, so we fed him and all was well. Jess cried a little, though. She’s a mom.

Speaking of moms, we have a spare! Nana is here with us now, and has been lending all of the helping hands she has available. She’s been helping with cooking, making us French toast for breakfast the morning after she got here and also helping with dinners and the like. It’s definitely nice to have her around. Tyler has taken to her as well, she’s gotten several nice smiles out of him. She feeds him and plays with him and tickles his little baby feet. We may have to keep her. She can’t get to the airport without us. Mua ha ha ha haaaaa!

Tyler continues to make little progress every day. He’s definitely started to recognize things. He still cries his little heart out when he gets hungry, but when you sit in the ‘baby feeding spot’ he calms down. We’ve started to develop a nighttime ritual, and he’s gotten good at falling asleep and occasionally even soothing himself to sleep, too. He slept 9 hours once, though Jessie didn’t. He would ‘wake’ every hour or so, make some cute noises, and then just conk right back out. I’ve developed a cast of characters for his play-mat, though I don’t think he recognizes the continuity, yet. Mr. Toucan is the hard-talking, hard-working gym trainer, always demanding more energy and focus from his baby guests. Mr. Monkey is way more laid back. Then there is “the white monkey” (he is a rattle) that is the arch-nemesis of Adventure Baby (He’s Number 1 for adventure!), though Adventure baby is constantly foiling his plans.

Also more clothes. He’s grown out of most of his 0-3 month clothes (I think they size these things so you can pretend your baby is way more advanced. Already in three month clothes at two months! I’ll bet this doesn’t happen to absolutely everyone!) so we went to the consignment shop (shoppe?) to get some used baby clothes. Mostly simple onesies, but two things stood out. 1) I got a onesie that said “captain adorable”. Yes. 2) At some point, they stop making onesies. He’s going to have to wear pants!

In non-baby related news (less and less of that every post, I’m sure) Jessie’s teeth are feeling much better, thanks. She’s off her antibiotics and can feed Tyler again, now, if she wants. I made four loaves of bread and I’ve become so good at bread that I can actually be disappointed with some of my loaves. I call that progress. We’ve also lined up a photographer for this weekend when Grandpa Preecs comes down. Pretty much just for the pictures, I suspect. And I’ve been playing a lot of a game called Dungeon Fighter Online. It’s free! Maybe you would also join? (You will probably not join.)

Jess got to go get a massage this weekend while I took care of Tyler, and then today she gets to go to derby. I get to go to Judo tomorrow.

-N

Panic at the Start of the Semester

I'm sure I've mentioned before (a lot, maybe too much), that I am teaching a course in bioethics. In the past, I've been called in to give short workshops on these topics for a group of student researchers. This helped me develop my approach and some of the material I am using this semester, but is my no means equivalent to ACTUALLY teaching this class. The two big differences I see are 1) I have to give them grades, and 2) We will be enduring 14 weeks of eachother's company. These two differences result in a lot more, well, time being put into the effort. And obsessively re-writing my syllabus.

Although I've had a pretty good idea of what I want students to get out of this course for a long time, trying to define that in terms of a syllabus, gradable assignments, specific readings etc has proven to be challenging. Every few days, I'll get some other insight to how I want the course to go, or what the students should do/ get out of the experience, and I re-write the syllabus, re-tool the schedule and start writing new course documents. There is a lot to keep on balance. I want to have a lot of the structure for the course laid out, but still leave a lot of flexibility to cater to the interests of the students. I want to take on challenging subjects, but I don't my students to get incensed with eachother. And then there are my knowledge gaps. Besides the obvious fact that I have no formal training in bioethics, philosophy or social sciences, I am supposed to help my students with their writing, learning how to structure arguments, and I am totally dreading the big Environmental Ethics question.

We are a broad bio department, which means we graduate microbiologists ans ecologists side by side. I felt compelled to include an environmental ethics topics to include these students, and also because it is an important issue that future scientists ought to know about. I was waffling about picking some specific topic (Round-up ready plants, or mining issues), but after some soul searching and talking to Noel, I realized that I need to do for environmental ethics what I did for the other topics. Read up a whole lot, subscribe to blogs, and see what presents itself. And once I started in to that, I realized that I should just do the Big Environmental ethics topic (re-arrange syllabus, again). At the moment, I am thinking about environmental ethics is terms of "What happens when science and politics/economics disagree?" as a kind of capstone case study. I don't have a reading picked, and I don't know if my students will be up to this, but I think we will all benefit from the challenge.

Classes start Aug 30, and mine meets Tuesday nights. One way or another, I need to stop fussing with the syllabus and present it to my 8(! yes, I got an extra!) students. It's so soon!
* * *
The news round-up: summer drags along in a steamy haze. Matt and I went to Kennywood last weekend and rode on the NEW rollercoaster, compliments of our friend J. Tonight we are going to a fundraiser/beer tasting even at the zoo, which promises to be a blast. Matt's back has been troubling him most of the week, so he's been trying to be stoically low key. I'll probably send him to the doctor's next week, he is not a very patient patient. I am currently enjoying the juicy sweetness of a yellow seedless watermelon I bought at a farmer's market- awesome. Also, we are out of Q-tips. We are out of Q-tips because my crazy cat figured out how to get into the closet, so he can get himself Q-tips to chase around the house anytime he likes. Which is often.

Barely Coherent Blogging: Stuff just happens

My feet hurt, but I will endeavor to blog anyway.

Jess and I just got back from a pretty long run/rollerblade, a good 5 miles or so, which is pretty long for me, especially when running barefoot. I’ll probably have to get some better barefoot shoes soon, I’m starting to wear out the old ones, and there isn’t a whole lot of them to wear. Jess was on wheels, and was kind enough to slow down for me, I got pretty slow near the end.

We had a pretty relaxing week, overall. We spent a few days at home watching movies and cuddling on the couch, which is always nice. I started to feel bad about not going to Judo right up until the point where Jess grabbed my arm, cuddled my shoulder, and made a contented noise. Then I didn’t feel so bad about anything, really.

There’s a decided lull in new video game releases during the summer, or at least ones I care about, which has the nice effect of making me do other stuff for a while. I’ve been working on music and reading a LOT of books. I’ve gone through a significant percentage of our previous book splurge, and so I got to buy some of the sequels to the books I’ve already worked through. Books like:

Hyperion: A Hugo Award-winning book. Really good, very atmospheric and interesting. I got the sequel today.

Mistborn: Written by Brandon Sanderson, an author I’d been hearing a lot about (he’s writing the last books in the wheel of time series). Quite good, he writes books with really interesting magic systems, totally different than anything you’re used to and quite intriguing.

The Cobra Trilogy: Written by Timothy Zahn, and pretty much anything by him, I will read. Not a bad series, either, full of interesting ideas and good twists that you usually don’t see coming. I always like when a book does that successfully.

Tomorrow I get to go eat lunch with an old friend from Juneau who lives here in Austin now. So exciting! And then next week I get to head up to Dallas to get a polygraph taken. Significantly less exciting!

-N

Little update

Breaking up the blog with a few quick notes. First, sorry I missed writing and calling Nana yesterday. I’m trying to get at least one-a-day on my travel blogs but yesterday was pretty busy. We had gone to a Pizza cooking party this weekend and I had brought some dough for making the pizza. Yum, of course, because I make such great pizza, but we had some leftover dough so we made ourselves some Pizza last night. Then it was time to run off to Judo and by the time I was done with that I was pretty well wiped out. Judo is a lot of fun and one heck of a workout when you’re doing it intensely, so I was pretty wiped out when I got home.

The other neat thing we did this weekend was buy a grill! I’m all hyped up on the idea of inviting all my neighbors over to meet them and feed them hamburgers or something, so we went out to get a grill and we did a practice run with it on Saturday. The hamburgers were quite good (Gorgonzola makes everything better) but the real winner was the *corn*. That was probably the best corn I’d ever had. I may make all my corn like that from now on.

Anyway, just thought I’d throw those little notes out. I may put some pictures up later, but I want to get some more travel blogging under my belt before I retire for the eve to play some video games. On to writing!

-N

Micro-News: Macro Edition.

Too much stuff has happened, here are the highlights!

Some friends of our came to visit from Albuquerque for an impromptu weekend. We showed them around Austin and fed them tons of food. The bats under the bridge were a definite hit.

I keep forgetting to write Nana back, but the sewing machine we got was a Brother machine. It works really well, and I like it quite a bit. No new sewing projects yet, though.

We’ve done lots of work on planning our vacation. So exciting! We get to see a lot of stuff and it’s coming up right quick! We’ve also got a wedding and a graduation to go see, so we are going through a lot of airline miles over the next few months.

Jess got a new laptop for her birthday from me. Which also means that I got my laptop back.

The husband of one of Jessie’s cousins was in town for a couple nights, too. We took him out for BBQ (yum) and then met Marci and Brian at a club near downtown. We watched a band I’ve never heard of before, they played swing music, quite good. I had my musician ear on, too. Trying to get inspiration and lessons wherever I can.

Last week was SXSW, south by southwest. An enormous music festival in Austin. It’s pretty crazy, every locale that can host a band does, as do several places that can’t. I may try and do it next year. It seemed pretty exciting, though expensive and very all-day. I’d probably have to take some time off to do it properly. Also, there are video games.

Weight! I’ve broken through the ‘wall’ of 205 lbs, and I’m down to about 203 now.

Martial Arts! I’ve found a place to do my exercise. There’s a Judo school up by me. Good instructor, good price, no contract, and a lot of fun. I’m in!

The grass is still hiding underground, hopefully it’ll sprout soon, as long as the birds haven’t eaten too much of it.

Our shower is complete and awesome. The glass looks really nice.

Oop, bedtime, and I need to go take an awesome shower in our awesome shower. Cheers!

-N

Our New Shower

I've been super busy this weekend, homeowner activities mostly. But I thought I'd take a moment to throw up some pictures of the process for fixing up our shower, in case anyone was interested. Are you interested? Yeah, I thought you were.

So here's the 'before' picture. The plan was to take down the wall and expand the shower. So let's go through and see how it all worked, out.








Day 1: demolition. This is what happens when you let some contractors take out a wall. That tall copper stuff in the middle, that's the old plumbing for the old shower, just sticking out of the ground. All done nice and neat.






Day 2: Plumbing. Here you can see where they opened a hole in the floor and moved some pipes around. The drain, primarily, and also some pipes running up into the new wall. They also went in through the ceiling on the first floor to get to some extra pipes.




Day 3: Less impressive today, mostly patching up the holes they made after running plumbing the day before.





Day 5: The shower pan has been put in and the valves put on the wall. Big, manly valves, too, nothing like the piddly little mixer we had before. BEEFY!



Day 6: They started putting the 'hardy backer' on the wall. It's a cross between drywall and concrete. They also started building the bench.











Day 7: More hardy backer, and you can see the shower boxes up in the wall, and the completion of the benches.






Day 8: Tile! Our guy stayed extra long today and look at the progress. It's actually starting to look like a shower, eh?






Day 9: Finishing the tile and putting in the grout. Good stuff. Very pretty.






One last picture. I took this after telling Jessie not to turn on the water. She then turned on the water anyway. It worked for a while, but then we couldn't turn it off. I had to hold the showerhead to divert the water down into the drain. It made a bit of a mess. Eventually, we got it off, but it took some finessing.

The next day we went off to go hiking, and on the way there we got a call from the contractor. They wanted to make sure we knew that they were missing a shim to properly attach the handle to the valve. We shouldn't turn on the shower because it would be really hard to turn off. Jess had to pull over because she was laughing too hard. So, yeah, I get to tease her about that a lot.

Micro-News: We went hiking this weekend, just to get out and get some exercise. Very pretty hike along a river, all swollen from the recent rain. I also had a bout of extreme productivity. I made a list of stuff to do that was 20 items long and got at least half of them crossed off, including replacing the flapper plugs for two different toilets so they don't leak anymore. Also some yard work. We're feeling better after being sick, too. I went to a fighter training studio to see what it was like now that I'm not doing Wing Tsun anymore. Lots of hard training, which was good, but the sparring was real boxing-style fighting, with real, proper hits and everything. I'm not sure if I liked it or not.

And that's enough for now. I'm tired.

-N

I'm famous now

So, remember that time I went to that conference in Toronto on Canadian Science Policy? And I was all thrilled because I met this woman who wanted me to write something for her newsletter? Remember how that storied ended? With the January Issue of the SCWIST Newsletter- bottom of page 9!! Oh, and an obligatory rockstar dance in lab, of course. I think the appropriate thing would be to write back to that lady and thank her for her advice and her leg up, since that's what they tell you do for networking. Yes?

Further follow-up to that whole affair is the realization that I would benefit from having a writing portfolio (which means I need to do more writing). I don't want to be a freelance writer, but how else to you demonstrate communication skills? That's hard though. In fact, just thinking about it for months has gotten me no where. A couple of my coworkers (including Karen who I went to Toronto with) decided to start a weekly Writing Study Hall - at a coffee shop, after work. We tried it this week, and although we had a slow start it was a lot more then I have done in these interceding months. I've got a few ideas (a pitch, or a lead- what am I doing??) for things to write and ideas for places to send them. Now I need to convince someone else that this is a good use of their printed space, and get around to writing it. Having the support and structure of a weekly meeting will help a lot.

Otherwise, the cold is clearing up, and I can taste again- but not smell yet. Matt's big project for the weekend is to build a cat scratching post out of lumber and remnant carpet. We took Raoul to the vet this week, and he is as healthy as hateful of vets offices. We've got friends coming over to make egg rolls tomorrow, and going to watch the Vikings game with the local MN fan Sunday. And I got good results in lab, to boot!

NOTICE: I've made some unilateral cosmetic changes to the blog- the template and cover picture. The picture I love, so I had to update the template to keep up with the cuteness of the pic. I think it looks better, but if someone with a better eye wanted to further update to 'best,' be my guest.

Further Adventures in Home Ownership

Hey, not killed by snow. Cool.

So here are some pictures you may enjoy:

From Late 2009, Blog Pics

Jess and I bought curtains! Now we can let light in and still walk around in our PJs. It made me feel all homeowner-y.

From Late 2009, Blog Pics

We helped Jean and Ray decorate for Xmas. They had a fake tree with a motorized stand that rotated. I set the exposure time really long for this picture.

From Late 2009, Blog Pics

I've been practicing making cinnamon rolls. Get ready for Christmas treats. These came out really good.

From Late 2009, Blog Pics

Fall in Austin. These are the trees out in front of our house. The evergreen live oaks and two other types of oaks that also grow out front. I think they cast a pretty striking image, don't you?

Further adventures in home ownership! When we were in Vegas for Thanksgiving Lacey and Mark mentioned that they had to replace their air filters extra often because they lived in the desert. That caused Jess and I to realize that we didn't know about air filters and hadn't replaced them at all in the approximately one year we'd been in our house. Neither of us had ever heard of this particular home task before. How novel! Anyway, we cleaned them out/replaced them as appropriate, so hopefully we're breathing cleaner air as we speak.

I was out raking (very red) leaves this weekend when I noticed a pipe sticking out of the ground that had been fractured a little and was full of water. There was also a little of what looked suspiciously like wet toilet paper scattered around the pipe. I had Jess flush the upstairs toilet and, sure enough, a bunch of water poured out of the pipe and into our lawn. I guess it's some free lawn water, I guess, and I can't imagine it have been too much of a problem for too long, or we would have been alerted by a scent quite a while ago. Anyway, we called out some plubmers, and they were out in a mater of hours, snaked the drain, cleared the clog, and re-capped the tube. Problem solved. Adventure!

We also went out to a Holiday party for work last night. Jessie looked BEE-YOU-TI-FULL in her black dress and red jacket. We even went out to pick up some heels for her to wear to the event, and everyone commented on how nice she looked. The party was on saturday, and the University of Texas was having a big championship game that night, so they played it during the party. It was a VERY dramatic finish, fun to watch. After that we hung out at a nearby bar until 2 in the morning trying out various beers and talking about nothing important.

Micro-News!

I got my grey shirt in Ving Tsun a few weeks ago. It marks something like the halfway point for my training. Very exciting. It got down below freezing here a couple of nights this week: we got to use our gas fireplace. Romantic! We got some fresh catnip from Ray's garden in Vegas and have been spreading it around the house. The cats seem to enjoy it just fine. Just a few more weeks until Christmas! I'd better get some shopping done.

-N

VIDEO GAMES!

Tis the season! The dam has broken! All the holiday-time titles are all hitting the market within the next few months! What a great time to be a nerd. :)

Here are some of my favorites:

Brutal Legend: Weird game. Sort of a mashup between an action game and a strategy game, all set in the strange, beautiful ancient land where Heavy Metal rules the day and guitar solos can literally melt faces. Great writing courtesy of industry legend Tim Shafer, but the game is only 'ok'. I liked it, though.

Ratchet and Clank: Another in the series comes out next week, and Jess is VERY EXCITED about this one. This is her favorite game series, and is made by her favorite developer, Insomniac Games. They've made a LOT of really great ones over the years.

Borderlands: Another hybrid, this time of a First Person Shooter and an online Role-playing game, where you can find new equipment (guns, sheilds, etc) and play with friends. I'm interested mostly because it's coming out this week for PC, and I'll need something to play while Jess takes over the TV for Ratchet and Clank.

Dragon Age: A PC Role-playing game from industry giant Bioware. They've got a long history of great PC RPGs, and this looks to be shaping up like all the rest.

Facebook Civilization: This actually just got announced, but I thought my Facebook-enabled family might be interested. They're going to be making a civilization game for Facebook. Civ is actually one of the longest running strategy game series, and is well regarded for deep and involving gameplay. I've been considering starting playing some facebook games because 1) they're free and 2) I can play them upstairs on my laptop while Jess reads.

Micro News! I'm going to England in two weeks! The date has been set, the tickets have been purchased, and the beer is on tap. I leave Nov 1 and I get back Nov 8, so if anyone has anything extra-British they need, let me know.

I've finished the tutorial books I got for Cubase and Reason, and so I can start getting down to the thrilling job of writing music! I'm planning a two-pronged approach. The method I learned in my Music Theory classes actually involves starting with a poem (lyrics) writing a melody, and then assigning chords that fit. The other approach is just to play around with my synthesizers and see what comes out.

It's been raining here, and I planted a whole bunch of wildflower seeds around our flowerbeds and around the new tree in the backyard. They've already started to sprout! We'll have to see what comes up. I'll post pictures.

Peace, love, unity and respect!

-N

Penguins Win the Stanley Cup!

Pittsburgh is very into its sports, as I am sure I have mentioned before. We've certainly discussed the Steelers here, and Pittsburgh continues to trot out the Pirates for old times sake if not wins, and we also have the Penguins- our hockey team. Now, I may be a bit jaded, but I suspect that Steelers fans redirect their fanaticism at the Penguins to keep their crazy riled up in the off season.

A little background: The Penguins are a really good team, and they represent a lot of the cultural diversity we have in Pittsburgh (a lot of Borscht and potato eating people). Last year we had to face the Detroit Redwings in the Stanley Cup Finals, who soundly trounced us. This year, we had to face them again, and the people of Pittsburgh really wanted to come out on top today. My undergrad is a big hockey fan, and he was forever parading out all kinds of ridiculous statistics about how a team that are disadvantaged at the outset often win, or that teams with the average (young) age of our players often beat older teams (like the Redwings). And of course there was the whole debaucle with Hossa- the former Pens player who left our team last year to take a pay cut in Detroit because he thought his chances of winning were better. No love in this town for Hossa.

The Stanely Cup is decided in a best out of 7 series, and at the end of game 7, the Pens had pulled together a 2:1 lead. We watched the game at a friends house in Bloomfeild (Little Italy). As soon as the game clock finished we could hear people whooping it up in the street and cars honking. So we wandered down to the main drag to watch the parade of honking cheering fans give high fives to pedestrians, enjoy a couple illicit fireworks and try to touch the aluminum foil "cup" that was beeing passed around. The people I went with were not die hard fans- or even people who were universally watching the whole series, but at a time like this, Pittsburgh can be such fun. Everyone really rallies around just to celebrate. Unlike the riots in Oakland after the Superbowl, Bloomfeild generally just has crowds of people sharing high fives and singing songs and being blissfully happy about thier team. The overall demonstrations were less in volume and duration then for the Superbowl, but no less joyful.

Well, that is your cultural exchange update. In other news, Matt hasn't been working so much overtime the last couple weeks, so he has been at home in the evenings more even if I haven't. Ceramics is coming to an end soon, so I'll post some more pictures when my stuff gets back- I am thinking about taking the Wood Firing course next, if it is offered. I think it would be a great oppurtunity to do some new things. We've had some really cool results at work this week, which is exciting, but can also add a bit of pressure since my boss is suddenly very interested in what I am doing. I am jealous that everyone is taking really cool vacations this summer, so I might buy some tickets to somewhere wild from Kayak.com and do something awesome ($350 to Belize? why wait until Christmas?)- I'll keep you posted.

A backlog of photos

I have promised on many occasions to post some photos- overwhelming though it may be, I am going to post them ALL. Starting with our trip to Cleveland over Easter weekend. It was nice to get out of town for a couple days, and see some new sights. I've posted the album here.

Moving right along, we also had a visit from Shaoshu, which coincided with a Rockband party. Righteous beats were dropped, and a good time was had by all. A couple pictures are collected and posted here.

Another major event is the wedding of my ceramics partner. This was a long anticipated event- Sarah and Alex have been together since the were in high school here in Pittsburgh, so you can imagine their big supportive families were restless with happiness. The wedding included some Pittsburgh traditions (like watching hockey during the reception), some Jewish traditions (like breaking the glass and being carried on chairs- as seen in photos), but was mostly a simple Catholic ceremony. It was a lot of fun to go and celebrate with my co-workers and friends, and to dance with Matt a little. This album includes our Award Winning Toilet Paper Wedding party from the bridal shower.

In other news- The Penguins are in the Stanley Cup Finals! Can you believe people are still playing Hockey? It is hot out! We are facing Detroit, like last year and they are still a better team. Hoping to see some amazing turn around after a 2 game loss in this series, but not holding out for it. Matt is making steady progress at being a rockband drummer, so I have to do my best to keep up with him on the guitar stuff.

There will be photos later

I have SO much to post, I'll just jump to it, and fill in the details later. First excited news- Matt bought ROCKBAND. He wanted to have something he could work on getting better at, and I think after spring break in TX, he was tired of being the unmusical one. We both fundamentally suck at this game, but that makes it fun, and we are actually getting better. Matt favors the drums, but maybe someday he'll learn to sing.

Next, our old roommate Shaoshu is visiting this weekend (ergo, short post). Obviously, we are very busy with the having fun, goofing off and killing time. And this means we had to host our first Rock Band party. This was also great- and got to incldue W and J and J's Dad who is in town for J's graduation- can you beleive this stuff? Why wait to blog?

We need to go now, and have just a little more fun before Shaoshu leaves tomorrow, so I'll have a better update then. Hope you are all having a happy Memorial Day!