Average Grod's Average Blog

Christmas has never been more fun. Shanna and I love watching Emma now that she is old enough to really experience the Holidays. Obviously we took her to get a photo with Santa. It was pricey and it took a long time. I know standing line wasn't easy on Shanna and it wasn't easy for Emma but seeing her so excited to speak to Santa was worth it.

Even though there are many reasons why this Christmas is better than ever there is one that makes this time of year difficult. One of my grandparents passed away earlier this year and even though I can probably count the number of Holidays spent with her on one hand it will be difficult to get through tomorrow without thinking of her. I didn't have a chance to go to the funeral and I don't know if the reality of it has sunk in all the way but the absence of a phone call and yes, as shallow as it may initially seem, the lone missing gift will be sorely felt come Christmas afternoon.

All of my grandparents (and relatives for that matter) have given me plenty of gifts over the years. I'm not just referring to tangible items like presents but words, prayers, advice, examples, support, and plenty more. I don't mean to belittle any of the gifts I have received from my living relatives but for some reason the lowly single item that my Grandma would send me twice a year without fail on my birthday and at Christmas have become some of my most appreciated gifts. My Grandma lived a couple states away and these presents have always been a reminder that I have people out there praying for me and now my family too.

They were always thoughtful gifts. I can practically hear her calling my dad on the phone and asking him if there is anything "that the boys could use for Christmas? You know, like gloves, or hats, or scarves." I still have my gloves and the day they fall apart will be a sad day indeed.
I am going to miss not speaking to her on the phone tomorrow. How she would always be amazed at how clear and close by we sound on over the phone. I guess in a way she has probably never been closer. My guess is that she is in Heaven celebrating this Season right along with us.
One thing I don't have to guess about is that I am sure she will be asking Jesus to watch over us all and bless us this Christmas.

Thanks for all the gifts and thanks for all the prayers over the years Grandma.

I posted new photos to picasa. I didn't use Flickr because I would have been over my upload limit and I hate having only 200 pictures.

Well not really but for some reason my blog has doubled in value over the past two months which is interesting considering the amount of posts. YEAH! I wish real money was this easy to make. Who is adding links to this blog anyway? For that matter who is still checking after two months of inactivity and do I even deserve any traffic?

All the same here is an update.

Emma is growing up everyday. Speaking more, thinking more, and looking more and more like a school kid every time I turn around. Not one to be showed up by her younger cousin she dropped a deuce in her little toilet but isn't too interested in potty training. She wants to do it for about two days a week and then decides she wants to wear diapers. Maybe we will push her once the baby comes and we have more time home together.

Speaking of the baby, he has a name now. No, I won't tell you. Lets just say my sister in law doesn't have to worry about Boone's name of choice any more unless we plan on having two little Greek gods in the family.

Shanna is ready for this kid to come. I am torn. The later he comes the more time off I can take and the better it is for my studying and job hunt. If he comes this week I don't have to work during the holidays so there are definitely pros and cons all around.

Christmas shopping is half done. I still go to work feeling like the narrator of Fight Club. I passed my CIW Associate certification and am working on my CompTIA A+ this month.

I'll post more soon.

P.S. I'm not actually naming my kid Zeus.

Here is a bit of what I have done since I last posted. It has probably been months at this point. Easily the longest I have gone without a word since I became editor-in-chief of wildhog.

I started school. Seriously. I am back at it working towards a BS Information Technology. Right now I am studying for my CIW certification.

I spent too much time in World of Warcraft. I made a bet with a buddy of mine resulting in him purchasing and playing for a while so I helped him level up. I played a bit of Bioshock. The game is too good and too intense. I am into the second level and every second is pure gaming bliss so as much as I want to move forward in the game, I enjoy the first time play through so much I am saving it for when I can play uninterrupted with nothing else on my mind. You should try it out. No, I'm not buying you new underwear if you mess yours.

I bought the Orange Box. I know. Two games in just as many months. What am I doing with my money? When I stepped back and thought about it I realized that other than games I picked up with Christmas money I hadn't bought a single game all year. Shanna had. There was definitely and imbalance in the force that required correcting so I obliged.

The Orange Box is amazing. I finished Half Life 2, Portal, and have logged a significant amount of time on Team Fortress 2. Half Life 2 literally gets better each level. I have to say it has been the best FPS experience I have ever had. Probably better than Goldeneye on N64. Portal is short and sweet like cake. Emma enjoyed watching it and she really likes the music.

TF2 deserves your time. The game is so well balanced and the maps all work well. I have latched onto the Soldier class and can usually be seen near the top of the score list on whatever server I am on.

As my CIW test approaches my game time is rapidly disintegrating in front of my eyes. From here on out school is going to get pretty hectic and I am going to be talking to Shanna about how much gaming I can do each week. Seriously. I am talking a self imposed weekly gaming allowance. Luckily Steam keeps track of how much you play so Shanna can keep tabs on me. There is so much gaming goodness coming this year it is a shame to miss out. If you aren't a gamer let me tell you that it is pretty much common knowledge amongst the well played that we are in the most exciting months of a banner year for gaming. Easily the best year for good releases since about 1998.

I will try and update once a week or so. I am pretty busy and will continue to be for a while. I need to post more photos of Emma and when I do I will update the blog.

I am starting a new one. I think this format works a bit more than the old one but it takes me longer to get it together. Let me know what you think. Remember if you are interested or have captions or drawings send em over!

I finally decided I had to give the new Interpol album a chance. As I said earlier it doesn't have a steady flow of the canonical Interpol songs that the casual listener will recognize. It will probably take a lot of flack because the first single is what you expect from them. People will hear it and buy this album. Then some people will be frustrated by the rest of the content.

As with most hobbies it is the obvious that attracts people but it is the subtleties that keeps them around and drives them to go deeper. This is a deep album. Make now mistakes, it may not be as readily accessible as the previous two but it is just as good. Interpol has said that they included keyboards from the very start of the writing process for this album and the entire vibe is different. This album is moodier and harder to follow but I think the payoff is bigger. Interpol has really grown and challenged themselves with this album. If you want more of the same you should check out the two albums by The Editors. They are both great albums and though some people might write them off as Interpol knock offs they are quickly garnering their own strong following and seem to be pleasing critics. I can only imagine Our Love to Admire will help The Editors. I just hope that people don't write off Interpol because I think this album deserves a second, third, and even fourth listen.

I promised to write some more about Windows Vista and the Windows Defender. It's been a couple weeks and although my wife told me not to blog about computers anymore I got a cool comment about another Vista Victim so here goes.

If you haven't figured out I am a PC guy. Not a Mac guy. I have a brother who is and I can't tell up from down on a Mac. I feel you get way more bang for your buck from a PC. I can also tell you exactly which components are in my box, not to mention which box I have. I can upgrade my computer's memory, HD capacity, video card, motherboard, CPU, and occasionally even the BIOS. I don't have to wait for a new OS to upgrade like most Mac users. I have already touched on how stable Vista is. When it is up and running you have to deal with one of the new features which I believe is called "Windows Defender." Sorry it has been a couple weeks and I have tried to clear the experience from my head so I can't be sure what it is called. Like I said, I'm not a Mac guy. I can almost appreciate the wittiness of the Mac vs. PC ads but they still kind of chap my hide so I either have a deep seeded case of Apple envy or I am a PC guy to the core. This ad is great. I laughed out loud when I first watched it. First I thought it was about a firewall. I remember my first firewall being cinched down so tight that it set off alarms every time I moved my mouse. I didn't realize this was about one of the Vista "features" until I had experienced Vista first hand. You can't open a game, the internet, Word, or pretty much any shortcut without Vista firing off a warning. Even as an admin you have to ok Vista to change the screen res when you launch a game. Am I sure I want to allow this program to edit settings??? I was the one who double clicked!! This ad could not be more accurate without showing actual screen shots.

The other reason I am a PC guy is games. Two of the main reasons to upgrade to Vista per Microsoft are security, see above, and gaming. Pfft. Yes there is a games folder. Yes it does have some cool features. You can sort your games by last played, alphabetical, or any of the other ways you can sort files now. I keep all my game shortcuts in a file on my desktop so this games file is nothing new to me. Some games get cool icons. Not all of them. Not all installed games end up in the games folder which is kind of pointless. Vista will also consider your PC components and rate your system for gaming. But this only gives you a very vague idea. My system is actually only rated a 4/10. Probably because I only have 1 gig of ram but for most games I can run everything max. It doesn't show individual games min/recommended requirements or if individual game ratings. Another cool idea is that the game folder will list which version of the game is installed. This doesn't seem to important but for online gaming like BF2 or WoW it is important to know because you have to have current versions. Vista games folders lists all of my games as 1.0 no matter what. There is no point to display this info. I have way too many issues with Microsoft's gaming initiatives to cover here so as always I will cover it later.

Hopefully if you are buying a computer with Vista installed the company selling it will have support available and unless that support wants more trouble than they can handle their engineers will have put together some stable systems. I know companies like Dell are offering XP installs again. Commodore(Yes that Commodore) is launching a new line of mid to high end gaming rigs that will only be available with Vista installed. If you have Vista I wish you the best of luck. There are rumors about Service pack one being pushed out sooner and if that happens I may buy a $25 hard drive to install it and see if it is ready for the real thing. Until then you can guess what I'll be running.

By the time you read this the new album by the Smashing Pumpkins will be sitting on store shelve. I will go out and buy a copy. I couldn't help myself when I saw it online so I have listened to most of it. I haven't sat down and listened to it straight through. I haven't even listened to the entire album pieced together over multiple sittings. What little empirical data I have tells me that this album isn't their best effort. It isn't what I have been waiting for. And yet after 7 years of waiting anything by the Pumpkins is entirely what I have been waiting for. You can call me stupid because I am willing to pay for something that I already have or can get freely. You can call me wasteful for purchasing a CD with paper and useless jewel case rather than go with the "greener" option and legally downloading from iTunes. You can point out that if I pre-buy on iTunes I can pre-buy concert tickets. I am a fan. I have my tickets to a Pumpkins show(they go on pre-sale tomorrow.) I want the artwork. I want the physical CD. I want to show my support for my favorite band and I want to be able to list the names of the songs, song order, and identify the disc itself from across the room. Too many people download albums and call themselves fans but can't even name a song that doesn't get radio play. I am goin to see them play in Seattle and if I had the money I would watch them in Vancouver, WA and Vancouver, BC. I have seen them every chance I've had. I am proud to add my $15 to Billy's ever growing pile of money. I am a fan. And so I head out the door with cash in hand.

It looks like someone you have seen before but obviously younger. Once you see the parent you can put two and two together. This is the offspring. It is faster, bigger, and consumes much more. It will learn the programs it deems important quicker than its parent and run them more efficiently than the old folks thought possible. The 'other' programs are given a blue screen and left for dead. Sneered at and shunned. Refused entry at the door.

I think I may have finally tamed this beast called Vista and all I had to do is tell it's mommy how it was behaving. How it wasn't letting my programs into the party. How it was turning up its nose and giving them the blue finger of death right in front of me.

The most important feature I can find in Vista is the compatibility tab. Microsoft has included a nice feature with the properties of any exe file. Right click and choose properties. You will see a new tab called Compatibility. This will allow you to run the program as it would be run under a previous OS. Why would anyone want to shell out $200+ to run programs through XP emulation? BECAUSE IT WORKS!!! My PC may look like a Vista machine... but if you open up the hood you will see more after market XP parts than an XP machine has.

Tomorrow I write(complain) about administration rights and the WINDOWS DEFENDER. Stay tuned!!!

So far so good. My CPU core is staying right around 30C which is surprisingly low. Oblivion looks better than I could have imagined and CS Source is running smoothly at the highest settings.

I have Vista Aero running which looks nice but there really is no reason to upgrade to Vista. It definitely isn't worth the price unless it is bundled in a new machine. I love that it gets me to the desktop quicker but that wouldn't be so important if it didn't crash so much. An occasional crash or lock up is expected from Windows users but Vista is frustrating because most of them just happen when I am trying to do something I have done before. I got a couple blue screens when I installed drivers or new hardware/software. That is always a risk. It is maddening to get them while trying to load Geometry Wars or launching a game or app that has run plenty of times before. If you are thinking of upgrading I would strongly recommend against it until SP1. There are too many companies that need to release stable drivers and too many hang ups that need to be worked out. Not to mention it is an extremely expensive "upgrade." I doubt that the average PC owner looking to upgrade any PC that is older than a year will be happy with how Vista would run on their machine. Instead you should go look for a new background and Vista theme for XP because that is all I have used so far.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who gave birthday and Christmas money that helped build me a new computer!!!

My buddy Tim came over today and we got my new PC put together. The original BIOS was trying to boot from the empty hard drive but once we got in there and set up the optical drive as the first boot option it was pretty much smooth sailing. I did get a blue screen of death after I installed the "Vista" driver for my onboard audio.

I have to say Vista is pretty cool but unfortunatly I don't know what I am doing. I always used "Classic View" in XP so my PC has looked about a decade old until now. The blue screen of death is about the only thing I recognized. I have Vista Ultimate so I can run Aero and all of its flipping transparent goodness.

I just got my mouse, keyboard, video card, and CPU utility fully installed and supported so I am going to put it all to good use and play some Oblivion, F.E.A.R., and CS Source. I'll post an update about how it all goes. Later this week I am gonna install all of my Adobe(Macromedia) software and see how things run. Here is a rundown of what I bought.

MSI P6N NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI Platinum
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4 GHz
1 GB RAM
XFX NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT
Lian-Li PC-6087

P.S. last I checked my CPU was running at 33C because of the fatty Zalman 9700 lol. I'll have to see what it is at after a couple games.

My brother pointed out to me that I will be in Oregon one week after my birthday for his wedding so I will have the chance to buy some computer parts without tax. This makes the prefered gift for PC components cash because I can save 8% right off the bat. I still won't be disappointed at any newegg.com gift certs.

I posted the first Learn2Draw post. Thanks to everyone involved. I am going to work on new layout and design that fits the project a bit more. If anyone has any ideas or wants to get more involved let me know. I appreciate any comments and I am hoping to post once a month but once a week would be way cooler. If you guys know anyone who wants to join let me know!

http://learn2draw.blogspot.com/

Emma dealt surprisingly well with the patch and having to wear it really showed me just how much that kid understands about herself and the world.

Check out that wing hair! On the way back from her eye appointment Emma pulled out her hair bands and this is what happened. She hammed it up saying "wild hair" and "Chewbacca!"
I really think that her glasses have been helping but she still relies too much on her good eye so starting today (Friday) she has to wear an eye patch for 3-4 hours per day. We might put it off just until we have enough time to order some more patches but we will at least try it this weekend to see how she reacts. I don't think I will be taking or posting any pictures unless she is comfortable with it and it will be a while until we think about having her out in public with her patch. I expect she will be pretty disoriented for the first couple days. I'll let you all know how things go.

Including photos from Easter, potty training, and her bike. The Learn2Draw stuff is coming along nicely. I have two of them circulating and there are only 3 or 4 more people to hit so I am hoping to post withing two weeks.

I posted that last post from a Firefox addon and I don't think I'll be using it again. I haven't checked my blog until now and it is full of null space holders that were inserted and meant to be blank space. Instead I have a messed up post that is oddly formatted. Sorry.

Today we finally got Emma to go to the bathroom on her potty. She loves it and everything I try to take her off she say "A little more potty." I have to get a photo because she was sitting on her little potty with a blanket on her lap, and a TV remote, juice cup, and a book. I put her in front of the TV because she has yet to actually go potty on the potty. We have had her on it for up to 20 minutes straight only to have her ask for a diaper and then pee in it once we put it on her. This time I decided she is going to sit on it until she goes. I had to be in the kitchen to get her some breakfast and do some dishes so I couldn't just leave her in the bathroom alone. Anyway we are well on the way to potty training and let me tell you it is way overdue.

Woot CS3 is here! I want the Web Premium. I get so frustrated with Dreamweaver sometimes. It has a lot of cool features but lately I have been just using it to manage my CSS and as a text editor. I use a couple visual tools and I validate with it but IE 7 is so easy to design for that I don't need DW as much as I used to. Oddly the only browser I have much of a problem with is Firefox which is also what I use. As long as I have the Firebug addon I am ok but I am very excited about the new DW3 which is shocking to me. Having more support for CSS as well as Ajax and the closer integration with other CS3 products is great. The Spry tools add a huge layer of abstraction that should allow even the newest beginner to come up with some incredible sites. I LOVE the idea of a browser compatibility check!!! It is hard enough installing IE 3-7 on one PC and debugging for as many as possible but that feature alone will make it worth picking it up for me.

Photoshop 3 Extended is about the coolest thing I have heard of and you should expect to see a lot more 3D graphics soon. It will be easier to have 3D in Flash without having to buy extra software.

Speaking of Flash, being able to pull actionscript straight out of timeline tween is like cheating!!! I love to script but there are times when this will save hours as well as headaches. I usually design and draw in Flash(shhh don't tell anyone) because I am so familiar with it's limited tools. The addition of a more powerful (dreaded)pen tool to make it more like Illustrators is great. I am so excited that they adding more power to the Flash toolset AND the ability to import Photoshop docs while maintaining layers is priceless!!!

Another really intriguing feature is the new page feature of Fireworks. I absolutely love Fireworks and I can't imagine prototyping a single website without it now.

Anyone want to prebuy me a copy??? Actually I can upgrade so it won't be too bad :)

Three weeks down, three weeks to go. Sugar isn't much of a problem and caffeine is a non issue at this point. I have lost almost 11 pounds and I am hoping to lose 10 more over the next 3 weeks. Now I remember why I play video games. I can't work all the time. You can read too much and there are times when you just want to turn your brain off and kill some time. I forgot that I have a terrible time getting to sleep while I am working on something. I have missed a couple days of blogging because I have been working on a website every free moment I have. I am about ready to turn something on just to relax. If I do make it another three weeks you can bet I will be wasting a fair amount of time killing zombies or something once Shanna goes to bed. If your name rhymes with Kim Karson and yo wanna get together for an entire Saturday and play Dynasty Warriors give me a call!!!


I uploaded a few more pictures to Flickr. This set includes two of Emma and I going out to stomp some puddles with her new goulashes or "water boots" as she likes to call them. I think this one is my favorite one. She is in her all pink outfit that she picked out for herself. This is her as she is about to jump. I was at work but Shanna told me all about it. There are also a couple good ones of her opening a birthday card with her favorite present "monies" inside of it.

We decided to got with the Panasonic. I like it a lot so far. With the extra money that was left over we picked up some new warm weather pajamas for Emma and a pair of overalls. That kid is growing like a weed and Costco had the camera and the pajamas on sale.

I uploaded the photos I have taken so far to my Flickr site. I am pretty upset that Flickr is going to be going to a Yahoo ID for a login. I pretty much gave up on creating one after about 10 minutes of getting "that id is taken messages." Elmosfriend, Emmasdad, garrettshanna, yahoo_suxors, naked_elmo, naked_bear....ALL GONE. Unless I want to resort to spelling my name with no vowels or tagging everything with and underscore and my social security number I don't think I have the time to come up with something. I'll probably just build my own photo show or switch to Google's next month. I like Picasa anyways.

We have had some bad luck with digital cameras in the past. We have had two of them die on us in the past two years. My grandparents sent us some money to by a new one so that we can take photos of Emma. This is pretty cool but I have to think there is a bit more too it than my Grandpa tossing a check in the mail. On what was probably the same day Shanna found out that she was getting a bonus from her work. Combined we have enough money to buy a pretty decent camera.

This Lent deal is going pretty well and like I said I think it is good to learn to live with a little want in your life. I can say that I am truly grateful about this gift not just excited, glad, or even just thankful. I really think God had a hand in here somewhere because the timing is just too close. I'm not saying that if you fast or give up stuff your going to come into cash. I certainly don't believe my faith is like a Christian Visa and once I have earned enough points I can cash them in for a reward. I didn't give up all this stuff to get rewards but I am receiving them. Not to sound ungrateful and I know my grandparents will understand but money be it in the form of gift or paycheck is about the least important thing I am gaining during these weeks. I am starting to see other areas of my life where I can trim the fat it's just a matter of actually doing it.

Some people may wonder if I am nuts or yell BS that I am claiming a camera could be a gift from God especially since people are buying for us and it's not falling out of the sky. The truth is my Grandpa gave my brothers and I a 20 year old camera in 1996 and now both of my brothers are professional photographers providing for their families. They have worked hard to get to where they are but their paths have crossed with too many people, places, and opportunities to just chock it up to dumb luck.

So this is where I stand in regards to a camera choice. I am leaning towards a Sony H2. It got good review versus other cameras such as Canon but it is about $100 less. I think that Shanna will want a Panasonic model. The Nikon looks good but I guess it is a little more difficult to use than I want. It has a huge screen but supposedly it is difficult to shoot with one hand and your thumb will cover part of the screen. I may post another update before we go the store to look but I will check my email and blog again so if you have any last minute advice feel free to let me have it. Thanks for everything you guys have sent already. I'll have photos of Emma with her glasses soon.

pixies: My interest is piqued but surprisingly I just don't care. There are a few Pixie standards that the fans want to see played at their shows but other than that I think I have outgrown them. I used to love them all. Honestly I don't think they would be half as famous if it wasn't for Kurt Cobain. I think The Breeders are a much easier listen. Frank Black and the Catholics tends to grate on my nerves. I think Pixies biggest problem is that everyone loves some of their stuff. They are a hip name to drop and they influenced an entire generation of bands. Those bands did Pixies covers and almost every single one of those covers is better than or at least enhances the original.

Dinosaur Jr: I have 2 albums. The only 2 that charted in the top 100 maybe even top 50. Never bothered with anything else but I am always up for a listen. I was pretty tempted to look into some tickets to see them at the Showbox this Spring.

Duran Duran: I hope this is bigger than The Police reunion. It deserves to be and they have worked on singles with Justin Timberlake which pretty much guarantees a couple hits.

Relient K:Always fun. Shanna has been bothering me to pick it up.

Wilco: Wil who? I don't care. If it's anything like their other stuff I would put it on if I wanted to fall asleep.

Son Volt: I gave this a listen when I was in high school. Never heard of them again until there supposedly huge return. They got major publicity at Bumbershoot. Why?

White stripes:Not again!

Bon Jovi:Go on tour to milk you fame and call it good. You have the hits. We don't need another album.

LL Cool J:Momma said knock you out! I don't know anything else. I know he was a rapper first and an actor second(or third after model) but I like his movies better than his music. Give me Ice Cube in anyway shape or form!

Ryan Adams: Uhhh don't you mean Bryan Adams :P

Queens of the Stone Age: I really don't like these guys but they have written a few songs that rock. If I had to put them in a genre I would say they play "The Devil's Music." The first song on "Songs for the Deaf" can't be turned up loud enough or played too many times.

Talib Kweli:Never hear of him/her/them

Paris Hilton (That's Hot!):Hi, my name is Paris and I have Herpes. Now that's HOT!!!

Meat Puppets:I'll be darned if they can't write a good song but I'll never buy an album.

Radiohead:I need to write a blog about Radiohead. I'll probably run out and buy it but as far as I'm concerned they are starting to release just beeps and boops without much bite. "The Bends" and "OK Computer" easily make my top 10 favorite albums ever. I got "Kid A." I loved "Amnesiac." I have given "Hail to the Thief" more time than it warrants and with the exception of a few hot spots I don't think it's up to par but then what is when people are calling you the best band of a century. Thom's solo stuff was good but it really needed the rest of the band to fill it out. It was like "Kid A" junior. I'll always give them a listen.

Whitney Houston: Anyone who lived through 1992 heard enough Whitney to last 10 lifetimes.

Coldplay:their hiatus was just not long enough for me. I'm not ready to be bombarded by them again. The only band that is harder to escape has to be The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Let's just hope Coldplay doesn't release a double album and lets pray to the music gods that no one ever does what the Peppers originally planned for "Stadium Arcadium."

I know it's pretty bold of me to presume that my friends and family have nothing better to do on a Friday night than rush home and read MY blog but I am hoping that is exactly what you all do. Shanna and I have the opportunity to buy a digital camera tomorrow and we want advice on what to get. I happened to be at Costco when I found out so I took a quick peek. The two I liked were the Panasonic DMC-TZ1 and the Nikon coolpix S10. The only real reason I liked those ones were because they both offer 10x optical zoom. I am hoping you guys can recommend a good camera in the $300-$350 price range as well as a good camera for under $300. I have a few errands to run before work so I can't go into detail about everything. I promise I will check this before we go shopping so please either post here or email me. I am going to research on my break tonight and I will promise a full update and explanation tonight. If you don't wake up and check my blog first bright and early every Saturday morning you should tomorrow because there will be new material.

I don't have to eat my words yet but the terrible twos have struck! Emma has been waking up in the morning and staying up until two. She wakes up and says "Hungy! Hungy!" I usually bring her downstairs and feed her a little bit of food, watch part of a show or read to her, and take her back upstairs. This is killing any time I might have to devote to something productive but it is fun at the same time. She does wake Shanna up and that is messing with her sleep schedule but I love that Emma is sleeping in until 10! I'll have an update about this later to see how many nights she is going to do this.

Sorry about missing a day. This weekend was busy because I had to work and the time change. I will be glad to have next Monday off. Emma was awake when I came home tonight so I took her to let Shanna sleep. She just went to bed so I didn't have any time to work on stuff tonight. I am hoping she sleeps in. It is 1:28 AM.

We bought her a bike for her birthday. She has been wanting one for a while. If anyone wants to know what to get her for a birthday present we have been looking for a pink toddler helmet but haven't found one yet. There is a really cute Little Mermaid swimsuit at Costco too. Save your receipts because she probably doesn't need 7 helmets.

Everything is still going well with my Lent stuff. I lost between five and six pounds last week. Here's one of those cool lists with food you shouldn't eat. Make sure to check the PDF file or just click here. Too bad Coldstone is on there but hey, Burt Baskin died at 56 and Ben Cohen had a quadruple bypass at 50 so what do you expect?

• Grapenuts and Milk


• Spaghetti
  • Mizithra Cheese, Steak, Red Onions, Mushrooms, Basil


• Pineapple, Grapes, Strawberries, Broccoli


• I'll probably have a quesedilla or sandwich soon

It was a long week at work and I still have one day to go. Now I remember why I play games. I could really use something to veg out to. Guess I'll go read or watch some more Photoshop TV.

• 4 pieces of Pizza total throughout the day for breakfast lunch and dinner


• Turkey Sandwich


• 1 Apple


• half an Orange


• 1 Kiwi


• 2 servings of Peanuts


• 1 slice of Toast with Peanut Butter and HONEY!


• a couple Saltines

We took Emma to get her wonky eye checked today. Turns out she can see fine and in focus too. She just has an eye that has to work harder than normal to focus which is causing it to cross. We bought her 2 pairs of glasses today and we should have them both in about 10 days. I'll be sure to post some photos of her but I can't promise much because the only camera we have right now is part of my phone. I am really glad that she just needs glasses and not surgery. If she has a hard time adjusting to them I'll probably end up buying a non prescription pair for me to wear to encourage her. Even though pirates are cool I am glad she doesn't need an eye patch because I'm not looking forward to wearing one Arrrrrr! I don't think the glasses will be too bad. She loves trying them on at stores and Shanna wears glasses which Emma has been known to put on.

The lack of sugar in my diet is already having an effect on my pallet. Fruit, which is the sweetest thing I have eaten all week really POPS on my tongue now! I bought a couple dates today that were larger than my thumb. They actually seemed rich and where more like eating a caramel than a fruit.

• Grapenuts and Milk


• 1 Large Slice of Pepperoni Pizza


• Tuna Sandwich


• Handful of Peanuts


• 1 Banana


• 4 Dates

I have to work Saturday so I had today off. Emma and I had a lot of fun. We ran a few errands, went to the park, library, a second park, and did a lot of playing around the house. I usually leave to take her to the babysitter's at about 2:30. She won't nap anytime before 1PM so as you can imagine we cut it pretty close sometimes and this really only allows her to nap for one hour at most. I was curious to see how long she would sleep today. I woke her up at 4:15 so she could watch Curious George on PBS and eat some lunch. I wasn't too surprised but I didn't think she would nap for almost 3.5 hours. The strange thing is that she can actually go all day and make it until 10PM without a nap if she has to.

Everything else is going well but I absolutely have to buy some honey. No sugar is no fun. I had originally just intended to go without sweets but there is a lot of grey area so I just went for no sugar. I have had a bit. It turns out that Goldfish crackers have a small amount and I have had a couple bites of oatmeal and rice cakes to try and entice Emma to eat her breakfast/snacks. Other than that I haven't slipped yet.

• Breakfast Burrito
  • 1 egg, bacon, cheese


• Tuna Sandwich


• 1 Orange


• Raisins


• Pecans


• Turkey Sandwich


• A few bites of Steak


• Peanut Butter Toast

This is already starting to have a positive effect. I am a pretty compulsive shopper when it comes to the grocery store. I don't by junk but my wife knows better than to send me in there alone. Emma and I walked to Safeway for plain peanut butter(EVERYTHING has sugar in it!!) today. Odwalla juices were on sale for a really good price and I was about to buy one. I was hot, thirsty, and I haven't had anything to drink but water since Saturday night. I thought about it and decided I don't really need one. This was a pretty big step because that purchase needed very little rationalization. The reality is that I had 8 oz of water left in my bottle. There was absolutely no risk of dehydration. I had plenty of fruit and food at my house which is less than half a mile away and yet I was completely convinced that I needed this juice. I guess all the practice saying "no" to stuff over the past 48 hours really is paying off. I'm not even halfway through the first week and I can recommend this to you. As weird as it may seem it is good to be able to live in want. Say "no" to yourself once in a while. The truth is you can't have everything you want and I have a feeling that even if you could it wouldn't be enough.

• Grapenuts and Milk


• Quesedilla split with Emma


• 1 piece of bread with peanut butter


• 1 Apple


• Meatball and Noodle Casserole


• Cheese and Salami Sandwich

• Grapenuts and milk


• Sandwich
  
  
  
  • Turkey
  
  
  • Cheddar
  
  
  • Avocado
  
  
  • Tomato
  
  
  • Mayonnaise
  
  
  • Kosher Salt & Black Pepper
  
  
  • Crescent
  
  


• 5 meatballs with sauce
  


• 1 piece of bread


• 4 crackers

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Day One went surprisingly easy especially when you consider I have a box of Girl Scout Cookies and a half a bag of Peanut Butter M&Ms on the counter. We don't usually have this stuff around the house but its that time of year for the cookies and the candy is left over from a retreat last week. I bought a basketball Saturday and I went down to my neighborhood court to shoot some hoops. I spent about 45 minutes and worked up a good sweat. I think I made about 10 shots lol but I'm actually not way off considering it's been about 10 years since I played. I can't run either because of my knee so it really was just shooting with a little bit of shuffling here and there.

I spent all of my free time today drawing with the computer, blogging, and optimizing a website I am working on. I would like to put together a collection of clip art stuff to sell. Here is the start of my first piece of art. Obviously unfinished. This pecker is missing feet, a perch, some shading, and I need to play with the angle of his head because right now it just looks like he is missing an eye. I am working on the texture for the wing but I have it all wrong and am probably just going to hand paint it. Any advice is welcome since this is my first attempt at drawing an animal and I draw like Napolean Dynamite.

Anyway here is what I ate today.

• 1 Apple


• Spaghetti


• Foccasia bread


• Salami Sub Sandwich(homemade)


• Some pita chips and Salsa


• 3 meatballs


• 2 small fried plantains

I have never actually participated in any sort of Lent event. Never given up anything for 40 days and technically I'm not doing it this year either. Due to equal parts ignorance, sloth, and irony being that I am a pastor's kid I don't even know when Lent is but I guess it started a couple days ago. So where is this going? Well for the next six weeks starting today(err yesterday I guess) I am going to give up sugar, caffeine, fast food, and video games and I am hoping to document it on my blog. Each day I'll be posting what I ate and if I was able to refrain from wasting time twiddling my thumbs.

My goal is to be more productive over the next couple weeks. See if I can get a leg up on some of my projects or increase my skills. See if I can drop a couple more pounds. Maybe replace some of what I am losing with some healthier choices, activities, or practices. Because I work until midnight most of the posts will be posted at about this time so if I am referring to "today" it will probably be "yesterday" for you, dear reader.

Caffeine, fast food, and gaming are all pretty clear cut. As far as sugar goes I'm not actually going to be too strict. No candy, desserts, and the like. I am checking labels for hidden sugars in things like dressings but if I miss something because I can't figure out what the name is I'm still going to consider this a success. All the same if you see something on my list that may be suspect let me know.

I am interested to see where this goes. If I can keep up with the discipline and the blogging. I may need some extra prayer or reflection time to get through it so this may end up as more of a "Lentil"?? experience than I had originally planned.

Finally, I updated my links and also added a nifty value widget that my brother turned me onto. Normally I don't place things like this because they show how many people DON'T visit your page. In this case I new it was low due to my lack of activity so I decided this was a good benchmark. We will see if I can move it at all over these next few weeks.
$564.54

So there are probably a lot of people who would disagree with that and I can't say I have a lot of experience with two year olds. Technically I can't even say I have a two year old for another month. Emma is starting to come into her "terrible" twos. She is easy though and I say if you have really bad terrible twos its because you have a terrible two year old :)

I don't :P

Now that she can communicate to Shanna and I pretty clearly what she wants there is no hesitation. "More mine money!" "More dandy(candy)." "Haha Daddy ripper"(I don't have a dog to blame it on like my brother and my kid is too old to blame now). Emma's two's aren't really terrible at all and I don't think they are going to get much worse. Go ahead and laugh. This kid is a breeze so far and as a father of a daughter I am WAY more worried about what happens in her life between the ages of 12 and when I die than I am of this year. She is too much fun even when she is upset. She still uses sign language (I caught her signing as the spoke to her kittens today) in addition to words so she is very easy to understand especially if you spend much time around her. When she gets upset she will say "NO." But then she answers "no" to just about any question. Most breakdowns or "tantrums" as I believe they are called are usually due to extreme sleepiness and almost always end with her falling asleep, wanting to be held, or falling asleep while I hold her. Something I am always pleased with because it won't be too long before I she is too old for that. Having her sleep on your shoulder is just about the best thing in the world although it might come in second to her walking up to you and putting her arm around your back and just smiling and patting your shoulder like she is your pal. I guess now that she has the "friend" thing down the next thing to learn is how to retract that friendship by responding to my "Emma, daddy says no" with "Daddy you can't be my friend!"

It's been a while since I posted so here is a fictitious ad I built with Photoshop. It's just straight out of a book so it isn't as impressive as you might think and the photo quality isn't as high as it could be. I shrunk the file size for posting but I think you can get the idea. I think it's fun.