I can't believe that it's almost halfway through the year. Things are still kicking along. I got the crockpot recipe that Laura found going around 11:30a or something and it's currently set for 4.5 hours. Looks good, though. Not a very soupy recipe, so we'll see how it looks.

Another couple of storms again this week. Oh, I guess the last time I wrote was just before the big tornado that hit Moore, OK. Anywho, the 19th was when it all started. This storm went right over us and a tornado landed a few miles from our house, to the East. We were in the bathroom and all that. Connor actually kinda had fun because it was something new to hang out in the bathroom for a little while with piles of blankets, pillows and both dogs. It wan't a long time, so that was good. He was starting to get antsy. We went in and out a couple of times, though.

The next day, the 20th, was another big day of storms/tornados. Unfortunately, it was a devastating one that hit Moore, OK, about 20 miles South of us. About $2 billion in damages I guess. Anywho, it luckily missed us, but it could have easily been us, I guess. I think Edmond is in a "favorable" location or something because storms and such always seems to miss above or below us. Knock on wood.

A storm shelter would be a great fall back, but they're pretty expensive and it's a rental. Who knows how long we will be in OK.

I've been super tired lately. More than normal, like more than usual fatigue. It's sort of like last Summer when I was super tired and I may have had mono. Feels like that. Hopefully, it passes.

Back to my fantasy story. I've written a little more outline, but I'm doing a lot more details in my head regarding the story, i.e. getting more in-depth. I just need to get it down on paper! I dunno why, but it's hard to get my ideas onto paper. I just need to write it even if it's all scattered so I at least have it down and go back later to flesh it out.

This weekend we're going to head to Bartlesville to go to Sunfest, which is something that Laura used to go to I guess. Hopefully Connor isn't crabby! He's still at like 8 teeth or something, although I don't know how Laura counts those. He rarely lets you look at his mouth.

He's napping right now and I'm just watching the news about the storms/tornado possibility South of us. And North, too. Got lucky again!

I have a little time before I head to bed. I guess I just need to do a recap of the first few months of 2013. 

Laura and my birthdays weren't too overdone, I don't think. Honestly, I can't remember much from a few months back anymore...not sure why, but it's definitely because of Connor. I'm sure I can remember if I sat down and thought about it hard, but not quick recollections. 

We did travel to Colorado in February with Connor. That was a pretty stressful ordeal, but we learned a lot from it. It went generally okay. I think there were just things that we would do differently the next time around. Of course, the next time around would be totally different as Connor would be much older. The next one will probably be in August or September (or both?) and he'll be a year and a half. hopefully we won't need to take the car seat, but then again, I don't think he'll sit for an hour or so quietly. You never know, I guess. It's just that the car seat was so big and heavy. We did okay, though, for the most part. We enjoyed our time in Colorado and caught up with friends/family. 

At this point, Connor was still only taking a few steps, but by his first birthday, he was walking like it was nothing. They develop and grow up so fast.

Next up with Connor's first birthday. We had it in Tulsa and had close family/friends. He got a lot of gifts and I think he had fun. He ate a good amount of the cake that Laura had made for him. She also worked on a lot of the cake toppers for him and they turned out great. 

April was still on the cold side for this year and it's only recently been starting to warm up. Laura had applied to the Portland VA, but the two openings was cut to one and, in short, it looks like we're staying here for the time being. We'll keep trying, though, whether it be Portland, Denver, etc. It's really not bad here, but the past couple of days and dealing with tornadoes could change that outlook. 

We had a big Mother's Day/grandparent's anniversary two weeks ago. It went well, as usual, though I think at times it was a little stressful due to weird, unforeseen events. 

At any rate, that's where we are now. 

I haven't been playing WoW since May 1st or something like that. I've started to work on my fantasy book a little more now, but still "stuck" in a sense. I need to just get over the first few pages and just write. I have a weird tendency to make each page write perfect as I write it so that when I'm done writing, the book is done. However, after reading some techniques on writing and outlining, I decided I'm going to try a general outline first and then fill in the details later. I just need motivation to finish out the story, but for that I still need to come up with a good resolution. I think I need to also accept the fact that the first draft is going to suck a lot. It'll take a long time of reworking it to make it even acceptable. I hope to have Laura read it first and give some critiques.

That's really it. Connor has been talking more and more and having more personality. He's sort of starting to get an attitude. I think he's trying to learn to speak more clearly, I've noticed. Some words come out more and more pronounced, relatively speaking. He does understand a lot more though. I think he's bored during the days. I do try and go out and do interesting things, but I dunno what to do. I dunno about Gymboree yet. :P He loves to play outside, though. He wakes up about 6a, still takes a couple of naps, one around 9a and then around 2p and goes to bed around 7p. Not sure when to transition to one nap, I know we need to soon, but he's not ready for it, I don't think. He does get tired a lot and sleeps the two naps for an hour and a half or more each, plus he usually sleeps through the night, so, at the moment, it seems that he does need it. He'd be pretty cranky with one 2-hour-ish nap, I think. 

I still need to go to the doctor, too. And the dentist. I just keep pushing it off. Story of my life!

Well, this week was tornado week here. One landed a few miles from here while we did our precautions in the bathroom in the middle of the house. Today was another threat, but it missed South of us. Demolished Moore, OK. Could be time to move, regardless of jobs!

Well, I should head to bed. I was going to get more writing done tonight, but alas, didn't get to it again. I just need a laptop with no internet connection or something. I get distracted too easily.

Wow, really, another month gone by RIGHT AFTER I said I'll write soon...sheesh.

I think I'll try to write this week. I've been itching to work on my fantasy story...still thinking about the best way to go about this plot every night while trying to go to sleep. I just can't come up with a cool storyline/resolution.

Hopefully, it'll hit me soon.

Aaaaaaannnndddd another two months...well, almost. Connor's waking up now, but on his next nap, I'll be back to write some.

Wow. 2 months since my last blog. What's been going on? Hopefully I can catch you up soon.

Okay, let's get on with the 2012 review!

Certainly a huge year for me and Laura. The first months leading up to Connor's birth was hectic. We had a lot going on in terms of figuring out work (the biggest issue I think), getting his room ready, getting all the stuff we needed to get him home, and basically just getting ready to have him! The first months went quick, if I remember correctly.

Connor Kazuaki Yamamoto was born 3/30/2012 at 2-something in the morning! 2:44 or something. I can't remember. It was a quite the grueling battle, mainly for Laura. I was just tired. She was tired and in pain. I guess an 18-hour labor will do that. We went in around 8 in the morning and I think we both were expecting maybe a couple of hours of labor at the worst. Issues with the pitocin led to a longer-than-needed labor. Oh well - everything well smoothly in the end and everyone was okay. That was the important part. After the long day, the next few days were spent keeping him fed and getting used to it all. I had taken a week and a half off from work when he was born. Laura was able to take about 6 weeks of full-time leave, which was nice. Oh yeah, the leave situation was another thing that was very annoying. That aside, there was then a 2 week part-time leave that Laura took to ease me into parenthood full-time. I told my work about this whole stay-at-home thing, oh, I think in early February or so. I quit April 20-something.

The first few weeks were hard getting used to, of course. I was at work, though, so it was all Laura for a month and a half. I really can't remember how much he slept in the beginning. I think 30 minutes or an hour after being up like an hour. Man, it's embarrassing, but you really do forget things during first time parenthood. There is so much going on. Luckily, Laura's Mom helped for about a week after he was born. I'm sure Laura appreciated that.

Skip forward a few weeks. I think my Mom came down to visit/help as well. Then after that, one Connor was settling down and his "schedule" more consistent, Chris and Alicia. Skipping forward a couple of more months, he was finally starting to interact but he still couldn't move. A couple of MORE months and he was finally crawling. Time was going so fast for us, it literally went like the last couple of sentences I wrote. All the little things in between have been forgotten, at least in my mind. It's like, birth, first poop, first bottle feeding, first roll over, first-[insert event here].

He's just over 9 months now and I can't believe he's that old already. He starting to babble, eat solids pretty well, eating out at restaurants. I suppose the next thing is walking! He's starting to try now. Sort of dangerous, actually, if you're not watching.

Come to think of it, a lot of the 2nd half of the year was me getting used to taking care of Connor and getting into the groove of things. Laura took a job here in OKC, obviously, so we're here until about June, at which point we need to decide whether or not we're going to stay here or move. It seems for now we're going to be here since Laura should probably work a year or more before moving on.

It snowed a little during this Christmas, which was a nice change since the last few years. We do miss the snow. Although it snowed, nothing really stuck, so it wasn't THAT great.

The big present for me this year was a banjo! I had watched a banjo documentary on Netflix a few months back and I got really interested in. I always liked the sound of a banjo, though, but the documentary kicked it into high gear. This was a DIY kit, so I had to stain the parts and put it together. It took a couple of nights, but now it's put together and tuned and everything. Getting used to playing it and fingers don't hurt since the first few nights! I remember I was "decent" with the guitar, so hopefully I can pick up the banjo fairly quickly - a few months before I can start playing some decent tunes.

And so, 2012 has passed. A big year for sure, probably the biggest year in terms of lifestyle change for us. Connor is great, but he is also tough to take care of and work what we liked to do around. We've seen a couple of movies in theaters thanks to Laura's parents watching him, etc. I've gone to a few doctor's appointments taking him with me. Sometimes he does extremely well, sometimes he cries the whole time. Makes me nervous, for sure. My driver license is actually expiring at the end of this month, so I need to go to the DMV. Of course, it'll probably take an hour or two of waiting, so I can't really take Connor. Laura's Mom is coming out next week and she's going to watch for a while while I go. Hoping it goes smoothly/fast. I first have to go to the DMV then to the tag agency to get my actual license. Stupid.

This year will probably be another big year, not because we're having another child, but because Connor will be walking, talking, and all that it brings. I'll probably need to step out of my comfort zone more and take him to events and stuff...dreading that!

We have a few trips out of state planned for this year as well. We're juggling going to CO next month. This will be his first time flying! I'm nervous about that as well. Thankfully, the flight is pretty short, maybe a little over an hour, so it shouldn't be too bad. Besides, people aren't flying to be in a quiet environment, right? Oh well.

Anyway, gonna go take a bath now I think. Laura is watching the season premiere of Poopton Abbey.

It's the third, THE THIRD, of the new year and I haven't even done my usual year-end recap. I will promise to do that this weekend after Connor's down and I can think for an extended period of time. I do have a couple of goals for myself this year, however. We'll see if these get done:

1. Matt said he would draw the pictures to a storybook that I wanted to make for Connor so I need to come up with a draft. I had an idea in mind. Just need to flesh it out. 
2. I want to get a lot done, if not finish, on my fantasy story. I got a "how to write a fantasy/sci-fi" book for Christmas so hopefully that'll help. I just don't have the time to sit down on a regular basis to write. I'd like to get a schedule going, like a couple of times a night set aside an hour or two or something. The thing is, I'm the type to want to set aside several to work on something. It takes like an hour for me to get into the rhythm. Plus, I still do need to tweak my story. There are some things that I need to change to make it work. 
3. Start taking more photos again. I was going to do the photo-a-day thing, but I'm already 2 days late. Poop. 

That's it for now. We'll see how it goes.

I've been wanting to write more in my fantasy story lately...just need to find time and creativity, I guess!

Connor is sleeping a LONG time right now (and today, in general). Hopefully this doesn't screw up his nighttime sleeping.

It's Friday, though! Not sure what we're going to be doing this weekend. I know we're going to try and head to Walmart to do some giving tree shopping for a kid or two, but nothing else planned. Laura's parents are coming up this weekend as well.

Among good news, looks like my super cool gift to Laura should turn out good - 4/4 items should be received in time! I just need to sit down and think of a good presentation for it.

What else. The weather is getting quite cold. Well, actually, it's been cold for a couple of weeks now. It's only in the 50s usually, but a few 30s and 40s scattered. This would be warm in Laramie, but now that we're used to the hot weather, it's quite chilly. It's pretty windy and overcast now, too.

We've been dealing with the stupid squirrel problem lately as well. Dumb roofers took out the barrier that they put up last year and didn't put it back so they got in again. Traps are out right now. They already caught one. I think this time there was only one or two, so hopefully it's a quick solve.

That's about it. Next week is prep for Christmas, I guess. We're going to Tulsa for a few days as usual. I'll try and write out my year-end summary again. This year was quite the big change for us, obviously!

Whoa, already a month? I am severely forgetting about this blog thing.

Let's see. Let's talk about golfing. So, we all went golfing in Tulsa like I mentioned on the 27th of Oct. It was very cold in the morning, but by mid-round, things were warmer and it was actually quite enjoyable. I was teamed with Laura's Dad against family friends. Bill was pretty good and consistent. Ron I think it usually only okay, but he played pretty good I think that day. Hence, we lost. I can't remember by how much but it wasn't too bad. We could have played better, but it was good overall. Dave had some nice shots and saves for our team. My short game sucked, as always. The course was pretty interesting as well, with canyons and creeks and such. There was one hole, where the tee was like a couple of hundred feet (maybe less) higher than the green. After we shot, we proceeded to drive our carts down the path. There were lots of signs that said "slow" because it was quite steep. Dave and I went down first. Dave was sort of going kind of fast at the beginning and I was beginning to worry a little. At one of the of hairpin turns, Dave realized that right before the turn, he was going too fast, so he had to slam the brakes. Of course, that just made us spin almost. The cart began to tilt but Dave got his leg out and I think that helped to keep us from not tilting over. Anyway, after that he still seemed to go faster than suggested, but oh well. It was fun overall and I'd like to do it again when the weather is nicer. I sort of miss playing a lot of golf, but yeah.

Since then, I've had more health exams and blood tests and everything seems to be fine. I gotta get my mind to believe that now. Poop.

Thanksgiving was last week and Connor had a fun time I think. He interacted with a lot of new people and strangers, so kudos to him. He ate most of what we ate as well.

Now, the thing that sucks is that he's teething pretty badly, so his sleep at night, we assume, have been crap. Utterly crap. I'm usually up sometime between 2 and 4am in the morning for the rest of the day. That doesn't sit well for me. By mid-morning, I'm exhausted and by later afternoon, I'm dozing off to sleep.

My Mom came over as well for a few days during Thanksgiving. She had fun, but as always, I was stressed out by the end. I took her to the airport today and she's now back in CO.

The big news over the weekend - oh, wait, Connor got baptized this past weekend as well. That's big news. He did great. No crying at all during any of it. It was pretty short and simple and I didn't have to do anything real weird or something that would make me uncomfortable.

The day before the baptism, however. Man. We were on our way home from Tulsa and as we got off the turnpike, we were about 5 minutes from home, literally. We stopped at the light and once it was ready to go again, I hit the gas and something clanked and the car just wouldn't go anywhere. We think it's the transmission since the car just revved. Anyway, we started to panic because it was a fairly busy intersection and crowded because of some people coming home from Thanksgiving, I imagine. I was like, what are we going to do! AMAZINGLY, a state trooper in his SUV was right behind us. The odds of this happening are like, so small, I can't even begin to fathom. He walked up and told us he was going to push our car to the nearest parking lot, passed the lights and to the left. He just pushed us with his car. I really don't know what we would have done. We would have blocked one lane and it would have been horrible. Plus, I was in my pajamas and dress shoes still... embarrassing to be standing outside in that.

Anyway, after we were in the parking lot, Laura called AAA and got it towed to a AAA-approved service shop. Ryan came to pick us up and take us home before this. Laura waited for the tow truck. Luckily, everything happened very quickly, within 15-20 minutes probably. The next day, I called Hyundai to go about trying to get it fixed under the warranty.

It's currently at the shop. I called today for an update and they were supposed to call me back, but no go. Hopefully, they call back tomorrow or I'll have to call again. I hate doing that.

So, the last couple of days, we've been down to one car and it's sort of annoying because I have to take Laura home and pick her up from work so that I have a car while at home. It's about 2 hours of driving a day. She wants to get a rental. I think we might if we don't get an estimate on when we'll have our car back. I don't think the dealer will pay for one even though she thinks they will. Anyway, I'm gonna wait another day or two to find out more details. Hopefully, it's covered under the warranty and if so, the fix is quick.

Well, last night was a crappy night for me, so I'm going to head to bed early tonight. Probably 8:30p.

See ya.

It's almost been 2 months, sheesh.

There's been a lot going on, so lots to summarize.

Still going to the library lots. We've basically been reading a new book every day, so that's cool.

Connor's naps took a nose dive in the last two months, but it's slowly getting better. His nights were the worst, though, waking up like every 2 hours to feed. It's down to like 2, maybe 3, and we're trying to get rid of that last feeding around 3-4am. The thing is, he's not doing a good job staying asleep after getting him settled down...which means I've been waking up at like 3-4a every other day and maybe 5a every other day. It's getting old. I need sleep.

Other than that, he's growing, man. He's 18lbs 13oz and he's crawling everywhere and sitting up by himself pretty well. I swear I can't remember how the transition from not being able to sit up by himself  to being able to sit up well came from. One day he was just sitting up and we noticed it. Goes by fast.

I did take my trip to Colorado last week! It was a nice break, but it was only for 2 days, really, so there wasn't much that I could do. I stayed at Chris' and saw my Mom and sister for lunch. We played golf and bet $1/hole. Chris talked quite a bit of crap but, alas, there was a reason he was in junior varsity. I beat him 15 of the 18 holes. I was playing at or better than what I used to in high school on the front nine, even. But then, I choked big time on the back nine (still beat Chris though). I shot decent overall. Chris' Dad also came to play. He beat Chris...that's 'nuff said. It was pretty cold when I arrived there, in the 30s and 40s I think. We went to the driving range on Sat and it was cold and snowing, but the next day the sun came out and although the first couple hours were chilly, it warmed up nicely. I still like how the only time I visit, it was the coldest weather this year...

I was going to meet up with Deni, but that day she was in the mountains looking at venues for her wedding, which isn't going to be in Puerto Rico anymore obviously, so she couldn't meet. I headed down to Denver on Sunday and met with Ellen and Matt to see their place. It was a nice place, although located in a slightly sketchy area of Denver, I thought. The dogs were fun too. The black one bit me the first time she saw me, but then was fine after. Got some good pictures too.

Now, back in OK, the Autumn weather is definitely noticeable and some of the trees are starting to change colors.

In 2 weeks, I am golfing with Dave, Ron and Bill. I felt like playing, so after I heard they like golf, I challenged them to a 2v2 scramble. It should be fun. Went to the driving range this past weekend as well. Hit pretty good. I'm not sure why I'm playing so well...I haven't played in literally 3 years. I've only played 3 times in those 3 years and before that was like 2002 or something ridiculous. If I practiced regularly, I bet I could do pretty well in tournaments and such!

Anywho, what else...I'm starting to get a little back into photography again. I think the Fall colors will be a big boost, that is, if I can find a good place for the colors.

Whelp, he's crying now from his nap. I better go...I don't have too much spare time these days...can't even take a nap because I usually spend the majority of his naps trying to keep him asleep...sigh.

Well, the Olympics are finally over. I'm not that big of a fan, just a few sports. And, before I continue, I want to say that trampoline should not be an Olympic sport...seriously.

My Mom is flying in, like I mentioned, in a couple of days. She's only going to be here for the weekend, though. I'm not sure what we're going to be doing. I know we're going to try and watch this sushi documentary we've been wanting to see. I think my Mom will like it.

The weather's been tolerable the last week or so. We've had a couple of thunderstorms and much needed rain. This past weekend, we were able to hit the driving range for the first time in years! It was a little rough at first, but once I got the rhythm going and remembering how to swing again, I started to do decent. I need to start practicing because I want to ask Laura's Dad and see if he wants to challenge another two family friends on a round of golf. I think we'll do pretty good. Anyway, it was fun. We took Connor and he had fun. Laura tried to hit a few balls, but I think she was frustrated at the difficulty. It does take practice. I think golf is really only fun if you're decent at it. Even I get mad when I don't play well and it's generally better than most of the general population.

What else. Connor is still well. I'm doing good during the weekdays. I'm not sure if it's easier than before, but his naps are getting better, so that in turn makes my job a little easier.

Recently, we discovered the library as a source of books...who knew??? I want to start going every week or two and get books for myself, as well as Connor. I do like getting books for cheap at Half Price Books for Connor, but since we go through a book a night pretty much, we might as well start borrowing because there's a limitless number at the library. I was even able to decide that I didn't want a couple of books I put on my Amazon to-buy list because it didn't look good.

So, it seems like Autumn is just around the corner. Weather getting "cooler", for the time being. I can't wait for the leaves to change color. I really want to head out somewhere and get some good shots this year. Last year I was very lazy and didn't get anything.

Oh, one big thing is that we're going to be staying in OKC for another year or so. We had a chance to move to Portland again, but it would just have been a nightmare to pull off in the time we had. It would have involved packing and storing everything but bare essentials within a month, finding a decent place, apartment or hotel, to say for a month that would take dogs/isn't crappy and having to look around in Portland (not sure how) for a place to move to, all with Connor. I think we chose the right thing. There will be more opportunities in the future. On the bright side, now we don't have to fly and travel for the holidays. :P

That's all for now.

It's been a few weeks - the last couple of weeks have been a rough patch for Connor and his napping, so it's taking a toll on Laura and I. He seems to be getting better, but we're not through it yet. This coming Wednesday, Connor has his 2nd appointment for his shots. Hopefully, it goes well...and I'm going to try and not get the rotavirus (assuming that's what I had a for a few days).

I finally went to the doctor for my weird lymph node swelling. Did some blood tests and she said they looked fine, but it looks like I may have had mono several weeks ago. That could explain some of my symptoms, but we'll see. Next week I need to schedule another follow-up appointment to make sure that my levels for whatever signifies mono is getting better. I'm also going to ask a little more about the lymph node thing. Still feels swollen. It's weird because I usually start out fine in the morning and it gets progressively worse through the day.

Chris and Alicia visited a couple of weeks ago as well. They seemed to have fun. It was super hot outside, so we couldn't do much there, and with Connor, we can't really "do stuff", so...oh well. It was good to see them.

My Mom decided not to move out to Vegas to take care of Ken's baby. That was probably a good idea. She's coming again to visit the last week of August for a few days.

We're currently in Tulsa, visiting for Laura's parents' birthdays. Connor had a horrible night last night because the day leading up to his bedtime was horrible. Not much sleep. He didn't get much sleep today, either. It usually is the case when we come here since he doesn't really sleep on the way here and the environment here isn't what he's used to. The crib bounces, the floor creaks, the light is bright, etc. It's also annoying because we need to go up and down to his room every time he starts fussing. The day we get home isn't great either, because it's another 1.5 hour drive and he is fussy when he gets home. Then he takes a day or two to catch up.

They are watching the Olympics right now. I'm not a big fan of the Olympics. It's not that exciting to me. The only sports worth watching to me are probably the track and field stuff.

Well, that's all for now.

Well, got the American Mensa results back yesterday. Bad news. I didn't make it in. I thought I probably wouldn't, but anyway. The worst part wasn't even that I didn't get in. So, the test consists of two tests, the Wonderlic and the Mensa Admissions Test. The Wonderlic is some old test from the 30s that they use for various thing, most notably for pro football players, for some reason. It's a 50-question test with a time limit of 12 minutes and you have to answer as many as you can correctly. I can't remember if there's a penalty for wrong answers. I think there was. Anyway, I got a 29 on that test and that put me at the 83rd percentile, not even close to the 98th percentile required.

The Mensa Admissions test was a longer test consisting of probably 150 or so questions total spanning 7 sections of various topics. I got a 92 on that test...do you know what percentile that put me in? 97th...97th!

So close, but, not good enough. Oh well. It was something I wanted to do and now I know. You can take other standardized tests to see if you can get in, but I'm pretty sure you can't take the Mensa test again. I think they use the same test over and over again.

It's Friday, and I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend. I really need to go to the doctor to get checked on my lymph nodes and tiredness and stuff. Could be allergies again, but I don't think so this time. I just gotta get the motivation to make and appointment. I don't want to take Connor, sigh.

Sucker's starting to get hot here! I can't stand it already and it's only like 94-95.

Things are still good. Pretty much into the weekday routine and schedule. Sometimes he gets cranky at night, but that's only 1 or 2 times a week, if that, and that's probably expected anyway. I wish that he would sleep through the night though, from when we put him down at 8pm-ish to 5am or so. We can only hope.

Not much news to report. My upset stomach has finally passed (as have my swollen lymph nodes). I guess I had a longer case of mild rotavirus (suspected) than I had planned for. I'm still not sure if it was the rotavirus, but, I think it was. Connor's poops have been normal the last couple of days too, so I think it was a simultaneous thing.

Tomorrow Laura's parents and Kelly and Ryan are coming over in the morning to eat breakfast. I'm going to make the fluffy waffles that we had again. Going to double the vanilla extract to give it just a bit more flavor and it should be good. We bought some bacon too, which we haven't in a long time.

What else. We're in the process of figuring out moving and what jobs to accept and all that for Laura's next step. We'd like to move to Portland, but there aren't any jobs and the one interview that she's waiting for from OHSU still hasn't contacted her. On top of all that, our lease (that we don't have a signed copy of...) is running out in like a month or two or something like that, so we have to start worrying about that too.

The next month is going to be stressful!

I'm still alive!

Glad it's Friday tomorrow. Today was exhausting, for some reason. Connor had good naps, but for some reason I was super tired. I put Connor down at 4:45p, right before Laura got home, and I just fell asleep on the floor for almost 2 hours! Laura was sad that she couldn't see Connor much tonight, though.

Not sure what's going on this weekend for Father's Day and stuff. I think Laura's parents are coming up or something.

As I see I have some time, I'm going to work on Connor's face timelapse!

Must. Update.

Dang, last night we had the biggest hail storm that I've ever seen or been in. Luckily, we were, again, just out of the path of the storm, but there were cities reporting grapefruit sized hail...damn! I saw pictures online this morning. Also, the Walmart Neighborhood Market nearby had some downed power poles too, like 10 of them. The driveway and streets were littered with branches and leaves today.

It was kind of cool, though, because I finally got to use my flashlights and headlights and stuff. Not to its full potential, but enough. I thought at one point, the hail was going to shatter the front storm door. I got nervous for a second, so I closed the front door. It was also really loud in the garage when I went in there to get a flashlight.

Baby's waking up...

Well, it's Memorial Day weekend, whatever that entails. We're going to be heading out to Tulsa here in a couple of hours once Laura gets home and finishes packing and feeds Connor. He was a bit fussy eating this morning. Got a little frustrated, but after a 10ish minute "cooldown", he seems to have eaten about the same as he usually does, although a bit later.

Nothing new the report. Been having some spamming issues with some of my websites, so I had to take down a couple. One didn't really matter, the other was TJ's Kinja Designs website. The last one was my Cranes For a Wish website that I didn't want to take down, although I haven't updated it since August of 2011. Anyway, I think it's fixed now. I should really get back into it...no time though!

Maybe I'll post again this weekend if I find some time.

Well, this past week marked the beginning of Laura's transition back to work, part-time. This meant that I would be home with him the first half of the day and then Laura would come home around 1pm each day. It went well for the most part, although I was nervous. There was only one day, Friday I believe it was, that was difficult. He was overtired and wouldn't sleep nor want anything to eat. I was getting frustrated because he just wouldn't get to sleep, even though he wanted.

Other than that, it's going well.

This weekend we went to an antiques mall to check some stuff out. Nothing interesting caught our eye. I forget what we did on Saturday. Wait, that IS what we did Saturday...wow, my time and memory are slipping. Today is Sunday, okay. I've been tired or something this weekend and trying to catch up on sleep from the weekday or something. I woke up at like 10:45a today. I took Connor to the other room to put him to sleep after he woke up and ate around 7am. Apparently, he slept until almost 10a, which is great. I was sleeping in the glider.

Not sure what we're up to today. It's already 1p, so, who knows.

Great 7-hour sleep last night!

Today was Laura's first half-day back to work after her short maternity leave. She was sad, but she'll be back in a few hours! He's taking a pretty good nap right now. I should eat something since I'll need to entertain him in a bit...he's been making small sounds here and there this past 1.5 hours.

Way behind on this blog. Sort of falling behind on Connor's blog, too. Need. More. Time.

Laura goes back to work next Monday, so it'll be just me and Connor during the days. Sort of nervous. Hopefully, I can pull off all the things I need to do correctly. I think the hardest part will be feeding times and getting the milk warmed and ready and all that. Hard to time how long he will sleep and stuff.

Went to Wesley's b-day today. This morning Laura's family came up to visit for the event. We ate brunch at Bravo's and Connor slept all through that, and he actually slept from 11am to about 2pm. As he woke up, we fed him and got ready to head to Kelly and Ryan's for Wesley's birthday party. He started getting fussy shortly after we got there and he didn't get much good sleep while we were there. After three hours or so, we headed home. He's been fussy the last few hours (I called this happening yesterday!), but hopefully he sleeps long soon. Don't want to have another difficult night.

Mother's Day is coming up and we're not sure what to get my Mom. She's coming here in 3 days, on Thursday, for 6 days, I think. I hope it goes well...

It's come by so quick. 2 more full days of work and I'm going to be a stay-at-home-Dad!

I'll post back with training details and such later. Gotta try and get some sleep before we tend to our boy tonight. It might be a long night.

It's almost as though this blog is merging with Connor's blog, since what he does is basically what I'll be doing as well. I'd hate to stop writing in my blog though. I need to think of another idea to keep it going.

I have 1 more week of work left and then it's full-time at home for me! Going to Tulsa I believe next week for a few days. Then, my Mom is going to be visiting from 5/3-5/9. After that, it's going to be uneventful until our 2-month pediatrician appointment...whoa, I'm already talking about 2-months from now! He's a bit over 2 weeks right now. Time flies even faster when you have a kid!

Among other news, this past weekend, I entered 2 photo contests that I thought I might do good in...we'll see. Total cost was around $50, so I hope I get SOMETHING out of this... both will have their results around mid-May, so I'll report back then.

Yup, it's hard to blog both for Connor and me at the same time...

Anyway, all's well so far and he was born on 3/30/2012 at 2:44am after a grueling 18.5 hour labor by Laura. She did great, though. I don't think anyone else could have done what she did in the way she did it. She got through those contractions via how she practiced in her pregnancy and did great. Love you!

Work has been good the last 2 days I came back. Not having too much trouble staying awake, but I'm definitely tired.

Connor did great last night, too, but the first night was sort of rough. We went and saw the pediatrician on Tuesday. After a stupid 30+ minute wait, Connor is doing well and he's already back up to his birth weight. Laura and I totally forgot diaper change stuff and, of course, he poops as we see the doctor. Thankfully, they had diapers and stuff in the office.

Now it's just getting into the rhythm and hoping that he sleeps more!

Sorry, been forgetting to write in here. We've scheduled the induction for tomorrow morning at 7:30am, so the next time I write in here will be after the baby is born! I'll have a website for the little guy, trying to blog in there everyday, but I'll try and not forget about MY blog, too.

We have a lot of the stuff already ready, but I'm sure we'll have some last minute stuff tonight.

I rented an iPad 2 so we can use it in the hospital, the guests can use it, etc. Other than that, I think we're both getting nervous and the countdown has certainly begun!

Love you bub. You're going to do great. I think I'm the one to worry about more!

Come on baby!

We had some good rain the last couple of days. Soaked the seeds I threw around the yard pretty well. Hopefully they start to grow as it gets a little warmer.

Had an appointment with the doctor today. It looks like she updated the due date to just a couple of days ago, so it doesn't seem as though Laura is that much overdue, just, a few days now. We had another appointment for next Monday, but she thinks we'll have the baby or some sort of activity by then. That would be good. We even got everything we needed packed into the car because we had thought we might induce today, but, now we're just ready, I suppose.

I've been sleeping out on the couch, well, I guess just yesterday, but now tonight as well. Laura just snores a bit loud after she falls asleep and it gives me trouble going to sleep. I don't sleep as comfortable on the couch, but I feel a little more refreshed in the morning. Tonight, I'm going to try sleeping on the guest room bed. Hopefully it'll be good.

Tomorrow is essentially my Friday as the university gets Thur/Fri off for spring break. Woot. It would be a good time for the baby to come, too!

Got to leave work about 45 minutes early because our director let us since it was a nice day. I think it was because she was leaving early and felt bad, but works for us!

Still no baby. We have an appointment on Tuesday to discuss inducing. We're hoping that it happens this weekend so we don't have to induce. Laura hasn't felt much in terms of activity, however, so that's not promising, but it could be any day, so. Cross our fingers!

Sorry about the sporadic blogging. I guess there goes my goal of writing every day. It lasted for a while. I did start up another site for our boy, so I'll probably start writing more/every day over there. I'll try not to forget my blog.

I got some bermuda grass seeds today and threw it around the yard. We want grass since most of our yard is weeds. I would spray weed killer, which I did in some places today to see how well it works, but, at least with the weeds we have, as long as it is mowed once a week, it keeps our yard green. Everywhere it's starting to get green, however, which is nice. Although, that also means that it's going to get hotter and hotter. It's quite warm already, as high as the mid/upper 80s. Summer's going to be blistering again I think. I did "till" a little of the back yard where it's dirt/sand. It's weird that it's sand. Hopefully, it rains the next week or two and the seeds start to sprout. I'd like a lush yard.

Other than that, just waiting on the boy. It can't come soon enough, although, that means we'll be non-stop tending to him, ha.

Got a half-day today at work because the university shut down their power while they worked on something. Got in in the morning and had issues turning my computer on, etc. The lights in the office would dim like every 10 seconds or so. After a while of this, perhaps an hour, the university called the day off because people were frying their computers or something. Anyway, left work around 11:30a or so and went to the store to get some stuff for dinner. Played a little Dungeon Defenders. I'm installing WoW right now...I might start playing again a little bit to pass time once the baby gets here. Who knows. I may or may not have any time at all. The thing is that there's this perk for active players (i.e. Chris) to send an invite to someone to get back into the game and they get a mount and I get a free level 80 character. Sounds good to me!

Sigh...I dunno why I am always tried during the day, but awake after 10:30p and then stay up until like 12:30a or 1:00a...

One more week until the original due date! i.e. he could be here anytime!

Some more people of my work know that my last day is a little over a month from now. One of the development officers came to tell me how she heard that I'm going to be a full time Dad. The student work and my office mate overheard, so, yeah, pretty much our side of the office should know that my time is nigh. The other side, I'm not so sure. I now know that the director knows, though. Guess I don't have to be all nervous now.

Allergies have been kicking my ass though the last week. I've been taking Claritin for about a week now...I'm not sure if it's helping or not, but man, in the first half of the day, I feel like crappy, with sneezing mainly and stuffiness. I wonder how it would be without the Claritin? I got some Flonase, but I haven't tried it yet. It seems weird to spray something up my nose...I'll try it someday when I can't stand it.

I mowed the lawn this weekend because I couldn't stand the crappy weed lawn that is our front yard. Looks much better. I want to spray the front with Spectracide that I picked up at The Home Depot, but I'm afraid if I do, since our lawn is basically weeds, we won't have a lawn. At least if I keep mowing, it'll look green. Maybe there's something that JUST takes out chickweed? I dunno.

Watched Bridesmaids last night. Not that good of a movie overall, but parts of it were funny. I think the big lady that was all hardcore and made funny remarks made the work. Otherwise it was meh.

After saying I'd start to get back into it, a week goes by...it's so hard to keep up. Like, every day the last few days I told myself that I'm going to go to the computer and do a blog. Not sure, but I just get so tired during the night that I forget. No other explanation that I can see. 

Anyway, a lot has actually happened since the 21st. I've told my boss that tentative "quit" date after learning that Laura's leave got approved and all that, but only for 6.5 weeks, which sucks, but oh well. We got much of the rest of the needed baby stuff from Babies R Us. We closed our baby registry, so yeah, I guess that's it for that. Hm...what else...ohhh, I can't forget buying a new TV this past Saturday!

This is the TV I've been eyeing since it showed up on Slickdeals.net. It was a great deal: 50" (well, 49.9 they say), plasma, 1080p, blah, blah, all for $549! Best deal I've seen in a long time. It is a Zenith brand, but after doing some research, it looks like the consensus is a re-badged LG model, so that's good. I really like LG products, so. Anyway, all the reviews were great, so I dwelled on it for like a week or two. I was bugging Laura a lot and just bringing it up whenever I could. Finally, I cracked under the pressure and decided to buy it. The big catalyst was going to Sears and looking at the TV first. Tax almost killed the deal since it added another $46, but that's okay. Thanks to Laura (and our big spendings), we had saved up about $350 in Amazon points, which we put towards the TV, or rather, the credit card statement. So, in essence, the TV cost us about $250 total. Not bad. We probably won't buy one for a while, so, that's a good investment. 

If you think about it, I bought our smaller 32" LCD TV back in, 2006 or 2007 and that was $750..and it was a GOOD deal! I can't believe it. Granted it's been what, 5-6 years and we've gotten good use out of it. Heck, we still use it quite a bit everyday. It's a great brand. Never heard of Olevia, but who would have thought? 5 years adds 18" and knocks off $200 in price. Technology is crazy. 

Anyway, I got it mostly set up good, channels and HD programs look great. We haven't watched any movies or anything yet, but I'm sure we will soon. It sucks that the Wii only does 480p, not 1080...maybe someday. I want to move our Blu-ray player to the big TV sometime and try out the Blu-ray DVDs we have via HDMI and see how it looks. I think it'll look great, of course. We only have like 2 Blu-rays anyway...The Lion King and Harry Potter I think. I don't even have an HDMI cable yet.

So, we did that and actually the weekend was supposed to be our last "weekend without the baby" sort of thing. We went to Big Truck Tacos that Laura found and that was good. Went to Babies R Us like I said and tried to relax. We took the top of the armoire down because it wouldn't fit. It's in the garage at the moment. We went and bought a piece of wood to put on top of the bottom of the armoire and stained it so it matched up pretty good. It really looks nice for $25 worth of materials. We're not sure what we're going to do with the "smaller" 27" tube TV. 

Just today, I turned in my resignation letter to my boss since he asked for it so they could start planning on finding a replacement for me. Thinking about it, it's really right around the corner. It's only just under 2 months away...sort of scary to think about, but we should be fine if we budget good. 

What else...that's the big stuff. Laura is 1 centimeter dilated she told me...9 more to go! I think we've decided on a name for the most part, unless something better comes along out of nowhere, which I doubt. I've been reading through the breastfeeding book that Laura wanted me to read. I've been reading during lunch. I'm about halfway done I think. 

Well, I'm going to try and get some sleep tonight. Been falling asleep around midnight on average the last few nights after watching Netflix and trying to fall asleep. I think I'll need all the rest I can get before the baby gets here.

Sitting here, listening to some old Japanese tunes. Finishing up taxes, paying some bills, getting this form to get distributions from my retirement account, and trying to get this website for the church ready to launch. Things are getting busy and down to the wire, it seems like. Actually, I think everything that we needed to do kind of came down to the wire or something like that.

This weekend, we just decided that we should have some sort of relaxing weekend where we do something that each of us want to do before the baby gets here, which, technically could be anytime going forward...that's crazy to think! Maybe it could be a February 29th birthday. That'd be weird, but I think pretty cool. I'm not sure how they do it in legal stuff...I suppose your birthday would be the 28th or something.

I'll probably tell my boss tomorrow the more exact fact that Laura will get 6 weeks of leave starting when the baby arrives. Still not a definite date for my work, but that's really as close as it's going to be for now. It'll be exact when the baby arrives.

I've been starting to get bored at work since there's really nothing to do the past week or two. Hard to find something to do out of nothing...can't really surf since my cubicle-mate sits behind me, although facing away from me. I guess I could, but it would be too much stress. There's a lot of foot traffic near my desk. Oh well..2 months to go. That's weird to think...

For some reason, the last few weeks, I've really been wanting to take a trip to California to see my old friends that I recently connected with again. I guess I could have tried this hard a year or two ago when I actually had the time and money. I have that problem a lot...procrastination. I need to start learning to just do it. That 50" plasma still shows in stock at the Sears near our house. If it's still there when we get that retirement distribution, which should be about $1550 or so after all the taxes, I'm gonna get it, I think. Sucks that the account is currently sitting at $2400, but $85 goes to taxes!

Anyway, I should get to sleep. It's almost midnight.

The drive from OKC to Tulsa wasn't as bad tonight. It went by faster than normal. Perhaps it was the episodes of Engines of Our Ingenuity that we were listening to. It was interesting. It's this program that I heard on the classical station I usually listening to during my commutes. They narrate short, 3-minute snippets of interesting information about inventors, etc. from the past. I like it. I recently downloaded a lot from the program's archives. I might start listening to it on my commutes since I can put lots on my USB drive for the car.

Tomorrow I'm getting lunch, as I believe I mentioned, with an old friend from the park service. Haven't seen him in like 7 years. Should be interesting what we talk about. I will probably fall back to gaming since that's what we had in common.

Posting from work. Just over an hour until home.

For most of the day today I was contemplating on ordering this 50" 1080p Plasma TV from Sears. It was a good deal at $549 + tax. I just didn't know what to do! I think I still have it in my shopping cart, which it looks like prevents other people from buying it. We really don't need it, but if we do get it, we'd have to rearrange some stands and possibly get a new stand for it, so...it sort of costs more than it costs, if that makes sense. On the other hand, Laura does have a $350 or so credit from Amazon points, which we can apply to her cc statement, so that essentially brings it down to about $250 after taxes. Pretty cool deal. Still dunno though!

Tomorrow we head to Tulsa for Laura's shower. I'll be taking photos there. I'm still deciding on whether or not to upgrade her parents' computer with the spare parts I have. It really shouldn't take long, but these things usually tend to take longer than expected. I also may eat lunch with an old friend from the NPS job I had years ago. He moved to OK about a year ago and lives in Tulsa, pretty close to Laura's parents' house.

I wish today was Friday, though.

Arg. This is how it starts. First it's a day. Then two days. Then it's four days like this time where I skip a blog. I dunno how, but it just escapes me to write a blog daily. This weekend went by quick. Saturday was Laura's birthday. We tried to find a place to eat. It was actually sort of stressful. We went to Inspirations, the tea place near our house, but they were rude (like the reviews said) about having to have a reservation and that it was Valentine's Day weekend or something so it was just a set course meal for lunch. Anyway, we left there and starting driving SW. Laura wanted to go to Mimi's Cafe. It looked packed, but the wait was like 5 minutes. It was pretty good. Afterwards, we went to B&N and home. Later that night, Kelly made pumpkin pie for Laura so we went there, getting Bravo's to go on the way there.

Sunday...I can't remember what we did Sunday...I think just lounged around. So far, it's been an uneventful week, I guess. Work is good. They know now. My boss asked me if I knew any more details on my departure, but I really didn't know, so I told him that and that Laura is still fighting with HR about leave.

That's about it. See ya, hopefully, tomorrow.

My hands are pretty cold at the moment, making a little hard to write.

Just listening to some old Japanese tunes on Youtube. I'm amazed how much of what I listened to in the 90s are on here. I'm beginning to think EVERYTHING is on here. I should mark these as favorites to rip sometime.

I told my work today about quitting late April/early May. I was thrown off guard because I had originally planned to have the meeting at 3pm. In the morning, however, there were some technicians drilling holes and stuff around my boss' desk so he couldn't sit down. He asked out of nowhere if I wanted to have the meeting now instead or wait. Now, I actually had said "If we can wait, that'd be great." Obviously, he heard a little different and was like, "Great, let's go in the great room." I thought to myself, dammit, I'm not ready!

So, we walk over to the table and get to discussing. Everything went surprisingly smooth. He was really understanding and was sympathetic and told me how he liked me working there. He asked if I did as well.

Weird thing was, his boss and the director walked through the great room on her way to the airport while we were talking. That was pretty awkward. We were both like, uh, have a good flight. It was sort of like the movies where the viewer knew everything, but the bosses didn't. Anyway, he's going to tell his boss and probably the director tomorrow, which means, I'm not through with this yet. I still need to get through the aftershocks. Hopefully, they're nice about it. My director is sort of loud and in your face when she converses. Just how she is, I guess.

Well, at least it's Friday.

The baby's coming soon! A few more weeks. Getting nervous.

Missed the entire weekend, damn! I'm slowly starting to get behind on my blogging.

Anyway, it was a good weekend, albeit fast. Hm...now I can't remember what we did Saturday. Oh, Dawn, Ron, and Laura's parents came down to hang out with us. We ate at Lottinvilles and then to Kelly's for a little bit.

Sunday, we ate some pho at this weird little restaurant downtown. It was good, though.

And now it's Monday. Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can set up a meeting with my boss about when the baby comes. A couple more days to prepare for me...sigh.

I got the first page of my fantasy book written. I literally stared at the screen for like 20-30 minutes to write the perfect first sentence. I hope it turns out good.

One of the few times I'm able to blog from work. It's raining like crazy now, although, actually, it just died down. The thunder was loud though. Laura and I were both thinking about Callie.

Counting down the hours and minutes to go home. Three more hours...sigh.

This weekend Laura's parents and Dawn and, I think, Ron are coming to visit us and Kelly. We're getting lunch tomorrow and they're seeing our houses. We need to clean a bit tonight, but our house is mostly clean!

Dang, already February! 6 more weeks and it's baby time. Still hasn't hit us yet, but today Laura's back was bothering her. I'm trying to find some motivation to start writing my fantasy, but I also want to finish my autobiography up as well. I found a few resources for making your own book, complete with instructions on printing and sewing up the bindings of the pages, which I think is the hardest part in my opinion.

Other than that, the car parked outside of our house is STILL there...I'm really not sure at this point. I dunno if it's the neighbor's friends or what, but I'm going to start looking up what to do to have it towed...not my fault if they get pissed. Either tell me what they're planning to do or just park in front of another house...not ours.

The bubbles in the tint are actually starting to go away...a couple more days will tell us how it'll be I think. The problem "bubble" is the last one that is left and it's about half the size it was yesterday.

So tired today.

Anyway, my birthday was good. We ate pizza and Laura made me an apple pie with Reddi-Whip. It was all good! Low key is how I like it. Got a baby bag, some baby books, and a baby carrier that I need to get used to. Wait, it feels like I already talked about what I got...anyway...

Church website is coming along...a few more weeks I think and it's ready to go.

Work did sing for me yesterday. Embarrassing as always, but oh well. Sometime next week is going to be the dreaded day to tell them about my next few months...ahhhh.

The last spot on the window for the tint to cure is the spot that I was talking about. It seems like there's some bubbles in it, which I don't think is going to go away...we'll see though. It should all be gone by now, but after one more day, if it's not gone, I think it's going to have to go back for repair...sigh.

Other than that, it's 7:30p and I already want to go to bed.

Garsh, it's already the end of the weekend. Why do they go by SO fast and the rest of the days just drag like no other?

Anyway, Saturday was a productive day, I suppose. We ran some errands, went to Barnes and Noble, cleaned up around the house and made some homemade mall pretzels. They're a bitch to make since you have to knead the dough for like 10 minutes, but it's so good.

Did much of nothing today though. Oh, almost forgot! Laura, Kelly, Ryan, and Wesley got me tint for the front windows of our car for my b-day present. It looks good. There are still some bubbles in their that need to evaporate away, but I'm skeptical that it will. I know that from personal experience, swirls and stuff go away, but these are like, big water bubbles, probably just under a 1/4 inch or so. I parked the car outside most of the day today since it was sunny. The driver side is getting much better, but many more to go on the passenger side. Apart from that, I got a baby backpack thing to carry the essentials, some books and a baby carrier. The carrier is kind of hard to use at first, but I'm hoping after many repeated uses, it'll go on easy.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with the Deacon again to go over some final web stuff. I just want to get this done at this point. They're taking so long to get the content we need for the website.

I'm also done with my autobiography. I think I may have already mentioned that. I just need to go through it one more time cleaning it up and I'll let Laura read it. I thought about printing it out as a book, but I think it's too much to go through just for this. I will definitely for my other fantasy book.

If only I had more time.

Tomorrow is of course my birthday. I'm not looking forward to my work singing for me...I know they are, but maybe, just maybe, they'll forget somehow like they did at my previous work. Doubt it because it's on the calendar...I could go delete it off the calendar...

Anyway, laters.

Glad Friday is here!

Let's see, the big news was that yesterday morning, I accidentally spilled my coffee over my crotch as I was getting out of the car. I'm not sure, but I wasn't really paying attention to how I was holding it I guess. I remember trying to carrying a few things with my hands, so I probably carried too much. Anyway, it really spilled half on me and half on the car seat, which was good for me but crappy for the car. It didn't leave a stain, though. Surprisingly, I didn't have a stain on my khaki pants, either. Strange.

Today, we went to this Spring convocation for faculty and staff. It was better than I expected. I thought it was going to be an hour and a half of mingling, but it was all sitting down and listening to people speak. The president of the university, though, I must say, was a pretty good motivational speaker. After a while, he got a little boring, but from what I could see, he did most of the speech from either memory or on the fly, which was impressive. I couldn't do it.

Finishing up hypnobabies tonight and going to sleep I think.

We've been going to sleep so early, it's crazy talk. But, I'm finally getting more sleep, so that's good. I still wake up a few times during the night...dunno why. I must hear Kip or just wake up for no reason, but thankfully, each time I wake up, I see that it's only 1am, 2am, etc.

Another boring day at work today.

I actually called the tag agency and the exam site to see what I needed to do to get my OK license and pretty much I just need to bring my current license and a birth certificate. No tests or anything. Woot. I may try and do that tomorrow.

I also want to swing by the clinic sometime and maybe get this sinus/headache thing looked at. I think I have a sinus infection, because it has been like this pretty much from after I got that 2-day cold during Christmas. I'm pretty sure it's not allergies too.

Had the infant CPR class today. I suppose it was good information, but the teacher sucked. She was just annoying to me. Also, they gave us little babies to practice on...they gave us alcohol wipes to wipe the mouth so we could practice giving it mouth to mouth...it's like, come on, no, I'm not going to put my mouth on this thing that has had hundreds of people's mouth on it....

Anyway, I'm tired.

The weekend is almost already over. They go by so fast. Did a little cleaning of the junk drawer, got some more hangers for the closet and some trash bags for picking up poop and for the little trash cans. Nothing else interesting.

Tomorrow we have a 1-hour infant CPR class after work.

Among other news, I finally finished (I think) the outline of the fantasy story. It's time to just write, write, write. I need to learn little though on how to write a novel. I'm not quite sure about when conversations occur and stuff.

Well, the dermatology appointment went okay. Nothing wrong with any of my moles, although he didn't do a very thorough check. He looked at them from like 2 feet away...anywho.

Got wrapped up in my fantasy book outline/plot. It's 1am and I'm going to be tired tomorrow! We're taking Wesley to the science museum, so hopefully that's fun and Kelly and Ryan get some cleaning done.

Lates.

Oops, sorry. I missed a couple of days there.

Didn't miss much though. The extra weekend day went by really quick. We didn't get to eat at the New York Pizza and Pasta place I wanted to take Laura, though. Josh never called, either. Oh well. I wasn't sure what I was going to say anyway.

Tomorrow I'm going to have to get an appointment at the dermatologist. They never responded to the online form.

At least it's already Thursday tomorrow. I love short weeks.

Gotta get back to finding a present for Matt and my Mom. Also, I think I'm done with my preliminary autobiography!

We got the stuff for the popsicle stick bridge building competition and did that yesterday. Wow, we sucked! Laura actually did great and built this arched bridge and held the most amount of books. I started out, what I thought was good, but that hour went by quick and I just ran out of time. I had to resort to just creating a flat bridge that held like 2 books. Ryan had the most difficulty. He had the right idea, but just ran out of time. Now I know how those cake decorating shows on TV feels like.

The place I wanted to take Laura today, the New York Pizza and Pasta place, was closed today, so hopefully they're open for MLK, Jr. Day tomorrow.

I made great progress on my blog as well. I'm at the point where I'm in Portland now, so only a little bit more to go. I'm at 60 pages already!

Finally, the weekend. The day went by quicker than I had thought, which was good. I asked Laura if she wanted to do a toothpick, bridge building contest to see who could build the strong bridge this weekend. I think she's up for it. I was at Hobby Lobby and saw the big pack of wood sticks and I just thought of it because I remember making these in middle school, I believe.

Anyway, Josh wrote back and he's calling me over the weekend, which is cool, but it's also going to be weird talking to him after 10-15 years of nothing. Plus, I'm not a talker on the phone to begin with.

Oh, and while I was parked at Hobby Lobby, this lady parked next to me (I was already at the farthest spot you could be from the entrance) all weird, i.e. taking up more than the space for one car. I got mad for some reason that someone would park like that, so I threw my last potato wedge from KFC on her windshield and rested in that area where the windshield wiper blades rest. Bam. I was like, planning to do it for a few minutes, too. I just didn't want anyone to see me do it. As I moved my car closer to the entrance (since I was actually going in), she didn't parked as badly as I thought, just crappily...still, she took up way too much on the second spot, so whatever.

Time to take a bath.

Glad tomorrow is Friday. And a 3-day weekend to boot. Time to relax. Laura and I have a couple of things to do for the birthing this weekend. Coming up with a birth plan/choices and maybe coming up with an itinerary of things to do in the coming month. I figure we should do that now before time is out.

I want to FINISH my autobiography this weekend. I probably have 10 pages or so to go. Once I get that done, I want to get into getting my fantasy book started. Still doing research and coming up with a solid plot. I have a plot already, but I want to make it good.

I'm going to try and get an appointment at the dermatologist tomorrow as well. Sort of nervous for that.

Anyway, gonna work on the book a bit.

Another long day. Seems like every day I'm losing time doing stuff like surfing and working on my projects. Work was quite boring today and it should be the same tomorrow. Now, about quitting...

We had our baby yoga class tonight. I actually liked it a lot and I think it helped us get a better idea of how to stay relaxed and stuff from early labor to birth. I think it could have been a little shorter though. 3 hours was kind of long. 2 or 2.5 would have been just right, I think. About half way through I almost started laughing because this one yoga move was the exact same as Spongebob's "take it arouuuuuund town" thing that he did this one episode. Laura and I have been laughing at it ever since.

Anyway, I'm fricken tired. It snowed a bit tonight and it was windy as hell, but we were inside the entire time it was doing its thing. Probably was a good thing, although it was annoyingly loud in the building that we were in.

I actually got up from bed to come write this blog, so it better be a good one, huh?

Actually, it is going to be a good one. Why? Because I got a surprise e-mail today from someone that I thought would never e-mail me. Josh Petrone, from my childhood. I was like, whoa, what? To keep it short, I was pretty excited to finally get back in touch with him after almost 10 years. The last time I saw him was sometime in 2001 I believe and it was only for one night since I went to California to see my brother and couldn't stay that long. Anyway, we have a lot of catching up to do. I gave him a super condensed version of my last 10 years and I'm hoping that he will do the same. If I ever get out to California to visit my Dad's cemetery, I'm definitely going to meet up with him and relive the old times. What got me was this one thing we used to do as kids that I totally forgot about, he mentioned it at the end of the e-mail and it just brought back memories. Those were the days. Trouble and care-free. Well, maybe not trouble-free.

Among other news, met with the deacon of the church again tonight to go over some website stuff. It's going well and it should hopefully be up by the end of the month or by the end of next month at the latest. It's really his side that's taking up time since he needs to get me the changes to the text, photos for pages, etc.

I'm not going to like working with the people who redesigned their website, though. The project manager is this girl who, to me, seems all cocky, but, whatever. The deacon said that they're paying like $90/month to host this site...I'm like, what the fuck?! (in my head of course). They aren't getting ripped off or anything. I think they've been paying this for the last 2 years too, without even having the website up and running, even now. That's crazy...what a waste of money.

Anyway, I'm tired. I'm going to bed.

Played some Alhambra last night. I came in last, but I think I'm getting a better idea of how to go about in terms of strategy...we'll see about next time.

Currently downloading some songs to put on the USB drive for the car. Listening to some 90s/early 2000s songs. Brings back memories. Seems like, compared to now, I listened to a lot more alternative songs and just more music in general. I rarely listen to the radio anymore, though I've sort of started in the last couple of weeks. I usually listen to the classical station to calm me down when I'm driving. I think it works a little bit, but I just can't stand stupid drivers.

Not sure if Laura said she would wait to go to the store until later, which is when I said I would go since it wouldn't be as crowded.

Annnnd the weekend is coming to a close. Goes by so fast. I need to set up an appointment with the dermatologist this week, too.

For some reason, I felt like I was in Laramie for a little bit today while I was driving to and from lunch. I think it was the super mild weather that made me think back to Laramie. It was like in the 60s today, not too hot or cold and I had some of windows down. Yeah, I can't explain it, it just felt like the Laramie days.

Glad it's Friday, though. Hopefully we get to sleep in tomorrow. Although, I hate sleeping in because the day is pretty much shot when you do that and the weekend becomes so short. I kinda want to see the outlet, but not really...I guess for something to do.

Maybe we'll play a little more Alhambra with Kelly and Ryan. It was a fun game. I think a lot better than Settlers of Catan for a couple of reasons. Since it's about half chance and half thinking on the fly, you really can't screw anyone else over to the extent that you take over the game. I like games where it's a battle with your own mind and you can't blame anyone else.

Another warm day. It's supposed to get a little colder the next couple of days, though.

Been busy at work this past week due to the backlog of two weeks of donations, but that should clear up soon I think and I'll be back to boredom. My boss is going to be out the next week as well.

Speaking of which, I need to start preparing how to tell them about the next few months...eek.

Today was a rather warm day. It didn't feel like Winter at all. It looks like the next few days are going to be on the milder side, perhaps a bit overcast (sort of like Portland, but mellower).

Trying to work on my fantasy story the last few days, I keep getting hung up on this certain aspect of the story. It's a pretty big part of the story line, as everything revolves around it. I have the basic idea, but it just doesn't come together/fit in the ending that I want. I'm tweaking it bit by bit, though. Good thing is that I can make stuff up to make it work, but I don't want it to be the "same old" fantasy ingredient, if that makes sense.

I'm going to try to write perhaps every other day this year...yes, I was going to say "I'll write everyday." but that went out the window already...blogging is tough work.

Hello!

So, it's time for my year-end summary. Let's get right down to it.

January-March

We were still in Portland, of course, at this time. Things were still normal as can be. I don't remember anything big during this time. We were both working and all that. I think we started dabbling about when we might start trying to have a baby, though. After some discussion about moving and such, we decided to start trying and aim for having the baby in the Fall. We didn't want it to coincide with Laura's work, but, oh well.

After looking at my blogs, it looks like in March, we also decided that we would be moving to Oklahoma City for Laura's post-doc as well. That was a pretty big decision, I guess, especially considering we really loved Portland up to this point and that Laura had a post-doc lined up for Portland. I remember the night we decided pretty vividly. We decided to discuss whether or not to stay or choose OKC over dinner at Azteca. After some back and forth discussing, we decided OKC for some reasons such as support after having the baby, easier vacationing, lower cost of living, etc. We would always have the opportunity to move back to Portland after the post-doc and that for the current situation, trying out OKC for a year or two wouldn't be so bad. 

On the drive back, of course Laura couldn't wait telling people so she called Kelly and let her know. She was excited and I think we started to look around places where we might be able to rent, but it was much too soon. 

April-May

During these months I think we were still mentally getting ourselves ready for the move to OKC, I think. Although, I think we started packing little by little each day so that we weren't scrambling at the very last minute. I also had to tell my job that I would be leaving for OKC in August. Well, we would actually be moving mid-August, but I wanted to give myself some time to help out with packing and all that. Plus, we wanted to have a little vacation time before we left as well. 

I think I ended up telling my work in May or so. I wanted to give them plenty of time to find someone, hire them, train them, etc. for my position. We let the landlord know as well. We still had 2-3 months before the reality hit, so I don't think we were panicking at this point. 

June-July

 Around this point, Laura's schedule started to get busy. I know she flew out for Mother's Day and stuff (actually I could be wrong about that). We've been trying to have a baby for a couple of months at this point, getting ovulation strips, apps, and thermometers for Laura and stuff. Anyway, we found out Laura was pregnant in early July, right before she left to go to OKC to look for houses and stuff. I remember when she told me too. She used the pregnancy strip in the morning and she brought it over to me while I was still sleeping. I was like "yaaay" real quiet, but I was pretty asleep or wanted to go back to sleep or something. I just remember it probably wasn't as exciting as it should have been. 

It seems like we were pretty ahead of packing as well, having most of it packed and we were just finishing up the garage. The things we couldn't pack, we just had to wait, like the dishes and such. Other than that, we were just trying to enjoy Portland with the little amount of time we had.

I do remember near the middle/end of July, Laura was freaking out about finding a good place to stay, because we hadn't found anything at this point. They all turned out to be crap. I kept telling Laura that it will work out. She did work a lot at trying to find a good place for us, which she ended up doing. Kelly was also a big help since she was the one driving around and meeting with the realtors in OKC for us. I know she went and looked at several before we decided on the current Edmond house.

Around this time, I had my exit interview with my director since I was leaving work on the 5th of August. I told her about our baby since we thought it was safe the word wouldn't travel to family. They were all excited and sad that we wouldn't have another baby in the office. My work would have been perfect too to bring the baby and also work.

August

Ahh, August. It was a pretty hectic time. I quit my work on the 5th and we had a vacation planned for a few days at Depoe Bay at a place that Laura found. It was nice to relax for a few days right near the beach. We went to Newport and stuff. 

Afterwards, a week or so later I think, Laura's parents came out to vacation for a little bit as well as to help us pack the ABF truck. Our plan was to move on the 17th, I believe. We had the truck parked for a couple of days in front of our house to pack it up. We made good time as it only took a day and a half to pack it all up. ABF called to see if they could pick it up a day earlier. Good thing we were all ready. The first day was hard work, though, but nothing like OKC was going to be. 

So, the ABF truck left earlier than expected and we were on our way with our drive to OKC over the course of 3 days, stopping in Denver to see friends/family, etc. For a more detailed explanation of our trip, please refer to my blog entry about it earlier. No need to relive that hell!

Once we arrived in OKC, we had roughly 4 days or something to unload the truck. Man, the heat was brutal. It was record setting temps for this Summer in OK in history. It was a great time to unload the truck. After unloading a little bit, even at night, it was too much. We ended up unloading the truck in the first half of the day while it was still cool. It went pretty smooth. For the next week or so, basically the last week of August, we unpacked and tried to get settled in.

September

There was a Labor Day party planned for us at Laura's parent's house with family flying out. That was fun, but because of that, I pushed my efforts to find a job until after this. I'll just blame the fact it took so long for me to find a job due to this week. :)

After the weekend of the party, we finished more unpacking. I think we made pretty good time. It probably took about a month or so to be completely finished. I started looking for a job around early September. I probably applied to a place or two every other day. There weren't many.

During this time, we also had to deal with my car, which overheated if driven in the intense heat. Although, stupid me, I finally put a little effort into what could have been causing it and I saw that the radiator cap was completely busted...I'm not sure when it busted, but I'm going to bet it busted sometime during the Colorado stretch on the way to Chris' house. If I would have just replaced the radiator cap then, instead of now, I think the trip would have been slightly less hellish. It sucked having to go so and so speed and stopping every couple of hours - sometimes every hour near the end of the trip. Anyway, after replacing the cap, it didn't overheat anymore. Not sure if that was the real issue, but I'm sure it helped.

October 

So, we started looking for a car to buy. One, to replace my car and, two, to have some to carry the baby seat in. After a few weeks of searching, we found a couple of prospects. We were aiming for Hyundai Santa Fe, Honda CRV, or Subaru Forester. There is a big shortage of these types here in OK...not sure why. There were a TON in Colorado. Anyway, we finally picked our first one out and went to go buy it. Long story short, they said the car was "already sold" after we picked it out, went through some of the paperwork to buy it, just before it was official. Our theory was that it was priced incorrectly (too low) so they made that shit up. Whatever. We didn't like them anyway. Our search continued. We finally found one a little bit later and went to buy that. It was our first big purchase experience ever. It was weird. 

November

Late October I finally got SOME kind of call back from all the places I was applying. The University of Central Oklahoma called for an interview. I went and a week later I got word that I got the job. Not to brag, but when I interviewed, I sort of had a feeling that I would get the job. I was qualified for the job and I had experience doing pretty close to what the job entailed and felt that they liked me. After the interview, I kind of stopped looking for a job. Glad I was right!

Most of the rest of this month was just working and getting ready for the baby. We're close to getting the baby room set up, though there are still lots to get at the baby shower.

December

Well, this is where we are. Things are good and we're sort of starting to plan for the next few months. The big thing is me figuring out when to inform my work about what's going to happen when the baby arrives. I hate situations like this. 

Anywho, Christmas went well. I did get sick for a couple of days right smack during Christmas Eve and Day, which sucked, but oh well.

Well that's about it, really for the summary. I think the summaries are getting more and more boring each year. I should go read my previous summaries. I think they were more reflective or something of myself, not just a straight-forward summary.

I do think that next year will be a very different year and primarily that's going to be because of our baby boy. Things are going to change quiet a bit, but I think it will be for the better. I can't wait to raise our boy with Laura and teach him all the things that make us who we are. I think it's a pretty cool thing to be able to raise a child that sort of mirrors who you are, although you don't want them to be totally like you. We're still deciding on a boy name, but I think we're pretty close and decided now. Yes, I was a little bummed that it was a boy vs. a girl, but I think I'm over it now. We'll have more chances to have a girl, so.

Hoping for another great year and let's hope 12/21/2012 passes by without demolishing the world.

I love you Laura and our boy, and Kip and Callie (even though you've been expensive this year).

Happy New Year.

I figured since I had some time, I would go over the predictions that I gave last year. I just remembered about this. It looks like I wrote these on January 6th, so let's see if any came true for the year of 2011. I'm not sure how to measure these, actually, and I don't really want to do much research and stuff.

1. 3D will not be anywhere near as big as they tout it to be this year, both in the consumer TV market and the movie market. They just can't 3D-ify everything and expect it to be money-makers. I think the 3D sales will steadily go up until about mid-year and then start to decline.
   
   So, after reading an article on Slate, it looks like different studies are showing different outlooks, but the general consensus is that 3D movies and 3D TVs are still on the rise, but there is some uncertainty about sales numbers. One source said sales are down, but Slate says that there wasn't enough information such as sales per screen to determine if it really was down from 2010 or not. It does seem like the movie industry is still learning 3D and it's getting better. I guess it's too soon to tell if it's going to continue to get better or worse. We'll have to see in 2012.
   
   
2. TV/entertainment content via the internet will be huge this year. With all the new-ish competitors starting to jump to this trend, I think it will be a nice win for the non-cable providers.
   
   I'm not quite sure on this either. I certainly think that internet TV content is still on the rise with major players like Netflix and Hulu picking up licenses and content providers for the many types of internet TV gadgets that are out there, as well as other players like Amazon Prime on-demand trying to get a market share. I don't I can say personally that it was "hugely" popular vs. last year.
   
   
3. I think Netflix will, at some point in the year, just add Blu-Ray renting for free alongside their normal DVD option, instead of the $2.99 they charge now. 
   
   Well this was totally wrong. Even more so because they split up DVD and instant and increased the prices.
   
   
4. I don't think the tablet format is going to be a hit. Yes, the iPad and other tablets do look good, but I think in the end, netbooks or super light notebooks will begin to climb back up in sales again. Not sure how to explain it. I guess an analogy could be e-readers vs. books. There's just something about books that e-readers can't mimic. In the same way, I think people will just want to be typing on a keyboard, having DVD-ROM drives, etc. Besides, everyone's going to have a mini tablet via their fancy Android/iPhone phones anyway. :P
   
   I think I was wrong on this too, but then again, it could be too soon to see how the tablet market is going to do. There were A LOT of new tablets that came out this year. We will have to see if the trend keeps up in 2012.
   
   
5. Android will totally dominate the iPhone. :)
   
   In the last 2 years, Android has definitely taken the lead in market share of phones that use the Android OS vs. iOS. Apple seems to have held its levels consistently, but Android has been on the rise, taking market share from other companies. Android is doing great in app sales as well, I think.
   
   
6. I think Groupon is going to tank...relatively speaking. I just don't think it can keep growing like it did the last 2 years.
   
   It looks like they didn't "tank" like I said they would, as they're still making good profits and profits are increasing. However, it's clear from what I just read that the growth of profits are significantly down from first quarter of 2011 and also read that next year, it might even level out at this rate. It makes sense to me, since as the  year went on, I began to notice a lot more "deals" sites popping up, such as Living Social, Ever Save, and many more.
   
   
7. I hate to say this, but I think Facebook.com may overtake Google.com as the #1 visited site on the internet.
   
   Phew, glad I was wrong on this one. Google is still the #1 visited site on the net with Facebook in a close second. Google was 49% on the estimated percentage of global users that visit Google daily. Facebook was 43%.
   
   
8. Although I love Google's innovation of the Chrome OS, working with everything via the cloud is, at least for this year, something that people won't be able to get used to. It's such a radical change. The mainstream couldn't handle that. Plus the inconvenience of needing an internet connection to sync and stuff like that is sort of burdensome. 
   
   I'll say I was right on this one. The Chrome notebook, while it is now selling at a few online retailers, hasn't really caught on. I think it's being overshadowed by the tablet craze.
   
   
9. Car companies will be touting only slightly higher mpg...maybe just hitting 40 mpg...seriously, my turbo civic gets between 35-40 mpg on the highway and it's a '96! We should be at at least 50-60 for affordable (under $20k) , consumer cars by now.
   
   Correct again! I see commercials still making a big deal about low 30s MPG...pathetic.
   
   
10. Yahoo! is just going to be even more horrible...
    
    I couldn't find any definitive answers, but I think they're still struggling to find their place on the internet. They're still the 4th most visited site, but it's a wonder why that is. There just doesn't seem to be a reason to go to Yahoo anymore, at least for me. 

So, overall, I didn't do too well...maybe predictions aren't my thing.

I was going to edit and work more on my autobiography, but I got wrapped up in trying out the new template and customizing it...damn tangents!

Sigh, so I just went to Target to buy the Logitech K750 solar keyboard that I found when I was in Portland...I'm pretty sure that I didn't need it, but like Laura says, I think I have an issue when it comes to keyboards. Hey, you'd want to get some cool/comfortable if it's something you're constantly using right? Much like a bed or car. That's my excuse anyway.

So I've been working on my autobiography a bit the last couple of weeks. Nearly about halfway done I think...it's long, though. I'm surprised at how much I've written. Maybe I'm not a boring guy like I thought?


I suppose it's about time to explain my work, since I haven't really. So far it's going good. Not the most exciting by any means and most days are boring, but the last few days have been busy and time is flying by each day quick, which is nice. Most days I usually TRY to find something to do and I can't. I literally just sit there switching screens back and forth pretending to read what I've read many times already. Oh well. 


Luckily, I'm starting to get the hang of it and asking less questions and asking why things are the way they are. The thing is, in this line of work, there doesn't seem to be a "normal day", at least so far. I process gift donations to the university and enter them into the database and print out thank you letters and what not. There are so many rules on how to enter the different kinds of gifts, exceptions to entering them depending on who wrote them, etc. that it's pretty hard to keep track, especially when you're starting out. I pick it up quick, though. There are some things sometimes that I just don't get or don't get why they do it like that and the usual answer is "I don't know either." or "They've been doing it that way since I've been here." and so forth. 


I eat lunch at noon each day and since I don't come home usually and don't really want to eat at the office, I drive around, get something, and eat in the car. Laura says it's sad and shouldn't do it, but I don't care or mind. It's nice to get out anyway. At Portland it was different because I had my own office and I could eat at the desk. I'm sitting in a pretty high traffic area so, I dunno. I wouldn't like it, is the bottom line. 


Next week we're having a staff luncheon and I mentioned that I would make some kind of dessert for folks. People are hyping it up now, so I gotta do good. I've decided on the Pot de Creme, but I want to give it a twist, so I got some orange flavored chocolate this time to test it out over the weekend. I'll probably do half and half. I have to go buy some bigger cups to serve them in and there are absolutely NO mini tasting spoons in retail stores. They have forks...but no spoons. 


Lately, and I'm not sure why, I've been spending a little too much. It could be that the Christmas season is here and that I've been finding good deals, but that doesn't really explain  it either since I'm not really getting anything for anyone...just buying things to have because they were cheap. It could also be that since I'm working and actually making money again, I want to spend it or something. I need to stop, though. 


Next week I'm only working two days, then off until January 3rd. Woohoo. Couldn't come soon enough. I'd like to relax, but we'll see how that goes with being in Tulsa. 


I'm contemplating going to Colorado from the 28th to the 31st...I'm not sure yet though. It'll probably happen, but I want to drive, so that's 11 hours-ish each way. It's not that bad, I guess. I would leave around 4 or 5 in the morning I'd say to get there around evening. Dunno what I'd do there, though...


We'll see what happen. I need to start thinking about the yearly summary for this year...man it seems like I've been blogging a long time, and I have! I guess this year will be my 10th year of writing. I just realized that. I'm glad that I've kept with it, somewhat, to catalog my life. It's fun once in a while to read back and see what kind of person I was. I was pretty cocky and uneducated, I think, around 2002-3-ish. At least, that's how I sound when I was writing. I know for a fact that my writing style and attitude has changed. 


And I almost forgot. I can't believe Laura and I have been together for 10 years now. We've gone through so much together and I can't thank her enough for putting up with my stupidities. I hope that we will be together for many more years to come. I know I have stuff to work on and I will try hard to fix it! I can't wait to have our little baby and watch it grow. Some days, like when I got that maternity pillow for her for Christmas, I just couldn't wait to get home and give it to her. From like noon, I was like, watching the clock constantly because I just wanted to go home. Anyway, happy 10 years. I love you!